What is the cost of a virtual assistant? What is the hourly rate of a virtual assistant? Now that you have a clear understanding of what a virtual assistant performs, what they may be able to accomplish for you, and why you should engage one, it is time to get down to brass tacks. You are curious about the potential cost involved.

This website will cover all you need to know about the expense of employing a virtual assistant. We will review some critical facts, study the life of a virtual assistant from their point of view, and determine how you can add a line item in your budget for “virtual assistant expense” without feeling like you’re overpaying. Let’s get started.

First Things First: Keep This in Mind

If you put “virtual assistant cost” into Google to get a normal or even an average price, you may be shocked by the results. The fact is that VA fees may vary greatly. If you outsource to virtual assistants in nations with very cheap labor costs, you should not be shocked to see prices below the majority of U.S. minimum salaries. A virtual assistant with extensive expertise and experience may charge up to three figures per hour.

According to some research, outsourcing the job of a virtual assistant may cost up to $5,600 per month for a virtual assistant’s typical wage. If you hire virtual assistants in countries where wages are low, you might be able to get this cost down to less than $1,000 per month.

That is, at the very least, a broad range. Where do you fit along this spectrum? And what can you realistically anticipate an experienced, qualified VA to charge for the kind of service you require?

Pricing Options

Consider a virtual assistant who needs to make a full-time income by providing hourly services to customers. How does this computation appear?

• Hourly Pricing: When determining hourly rates, a virtual assistant must often determine the gross income required to cover expenditures such as taxes, insurance, and others. They may then compute their hourly rate based on the number of hours they anticipate working in a typical month. For instance, a part-time VA working 20 hours per week who desires to make an extra $2,000 gross per month would divide $2,000 by 80 hours (for four weeks) to arrive at a monthly fee of $25. Statistics indicate that more than 85 percent of virtual assistants charge on an hourly basis, which simplifies these calculations.
• Retainer Pricing: Using retainer fees, freelancers, remote employees, and virtual assistants may create a predictable schedule for themselves. With a retainer agreement, a customer may agree to a prepaid commitment, such as 40 hours a month. In this instance, the virtual assistant’s calculation would be the same, but it resembles a flat price.
• One-Time Project Pricing: For one-time projects, flat fees are often the norm. But it’s certainly possible to bring on additional help from a VA for one project with no commitment down the line. This is another major advantage of going to a virtual assistant business: you don’t have to worry about making a commitment to the extra help for the long term. You can simply bring in help for your project and proceed. 

The Virtual Assistant Cost Calculator

We’ve developed a little virtual assistant cost calculator that may help you estimate how much you may wind up spending depending on the difficulty of the work, the location of your VA, and other factors. Test it out! Please note that there are major reasons why the charges given below in the article are as they are.

The Cost of a New Employee

Suppose you hired an actual personal assistant instead of a virtual assistant. You might transform their average hourly wage into a paycheck. You would then have a straightforward equation: cost per week multiplied by 50 weeks equals annual salary.

But is this actually the case?

You’d be surprised. For a new employee, you must also account for the following costs:

• Taxes
• Health insurance
• Personal benefits
• Onboarding supplies
• A computer/office space

When you consider these extra expenses, you may be surprised by how pricey a single office staff member may be.

The good news about employing a virtual assistant? The cost computation of the virtual assistant might be much more straightforward. Frequently, virtual assistants will charge you an hourly flat rate. In addition, they will be responsible for their own benefits, supplies, and Internet connection. As part of their commitment to working remotely, they are willing to bear these expenses.

There is a reason why a virtual assistant might reduce your annual running expenses by as much as 78%. Don’t forget that a full-time employee will only be productive for as little as 2 hours and 53 minutes each day, according to certain figures. You will reduce your overall operating expenses and increase your return on investment if you hire a virtual assistant for two hours per day—hours that you can be certain were entirely productive.

The difficulty in figuring out virtual assistant expenses starts with identifying the kind of abilities you need to pay for and the average rates of VAs in your industry.

