When it comes to hiring a virtual assistant, the process isn’t as clear-cut as the all-too-popular concept of “you get what you pay for.” In fact, going into the search with this idea in your head can bring about costly pitfalls. You can end up paying two or three times more than you should for the same quality of work. In this article, we have compiled available virtual assistant services rates online to help you explore and determine the best and most cost-effective solution for your needs.
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Virtual assistants have proven to be essential in keeping your business running smoothly. They already help you save on the employee expenses and overhead costs by working remotely. You hire them as contractors, which means you only pay them for the services they provide.
By taking up the mundane and repetitive processes in the business, these remote professionals are a smart way to promote business growth and minimize costs. Amazingly, there is a way to further maximize your savings if you outsource correctly.
Virtual assistant services will also give you the chance not just to maximize your return of investment (ROI) but also ultimately double your savings, all without sacrificing quality.
One way to do that is to outsource to the Philippines, which is home to a highly-skilled workforce that offers topnotch services at such low labor rates.
There are tons of platforms from which you can recruit a virtual assistant. Below, we will discuss these platforms and which one best suits your business.
Of course, it will be different for each business, but we know you want to get high-caliber talent for less. This is exactly what outsourcing to the Philippines helps you achieve.
As you know very well, cost of living is a huge factor in what virtual assistant services rates end up looking like. It could very well be your biggest consideration because it encompasses everything that matters to you–the budget, the experience, and the skills–thus making it a primary determiner of the virtual assistant services rates that we will be breaking down below.
Virtual assistants in the United States will have higher rates than those in the Philippines. So if you are working with a small budget, you will benefit from hiring professionals in the country. You will be surprised at the quality of work you can get for one-fourth of the price.
If you have narrowed your search to the type of tasks you need to delegate, the scope of the role, and your budget, selecting a platform will be easier. There are different marketplaces for one-time projects, full-time employment, and part-time services.
Upwork is one of the biggest and most popular outsourcing marketplaces you can go to if you are looking for a freelancer to help you with a time-sensitive project.
Geared towards freelance projects, Upwork sources a rich pool of talent from all over the world. The virtual assistant services rates here are definitely on the higher side due to the level of experience and the locations from which these virtual assistants operate.
As one of the most popular outsourcing destinations, there are hundreds of thousands of freelancers here, which can make the search a bit overwhelming. So it might be difficult to nail down one person. You can pay $500 per hire in addition to 10% of the invoice if you want Upwork to find a premium and pre-vetted freelancer for you.
When you find a virtual assistant on Upwork, you have to pay a payment processing fee of 2.75% of the project fee. You can post job listings for free and source candidates though.
Freelancer.com brings you closer to talented online professionals from around the globe to help you offload deadline-oriented or rush projects.
Here, freelancers can bid on your project posting and you will be charged once a professional accepts your offer. The free subscription to the site charges $3 or 3% of the total project cost, whichever is higher. The premium version eliminates the project fees but requires a monthly payment of $199.
PeoplePerHour is a website focused on helping employers complete one-off projects. Freelancers set their own prices.
You can post a job listing, contact a professional, or review past work and reviews to see if the freelancer is a good match. However, the reputation of the site has become a bit questionable due to a reportedly poor screening process that paves the way for fraudulent freelancers to take advantage of clients.
Fiverr is a platform with a global reach, but with substantially lower virtual assistant service rates compared to Upwork.
You can get a wide array of projects done here for as low as $5 per task, but the huge savings can come at the expense of quality. Because the work you will get at this price range is not going to be perfect, especially since they have a quick turnaround time.
As such, this is the place to go to get tasks done instantly. If a project doesn’t hinge on quality as much as it does on the quick turnaround time, Fiverr is quite the steal.
Local
If you want to hire a U.S.-based professional for long-time roles that require a better understanding of the local market and occasional physical meetings, you can start looking at these platforms:
Belay is a hub for general admin virtual assistants, bookkeepers, and website specialists. You are matched with a skilled professional based on your needs, which you will discuss to a “relationship manager” who will guide you through the whole process. Pricing info is available upon request.
