Film Crew Day Rates: What Freelancers Actually Charge

By the Production Ledger team · Updated August 2026

"What's your rate?" shouldn't be the scariest question in the job.

Every freelancer in production has taken a job below their number because they didn't know what the number should be. Rates aren't posted anywhere official, nobody teaches this, and asking around feels awkward. So here's the straight version: what a day rate actually covers, what the ranges really look like by role, and how to quote yours without talking yourself down.

What a day rate actually is

A day rate is the price of your labor for one working day. In most of the industry that means a 10-hour or 12-hour day, agreed up front. It is not "whatever the day turns out to be." The two details that matter as much as the number itself:

• What a day means. A $650 rate on a 10-hour day and a $650 rate on a 12-hour day are two different rates. Say which one yours is when you quote.
• What happens after that. Overtime is commonly negotiated as time-and-a-half after the agreed day length, but it isn't automatic: what OT pays, and when it starts, is whatever your agreement says, and payroll jobs can carry their own wage-law rules on top. If nobody talked about overtime before the shoot, the 14-hour day comes out of your pocket.

Both of these belong in the conversation where the rate is agreed, before the job, ideally written into a deal memo. If you invoice for overtime nobody agreed to, you're negotiating after the work is done, which is the weakest position there is. More on getting the paper side right in how to invoice a production company.

What actually moves the number

Your role and department

The spread between roles is wide and real. A production assistant and a DP on the same set can be an order of magnitude apart, and that's normal: the rate prices responsibility, skill and years, not hours in the building.

Your market

The same gaffer bills differently in Los Angeles, Atlanta and a smaller regional market. Bigger production hubs generally run higher; smaller markets generally run lower. Neither is wrong. What's wrong is quoting a small-market number in a big market because you didn't know the local range.

The kind of work

Commercial and branded work generally pays above narrative and documentary for the same role. Agency-backed jobs pay above direct-to-client small business work. A rate that flexes by project type isn't inconsistency, it's how the whole industry works.

Experience and demand

Early on you price to get hired. Once you're getting rebooked and referred, you price to what your calendar says you're worth. One honest signal worth watching: if you're booked solid at your current rate for months, it's probably sitting low.

What a day rate is not

Your day rate covers your labor. It does not cover your camera package, your lighting kit, rentals, mileage or expenses. Those are separate line items with their own money. Folding kit into your labor rate makes you look expensive as a person and free as a package, which is the worst of both.

Realistic ranges by role

These are working ranges for freelance film and commercial crew on single-day bookings. The low end is a working floor, not a survival number; the high end is where bigger markets and agency jobs land. For the number most working crew actually charge in your role and your market, use the rate benchmark below — a national band this wide can only bracket it.

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These are broad NATIONAL working ranges for recent freelance commercial and narrative work — deliberately wide, because a rate that fits Los Angeles rarely fits a smaller regional market. Where you land inside a band depends on market size, project type and experience. For a number tuned to your role and your city, use the rate benchmark on our homepage.

Kit fees: the second number

If you bring gear, you have two rates: labor and kit. A DP with a camera package, a sound mixer with a full bag, a gaffer with a van of lighting: the kit bills its own daily fee, priced on what the package actually is. There's no standard percentage of your labor rate, and pretending there is one either undersells a real package or pads a small one — the full breakdown of labor, kit, rentals and reimbursements is in kit fee vs day rate.

Keeping them separate isn't bureaucracy. It protects the labor rate when a client says "we've got camera covered, just need you," and it makes the kit's value visible when they don't. It also matters for insurance: gear on set should be worth a known number on paper, and a kit fee is where that starts being real. The list behind that number is its own guide: tracking your kit.

How to quote without underpricing yourself

• Give a number, not a shrug. "My rate is $900 on a 10-hour day, kit is separate" beats "whatever works for the budget" every time, including for the client, who now knows what they're buying.
• Know whether the job is payroll or 1099 before you quote. On a payroll job taxes come out of your check; on a 1099 job every dollar arrives whole and the taxes are yours to handle, so the same number doesn't take home the same amount. Here's how 1099s actually work.
• Half days mostly aren't. A half day still blocks the whole day on your calendar: you can't book anything else around it. That's why crew who offer them price them well above half — a common approach lands somewhere around 60–75% of the full rate — and plenty don't offer them at all.
• Prep, scout and travel days are working days. Full rate or an agreed fraction. A day spent driving to location is a day you couldn't sell to anyone else.
• When they ask "what's the budget?" back, it's fine to answer a range: "depending on the day length and whether you need my kit, I'm typically $X to $Y." A range keeps you in the room without naming a number blind.
• Discount deliberately or not at all. A passion project, a director you love, a slow month: real reasons exist. Discount on purpose, say it's a discount, and keep your actual rate on the paper so the lower number doesn't quietly become the new one.

Find your range for this role, in your market

The table above is the wide view. Our rate benchmark narrows it: pick the role and the market and it gives you a range built from the same research behind these numbers, free and without an account. Where in that range this particular job sits is your call — the benchmark won't make it for you, and neither will a table.

Whatever number you land on, quote it as two lines, not one: labor at your day rate, kit at its own fee. Blending them is how a client who "has camera covered" ends up negotiating your labor rate down to a number that was really pricing your gear. That split is the whole subject of kit fee vs day rate.

Raising your rate

Rates move between jobs, not during them. The cleanest moment is a new client, who has no old number to compare against. For returning clients, tell them ahead of the next booking, plainly: "heads up, my rate's now $X." If you're booked out, rebooked and referred at your current number, it's time. Most freelancers wait a year too long.