How Much Does a Virtual Assistant Cost?

1. HOW MUCH DOES A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT COST? HOW MUCH MONEY SHOULD YOU PAY YOUR VIRTUAL ASSISTANT? If you can’t answer the above question correctly, you are not alone. Most entrepreneurs are not sure about the actual virtual assistant cost. And they think hiring virtual assistants will cost them a fortune. But this is not the reality. On the contrary, a virtual assistant can save you around $3000 initially and $18.75 per hour. In today’s post, I’m going to show you how much a virtual assistant costs. After reading it, you will know everything about virtual assistant rates and how to get the best deal. But before we come to the actual question, let us discuss the types of virtual assistants you can hire. DIFFERENT TYPES OF VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS YOU CAN HIRE You would be surprised to know that you can hire virtual assistants for almost every functional area of your business where physical appearance is not required - be it social media management, data entry, or Internet research. Here are 6 main types of virtual assistant and what they do: Social media virtual assistant Virtual data entry assistant Virtual research assistant Real estate virtual assistant Virtual administrative assistant eCommerce virtual assistant In addition to these above-mentioned types, you can also hire virtual assistants for personal assistance and email & chat support. PAYING YOUR VIRTUAL ASSISTANT: VIRTUAL ASSISTANT SERVICES RATES If you are going to hire a freelance general admin virtual assistant, you need to pay them $3-6 per hour. Here are some factors that decide the rates of a freelance VA: Location- You will have to shell out more money if you hire a VA from the US than the VA you hire from the third world countries Experience- Experienced virtual assistants often charge more money than amateur ones Technical Expertises- Virtual assistants with technical expertise in any software or application, such as marketing automation software, often charge exorbitantly However, hiring a virtual assistant from a reputed agency keeps you out from such an unpleasant incident as a reputed agency hires virtual assistants after extensive screening. Hiring a freelance virtual assistant is not always fruitful. Many a time, a freelance virtual assistant becomes Gone Girl. As happened with Judy Carter, her freelance virtual assistant left her in the lurch. And you can immediately ask for a replacement if you are not satisfied with your current VA. What’s more, you can easily scale up with a virtual assistant agency, which otherwise is not possible. Now let’s dig into what you need to pay if you hire a virtual assistant from a reputed company. What to Pay Your Virtual Assistant: Salary Guidelines Actually, it all depends on you. As a virtual boss, it’s you who will decide how much you are willing to pay. Virtual assistant agencies usually adopt two kinds of subscription plans - the first is task-based and the second is hourly. Task-based subscription plan In the tasked-based plan, you can request a certain number of tasks per month after paying a fixed amount. Here is a pricing plan of a company that follows a task-based subscription model. BASIC 5 PROFESSIONAL PREMIER Requests a month 15 Requests a month 50 Requests a month BASIC PROFESSIONAL PREMIER $6/request $5/request $4/request Each request equals to 20 minutes of work. You can make requests for creating target lists, finding contact info, scheduling, calling, creating expense reports, making purchases, doing research, etc. If you subscribe to a professional plan of this company, you will pay $15 for the work of an hour. Hourly subscription plan In hourly subscription, you will be allotted certain hours of work at a fixed price. Following are the pricing plans of a leading virtual assistant company: BASIC SILVER PLATINUM GOLD HOUR20 HOUR40 HOUR80 160 HOUR $135/mo $240/mo $420/mo $720/mo Suppose you take a Silver plan, you will be shelling out $8 per hour. In hourly subscription plans, you can hire both the part time virtual assistant and the full-time virtual assistant to get a wide variety of tasks done, such as social media marketing, data entry, eCommerce product data entry, eCommerce product description writing, email and chat support, administrative tasks, and more. Please note that pricing plans are subject to change. Many times, virtual assistant agencies offer discounts on their services. So you should contact the company for the final price before you make up your mind. HOW TO PAY YOUR VIRTUAL ASSISTANT If you hire a freelance virtual assistant, you don’t have many options to pay your VA. Most freelance virtual assistants accepts payment through PayPal. If you hire a virtual assistant from an agency, you will be paying the agency. Most virtual assistant agencies accept payment through PayPal, Payoneer, Western Union and Wire Transfer. So you will have multiple options to pay your VA. CONCLUSION The price you need to pay your virtual assistant depends on the work you want to get done. Whether you are going to hire a part time virtual assistant or a full-time virtual assistant from an agency, you will have to pay from $ 5 to $ 8 per hour. But if you choose a task-based subscription plan, you will have to pay $15 for an hour of work. So choosing an hourly subscription plan can save you a decent amount money. BROUGHT TO YOU BY