A day rate is a price for a full working day of labour, or of a machine with its operator. It suits jobs that will take a day or more and where breaking the time into hours adds nothing but paperwork: framing, a deck, a strip-out, a day of excavation. A day rate should say what a day is, usually a number of hours on site, and whether travel, tools, consumables and the vehicle are included. Some trades set it a little below eight times their hourly rate as a reward for a booked-out day; others charge the full multiple and keep the hourly rate for part days. Half-day rates are common for jobs that will not fill a whole one.
In practice
A carpenter charges $95 an hour or $720 for an eight-hour day on site, which is $40 less than eight hours at the hourly rate. A pergola is expected to take three days, so the labour on the quote is three days at $720, which is $2,160, with the timber and fixings as separate lines. The note says that if the job runs into a fourth day, the extra time is charged at $95 an hour. The customer sees a price for the job they can plan around and a fair rule for the unexpected, and the carpenter has not given away a day if the posts hit rock.
Day rates also turn up when another business books you: a builder engaging a labourer, a roofer hiring a crane, a landscaper hiring an excavator with its operator. In those cases the day rate is often written on a schedule of rates agreed once and used all year. Say what happens on a short day too. If rain stops work at ten in the morning, does the customer pay a half day, a minimum charge or nothing? Settling that before it rains costs nothing.
In Quote Desk
Put the rate on your price list with "day" as its unit. Quantities on a quote are whole numbers, so for a day and a half add a half-day item at its own price, or show the extra half day as hours.