My on-assignment rate for one top New York City daily is $500 per day or portion thereof - and it saves them money every time they hire me.
Here’s why. It would cost them more just to buy airline tickets to and from New York City before one of their shooters even got to whatever they wanted covered - especially when the tickets would almost certainly be on short notice. Rental car would add to the expenses. If the job was for more than one day, hotel bills would add to the cost of using their own shooter instead of hiring me.
That’s aside from the costs of their own shooter himself - a shooter costing salary, benefits, unemployment, workers comp, Obamacare, etc. Plus, of course, their own shooter means their own equipment - and, as in one assignment, a prior shooter had the “star” swing her car door into her lens!
They get top-quality work on deadline - and it costs them less than sending one of their staff shooters would cost.

Paula Broadwell’s kids with a neighbor at height of Petraeus/Broadwell scandal.
Shot on assignment for the New York Daily News.