Alternatives to monthly-fee virtual assistant agencies

Three ways a hiring service gets paid

• Subscription or markup: one monthly price for the assistant, with the person's pay and the provider's margin inside. You pay it every month you keep the person.
• One-time fee: a recruiter finds and screens the person, you hire them directly and pay the recruiter once when they start.
• Commission on payments: a marketplace takes a share of each payment you make to the freelancer, for as long as you pay through it.

None of these is wrong. Each one charges for something different: ongoing service, finding the person, or the platform.

Signs you have outgrown the monthly model

• You have worked with the same assistant for a long time and expect to keep going.
• You rarely use the agency's cover, supervision or replacements.
• You already manage the assistant's work yourself, every day.
• The price has gone up, and you cannot see how much of it reaches the person.
• You would like to give the assistant a raise, and the structure does not let you.

What you give up when you leave

Be fair to the model before you drop it. A monthly agency usually handles payroll and contracts, finds a replacement on short notice, covers holidays and sick days, and lets you stop with little notice. With a direct hire, all of that becomes yours: you plan absences, you keep documentation up to date, and a departure means a new search. If those services matter to you, staying may be the better deal.

The alternatives, one by one

Hire directly through a job board

The lowest ongoing cost: the person's pay and a payment tool, such as Deel at $49¹ a month or Wise from 0.23%² per transfer. You do the screening. On Stafka, posting a job is free; pricing shows when a fee applies.

Use a recruiter paid once

Stafka charges a one-time fee of $2,500³ on the start day and nothing before. Stafka replaces the person free of charge if they leave or do not work out within 180³ days of the start date: one replacement per placement, once the placement fee has been paid and as long as the role, hours and pay stay as agreed. The fee itself is not refunded.

Buy hours on a marketplace

Good for project work and flexible hours. On Upwork, the client marketplace fee is up to 7.99%⁴ of each payment.

Mix them

Hire your core assistant directly, and keep an agency or a marketplace for peaks and holiday cover.

How to switch without losing work

1. Read your agency agreement for the notice period and for any buyout or non-solicitation clause.
2. If you want to keep your current assistant, ask the agency about a buyout. Do not approach the person in breach of your agreement.
3. Move every shared account into your own password manager and change passwords the assistant does not need.
4. Write down the recurring tasks, contacts and routines before the last day.
5. Plan a short overlap, so the old and the new set-up run side by side for a week.

Our guide to security and access for remote staff covers the account handover in detail. This is general information, not legal advice.

A quick check before you switch

Compare your current monthly price with the new route's monthly cost, the person's pay plus a payment tool, and divide any one-time cost, such as a placement fee, by the monthly difference. The result is the number of months until the switch pays for itself. Our guide to placement fees and monthly agencies works through the full arithmetic.