UAssistMe is home to virtual assistants with real estate expertise as well as graphic design, programming, and writing. You can have a professional work for you for 20 hours per month at a price of $299. For a monthly payment of $1598, you can get a full-time assistant. A shared assistant will set you back $799.
Worldwide101 has seasoned virtual assistants who can offer C-level assistance as well as accomplish marketing, project management, writing, design, and customer service tasks. You can start the subscription at 10 hours per month for $430, 20 hours for $790, and 30 hours for $1140. For more demanding tasks, you can subscribe to the 40 hours per month plan for $1480.
Overseas
The Philippines has become one of the largest business processing outsourcing destinations in the world. This is because the majority of the remote workforce is highly proficient in the English language, well-educated (bachelor’s or master’s degree), and has extensive experience working with global companies. It is no wonder it is the usual go-to if you want value for your money. In fact, real estate is a popular industry that more and more remote professionals are honing and offering services for. Here are some of the sources you can check out:
Task Bullet supplies you with skilled virtual assistants from the Philippines. It provides a good setup for employers with no consistent workload but anticipates recurring tasks for a project. The site uses a “bucket system,” which allows you to buy a number of hours consumable within three months. Depending on your subscription, you will be charged an hourly rate of $6.5 for a total of 240 hours, $9 for 20 hours, or $11 for 40 hours. So you can save here by hiring for ongoing work.
The Virtual Hub connects Philippines-based virtual assistants to employers needing help with general admin tasks, social media management, digital implementation, CRM support, and systems integrations for $8-12 per hour for 20-40 hours per week. The company trains their own virtual assistants so they can hit the ground running.
Onlinejobs.ph is the most affordable alternative out of the three and also the widest-reaching. The platform has the largest resume database of Filipino workers who are looking for full-time, part-time, or freelance jobs.
Onlinejobs.ph is a good way to get some work done for a fraction of the cost–as low as $2 per hour. If you are a small business owner, a start-up, or a solo entrepreneur looking to grow your team or offload distracting and time-consuming tasks, you are sure to find a good fit.
A free subscription allows you to post three job listings and view applications. You can hire contractors and review their resumes by subscribing to the Pro version priced at $69 per month.
Since the majority of the professionals on here are looking for long-term employment, it is often recommended for businesses and entrepreneurs looking to grow their team or want a competent professional by their side to handle important and integral processes of the business.
These are the local and Philippines rates you can expect for tasks you can outsource. You are looking at a three to five times difference.
Virtual assistant services have evolved over the years. The growing hold of the digital space in everyday life in tandem with the evolving technology paved the way for more jobs to be performed online. However, it all started with business owners simply needing help juggling their day-to-day tasks to keep their focus on generating revenue or trade the 70 hours per week work lifestyle for a sense of work-life balance.
From this, the idea of bringing in virtual assistants to handle everyday general admin tasks was born. General virtual assistants, as they are often referred to, can:
| Basic tasks | Additional tasks |
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Here are the virtual assistant services rates you can expect for these tasks:
| Type | United States | Philippines |
| Basic clerical work, receptionist duties plus occasional research and writing | $20-35 | $2-6 |
Digital marketing is critical to any business. Whether you need a strategy from scratch or are looking for a team to implement it, a virtual assistant or in this case, a digital marketer, will be able to help.
Outsourcing this process can help you get your brand out into the world, connect with your target audience, and improve your online presence without leaving a dent in your budget.
On the other hand, a marketing professional can be tasked to outline a marketing plan, write content and manage your blog, launch ad campaigns, leverage social media and email, and measure success through analytics and data. Check out our article on outsourcing social media marketing and learn more about:
The virtual assistant services rates for marketing tasks are as follows:
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Social media marketing, email marketing, content writing, content marketing, and blog management | $18-30 | $4-6 |
| Analyzing data and creating marketing strategies | $38-50 | $8 |
Another important aspect of marketing is direct response copywriting. There are virtual assistants that specialize in this specific field, which seems to be more of a freelancing game than full-time.
Direct response copywriting involves generating content that customers will respond to by buying your services. A virtual assistant with the right expertise can immediately drive sales and impact your business long-term by writing compelling website copies, blogs, landing pages, and sales pages as well as doing tests to get a better understanding of what your target audience responds to and what they are looking for. With such a revenue-driven task, the virtual assistant services rates in this category are double.