Getting a Handle on the Average Virtual Assistant Cost

According to the VA Handbook, the typical virtual assistant in the United States may cost up to $60 per hour, with a broad variety of prices below that.

When extrapolated to a full-time income, this amount corresponds to that of an executive assistant, particularly when the costs indicated in the preceding section are included. Remember that you do not have to pay a virtual assistant a full-time salary to complete all of your tasks; you can instantly save 50% by hiring them for twenty hours per week rather than forty. And you may discover that twenty hours per week is plenty.

Despite having this number in mind, it is still beneficial to comprehend the variables that might affect the price:

• Specific skills The greater the specificity of the talent you demand, the greater the cost you may incur. If you want to employ a virtual assistant who can handle social media management but there aren’t many available, you may anticipate higher expenses due to the law of supply and demand. However, this does not suggest that you should be concerned about availability; rather, you should have reasonable expectations about the expense of a VA.
• General skills Consider that you require a competent English-writing virtual assistant to conduct your sales correspondence. Even if you don’t have a specific assignment in mind, it would be necessary to outsource to someone who has proven English proficiency in this situation. With these abilities, you may frequently expect to pay a premium, but that doesn’t mean you have to go broke.

Why Should You Hire Based on Cost, Not Necessarily?

Let’s look at the mean hourly wage for virtual assistants based on the typical pay scale throughout the whole business. PayScale indicates that it is $15.80. Consider that this includes the expense of virtual assistants with lower abilities and expertise.

Is this an accurate method for estimating the cost of your virtual assistant? Multiply the average hourly pay by the number of hours you need each month, right? If you needed 10 hours per week at 40 hours per month, the cost would be $632 per month or $7,588 annually.

However, there is a catch: this is not always indicative of what you may anticipate seeing.

You may have special demands that are not met by what the “average” VA can provide. If this is the case, you shouldn’t use the average income as a benchmark for compensation. Instead, you should evaluate the cost of virtual assistants with the unique capabilities you need. Here are a few instances of certain skill sets:

• Social media management. Virtual assistant services that extend to social media management may include tweet scheduling and Pinterest board administration. This demand specialized skill sets for each social media network, so don’t be shocked if you discover that skilled virtual assistants in this field charge above-average rates.
• Marketing tasks. Whether you are actively outsourcing email marketing or other marketing administrative chores, such as customer relationship management, you will need someone with strong language abilities. This often results in a higher hourly rate.
• Copywriting Need a virtual helper for your blog and landing page creation? Need them to write new, effective content for a website redesign? These specific talents are not inherent to every virtual assistant. Even if you’re marketing in the United States utilizing a U.S. virtual assistant, copywriting skills require more than the ability to put words on the page.
• Graphic design. There are freelancers and independent contractors whose primary concentration is graphic design, so it should come as no surprise that virtual assistants possess a comparable set of specialized talents.
• Marketing with an eye on lead generation. Need someone to recruit more prospective clients? Consider employing a virtual assistant with expertise in generating leads. In addition to introducing you to new methods for growing your outreach efforts, they can also handle your sales funnel efficiently and deliver your prospects immediately.
• SEO. It is not uncommon for organizations to employ complete SEO firms to modify their interaction with contemporary search engines. This is why a virtual assistant with SEO-specific abilities, such as keyword research and optimization, can be so valuable to a developing firm.

Setting Realistic Expectations for the Cost of Your VA

When considering the expense of a virtual assistant, avoid comparing your specific demands to the “mean” or “average” income of a VA. Compare the virtual assistant’s cost to what you would pay for a full-time staff member with comparable capabilities. When seen in this light, the benefit of employing a virtual assistant as opposed to a full-time employee becomes clear.

It makes even more sense to replace a full-time employee with a virtual assistant capable of doing comparable tasks.

Consider the prior figure that employs a virtual assistant as opposed to a full-time person. It may save operational expenses by over 80 percent. What if you have a special requirement in the workplace, such as someone to answer incoming business phone calls?

