How much does a virtual assistant cost?

The four parts of the cost

When founders compare assistants, they usually compare one number: the rate. A fairer comparison adds up four parts, because each hiring route moves cost from one part to another.

1. The person's pay: monthly or hourly, agreed directly or hidden inside an agency price.
2. The cost of paying them: a contractor platform, a transfer service or a marketplace fee on every payment.
3. The cost of hiring: your hours spent screening, a paid test task, a recruiter's fee or a job board subscription.
4. Your time after the hire: onboarding, a weekly check-in, answering questions. It falls over the first months, but it never reaches zero.

A low rate with a lot of management time can cost more than a higher rate with an assistant who works on their own. Keep all four parts in the same sheet when you compare options.

What moves the price up or down

• Scope and seniority. Data entry and simple research sit at one end; owning a founder's inbox, calendar and vendor relationships sits at the other. The more judgement the work needs, the higher the pay and the more a mistake costs you. Our comparison of a virtual assistant and an executive assistant explains the difference in scope.
• Hours. Full-time work under one agreement usually costs less per hour than a few hours a week bought from someone with many clients. A later shift that covers your morning from another time zone may cost more, and it should.
• English level. An assistant who writes to your clients needs B2+ to C1 English; for back-office tasks a lower level can be enough. Strong written English is part of what you pay for.
• Tools and specialism. Experience with your CRM, accounting software or help desk shortens the learning period and is worth something.
• The hiring route. Marketplaces take a share of every payment, monthly agencies add a margin, recruiters charge a fee, and doing it yourself costs your time.

Reference points: US medians and remote pay bands

Two reference points help to set a budget. In the US, the national median wage for administrative assistants is $47,540^[1] a year, about $3,962^[1] a month; for executive assistants it is $76,590^[2] a year, about $6,382^[2] a month; for data entry work about $3,445^[3] a month. These are wages before benefits; across US private industry, benefits make up 30%^[4] of total compensation.

For remote hires, our own executive assistant vacancies for candidates in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Kazakhstan pay $800–1,100^[5] a month for full-time work, and our customer support vacancies pay $700–1,000^[6] a month. We do not publish a separate band for lighter virtual assistant work, because the scope varies too much: agree the pay against the actual task list.

The administrative assistant cost page and the executive assistant cost page show the US figures by state if you are comparing with a local hire.

Pay for the scope, not for the country. A fair rate for the work and the local market is what keeps a good assistant past the first year.

The costs around the pay

• Payment: Deel's contractor plan is $49^[7] a month per person and includes the contract and invoices; Wise charges from 0.23%^[8] per transfer. On Upwork, the client marketplace fee is up to 7.99%^[9] of each payment. Our guide to paying international contractors compares the options.
• Software seats: an extra licence for email, the help desk, the password manager or the CRM. Small, but monthly.
• Equipment: remote contractors usually work on their own laptop and internet; some companies pay a one-off allowance for a headset or a second screen. Decide before the offer.
• The test task: pay finalists for a short test, whatever the result. See our test task guide.
• Hiring: on Stafka, posting a job is free; pricing shows when a fee applies. A recruiter charges a fee; a monthly agency includes its margin in the price.
• Paid time off: if you agree paid days off, budget for the weeks when you pay and the person is away.

A first-year budget you can copy

Fill in the brackets with your own numbers, or use the cost of hiring calculator for the comparison with a local hire.

The year-two line is the one to compare across routes. A one-time hiring cost weighs on the first year only; a monthly margin repeats every year you keep the person.

When a low rate costs more

The cheapest rate on a marketplace is rarely the cheapest outcome. The usual hidden costs are:

• Rework: emails you rewrite, bookings you check twice.
• Turnover: a new search, new onboarding and lost context every few months.
• Shared attention: an assistant with many clients answers when they can, not when you need it.
• Risk: weak judgement combined with access to your inbox, your customers or your money.

If the budget is tight, reduce the hours rather than the quality: a strong part-time assistant usually beats a weak full-time one. Start with the tasks in our delegation guide and grow the role when it pays off.