Day Rate

Traditionally, people list wages either hourly or annually. So a job might advertise as paying an hourly rate of $20 an hour. Or if the employer doesn’t want to bother with all the clocking in/clocking out stuff, it might list the pay as $40,000 a year.

Day rate is another alternative. Not as widespread as its hourly or annual cousins, this way of computing wages provides a certain pay for each day worked. Sometimes given a little class with the name "per diem," the day rate usually requires a certain output from the employee and assumes a certain standard work day (say, seven or eight hours).

Day rates are good for employees that work offsite in a somewhat sporadic way. Think about every private eye movie: they all get some amount per day, plus expenses. Classic day-rate employees.