How it works

How the directory decides what to show, and how to make your profile easy to find.

The homepage

Before you search, the homepage shows members chosen at random. Every member has the same chance of appearing when the page loads or reloads.

When you search with filters (city, job, specialty, category, vibe, representation), results are ordered by the most recently updated profile first.
When you type words or a name, the closest matches come first, and recent updates break near-ties.
There is no paid placement.
The browse pages at the bottom of the homepage can take up to an hour to show an update.

You move up in search when you:

Save a change to your profile, including a new directory image. Saving without changing anything doesn't count.
Publish a portfolio, including republishing one you unpublished to edit (Premium)
Add, change, or remove your profile image (Premium)

Account changes count too: joining, any change to your Premium membership, or a change we make to your profile.

These don't count: uploading to a draft portfolio, reordering, editing captions or portfolio titles, unpublishing, or logging in.

City searches match the city name, so a Santa Monica listing doesn't appear in a Los Angeles city search. We use Google's location lookup when you sign up or edit your profile, so city names are spelled consistently.
Area searches include several cities:
- New York City Area: New York, New York City, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, and Staten Island
- Greater Los Angeles: Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Long Beach, Burbank, and Glendale
- San Francisco Bay Area: San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, and Palo Alto
Jobs, specialties, and categories come from our fixed lists.
Vibes are your own words.

Your profile and Daybreak as a whole have been designed for SEO and AEO.
Your bio appears on your profile and in the page's structured data, which Google and AI assistants read. Say who you are, who you work for, and why you should be hired. Be descriptive!
Your page title is your name. The description search engines show is written automatically from your jobs, cities, up to four specialties, and your representation, so keep those complete and up-to-date, too.
Search engines see the portfolio at the top of your list, so put your strongest one first.
It helps when you link to your Daybreak profile from your website.

We accept JPG, PNG and GIF, under 10 MB. JPGs are preferred.
Image portfolios also take short loops, such as cinemagraphs, as MP4 or GIF. An MP4 is much smaller than the same loop as a GIF, and keeps its full colour.
MP4 loops: H.264, up to 15 seconds, under 10 MB and 1920 pixels on the long edge. At full length that works out to about 5 Mbps. Sound is never played.
GIFs: up to 50 megapixels across all frames.
Loops play in your portfolio and visitors can pause them. A GIF shows its first frame until it's opened. Anything longer than 15 seconds belongs in a commercial or demo reel portfolio.
Portfolio and profile images: export at 2560 pixels on the long edge, in sRGB. That's the largest size we need for the largest screens. We scale files down for thumbnails and grids.
Directory image: 16:9, for example 1920×1080.

Upgrade to a PREMIUM subscription to publish up to 5 portfolios on your profile. Each portfolio can hold 25 images, GIFs or MP4 loops, or one reel up to 3 minutes.
Only published portfolios are public. The rest are displayed as drafts only you can see.
A published portfolio's images are locked. Unpublish it to add, remove or reorder them.
After you update your portfolios, review your profile on desktop and mobile to make sure you like how it's displayed.

MP4 only (export MOV files to MP4), under 200 MB and up to 3 minutes, one video per commercial or demo reel portfolio.
At full length, that size limit works out to about 9 Mbps, so export 1080p H.264 at 8 Mbps or less. A full-length 4K file won't fit.
A video's cover image must be 16:9. Without one, we use a frame from the video.