Depends on what kind of consultancy. As a one-person remote consultancy who focuses on long-term (years) engagements, with usually 1-2 concurrent clients, I've

Depends on what kind of consultancy. As a one-person remote consultancy who focuses on long-term (years) engagements, with usually 1-2 concurrent clients, I've found hourly rates work all right, although I've experimented with daily rates, too. That kind of work straddles the line between consulting, contracting, and staff augmentation, but it also tends to lead to secure and solid long-term relationships. That's the outgrowth of optimizing for high flexibility, decent pay, and low marketing needs. As a solo consultant (perl, php, java, scala/akka, with no mysterious specialties) I associate daily rates with shorter-term (weeks or months) engagements, which means better pay but more sales/marketing stress.