Day Rates Members  

Creative professionals are sometimes asked by clients to work on a day rate basis. While this may be appropriate in some cases - which are detailed below - for illustrators it is generally not the typical way to charge for your work. See here for information on how to calculate a fee for your illustrations.

What is a day rate?

What is a day rate? A day rate is simply a flat fee for a day?s work. Charging a day rate pays you for your time spent working on a project. But because illustrations are generally licensed for specific purposes, in specific territories and for defined periods of time, you are not just charging a fee based on your time spent actually doing the work. Part of your fee is made up of the above licensing factors. When calculating your price for a project it can be a useful exercise to work out how long the work might take you and consider what hourly or daily rate you want to cover. In this respect it is useful to have your own base rate for your time, let?s call this the ?production cost?. You don?t need to share this with the client, it?s only for your own reference, and it will likely change over time as you gain more experience. The rest of your fee will be calculated based on the licence requested by the client. That could be as simple as a single brochure cover project for an organisation, or it could be a 5-year internati