Because answering calls does not require your assistant’s physical presence, you may divert such calls to the VA’s mobile phone. Then, they may record any communications, freeing you from distractions. Meanwhile, there is no indication to the outside world that any of this is virtual. From the vantage point of a person calling, all numbers seem identical.

Another duty might include data entry. Getting rid of data entry might be well worth any hourly fee, yet you may be astonished to learn that skilled data entry professionals can not only manage the process but may even enhance it. They may offer software and solutions that will make your data input far more streamlined and effective, reducing your total data entry needs and increasing your ROI.

Throughout all of this, it is essential to establish reasonable expectations for what a VA will do. You should not anticipate a miracle worker, despite the fact that they will be very efficient, possess unique abilities, and be able to delegate chores such as answering the phone. After all, you’re just paying them for certain duties; they’re not employees; they have no equity; etc. Instead, you should work with your VA. Engage them by offering feedback and establishing a step-by-step onboarding procedure so they can assume your responsibilities without difficulty. This will lower the cost of training a virtual assistant.

Other Factors When Considering the Cost of a Virtual Assistant

As you evaluate the amount of money you can spend on VAs, you’ll find that VA FLIX services make it easy to do a simple computation. However, there are a few more considerations you should make while justifying the expenditure.

• Independent contractors are often more efficient. According to statistics from Canada Life Group, the “productivity ranking of home-based employees” is 7.7, but the “productivity ranking of typical office workers” is 6.5. In other words, regardless of the price, you are receiving better value for your money. It is true that every person is unique, but on average, if you depend on virtual support before employing a full-time employee, you may anticipate more output at a fraction of the cost. That’s a win-win.
• Virtual assistants are more highly skilled than you might have considered. BestOfBudgets reports that the majority of VAs have college degrees. This contributes to the total cost of your VA. They are not only educated but also skilled. They are prepared to tackle some of the most typical duties of the present day, like project management and email marketing.
• VAs are more popular than ever. The worldwide outsourcing industry was predicted to be worth $85 billion in 2018. This encompasses the rapidly expanding sector of virtual assistants (VAs) that perform these outsourced jobs as well as the worldwide trend of outsourcing to remote employees. Why is it growing in popularity? Because 21st-century technology is readily accessible, it is feasible to capitalize on the experience of remote workers.  

No longer are just company owners able to get virtual support. This course is designed for C-level executives, freelancers, and even people who are researching this topic for the first time. All that is required is an understanding of the expenses, the benefits of employing someone remotely, and how a VA’s cost may compare favorably to a full-time or, in certain situations, even a part-time employee.

Creating Your Own Virtual Assistant: Cost Calculation and Formula

Considering everything you’ve learned so far, it’s easy to see why you may choose to pay a virtual assistant $35 to $50 per hour. You may be certain that you’re receiving productive work, that your obligations are flexible, and that you don’t have to incur extra operational costs to train your virtual assistant.

Suppose, however, that you still want a more direct method for estimating the costs you may anticipate. Working with a virtual assistant company that specializes in matching you with the most qualified assistant for your responsibilities is one approach to achieving this goal.

Example

• The Executive 24 plan with VA FLIX takes all of the guesswork out of hiring a virtual assistant. The computation is straightforward: at $1,080 per month and 24 hours per month, the hourly wage equals $45. Additional hours are available for $50 per hour and are offered in five-hour increments.

This approach to employing virtual assistants is basic and involves minimal computation. And with a customer success representative working with you to locate the perfect individual for the position, you won’t have to worry about finding a virtual assistant with the necessary specialized abilities.

Now that you have a comprehensive grasp of why you could employ a virtual assistant, how to allocate your work, and how much it will cost, it’s time to go on to the next step: using a VA. Next, we’ll discuss how to lean into the process, get your virtual assistant on board, and continue with the time-saving and business-expanding methods.