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Direct response copywriting | $65-110 | $12-48 |
| General copywriting | $50-70 | $4-12 |
If you need a skilled professional who can lead your team to success by planning and overseeing every single aspect of a project, you are looking at a virtual assistant with advanced management experience and expertise in your niche or industry. Amazingly, you can get an overseas virtual assistant with an extensive resume for just a third of the cost of a local expert.
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Plan, budget, and execute projects within the available time and manpower resources | $30-100 | $9-24 |
Creating a beautiful, fully-featured website is a highly technical skill that business owners will be better off delegating than learning. As such, you will need someone who has training and hands-on experience in developing an interactive representation of this important aspect of your online presence. You can find a virtual assistant with a decade’s worth of experience with rates that are four to six times lower than that of local web developers.
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Front-end development | $30-50 | $4-15 |
| Backend development | $30-150 | $7-20 |
A virtual assistant skilled in this position will primarily handle repetitive website maintenance tasks to make sure the website runs smoothly. This is primarily by monitoring and implementing actions and suggestions based on website performance and your marketing strategy. Sometimes, this all-around professional will also be the one to design and build it.
If you need help setting up blogs, ensuring glitch- and broken link-free webpages. or simply looking to optimize the site to be both user- and search engine-friendly, here are the virtual assistant service rates you can expect to get this done efficiently:
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Maintain website, clean up any broken links, HTML and coding upkeep, performance tracking and improvement | $35-110 | $4-10 |
This is a creative and technical skill that spans across all industries and niches. Virtual assistants with graphic design skills can keep your social media accounts looking fantastic, create advertising and promotional materials, develop an attractive user interface design, or spruce up your training, PowerPoint, and other branded materials. Here are the virtual assistant services rates you will most likely come across:
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Basic photo manipulation and retouching | $30 | $3-6 |
| Print and digital, branding graphics, ads, web layout, UI design | $35-100 | $4-7 |
| Motion graphics and animation | $30-150 | $7-10 |
With the technical and creative skills as well as the high-end equipment involved in editing videos, you are already looking at a ton of money saved by outsourcing your video editing needs. Check out the linked article to find out more about:
Virtual assistant services rates for video editing are also affordable so you can boost your savings further. Here’s what you’re looking at:
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Splice together pre-shot footage, add transitions, effects, and animations | $75-150 per project | $3-15 |
A virtual assistant with the search engine optimization knowledge can build your online presence and increase traffic by optimizing your website to be more credible and compelling on search engines. There are two ways you can use a virtual assistant for this.
Read our article on how to outsource search engine optimization correctly where we discuss:
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Develop an SEO strategy by studying your brand | $45-65 | $4-8 |
| Implement existing SEO plan, analyze results, perform maintenance, and suggest changes | $50-90 | $5-12 |
Virtual assistants can also help with the whole process of webinar creation and promotion. They can create an enticing and engaging presentation to go with the text and videos or assist you in promoting and generating sales and conversions out of it.
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Webinar design | $40 | $4 |
| Full promotional assistance | $45 | $10-12 |
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Think about the technical needs of your business based on your niche. Virtual assistants with the matching knowledge and experience are likely going to be more effective, credible, and efficient in communicating your brand to your audience.
A virtual assistant with a background in medicine can easily and accurately perform medical transcriptions, medical coding, healthcare reviews, medical writing for blogs and branded content.
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Content writing, copywriting, transcription, coding, review | $25-50 | $3-8 |
There are trained engineers and architects online that can assist with estimation, CAD design, internal and external drafting all the way to IT architecture and construction management.
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Drafting, 2D/3D design | $35-80 | $6-10 |
| Solution, management | $35-185 | $10-12 |
Lawyers and paralegals online offer virtual assistance in trial preparation, creating legal documents, legal content writing, proofreading, and translating as well as legal transcription and correspondence.
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Legal content writing, legal document and trial preparations, legal transcription | $30-110 | $8-20 |
Delegating specialized tasks such as software quality assurance and game development can lead to an amazing output without leaving a dent on your budget. Here are the virtual assistant services rates in this department:
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Game development | $30-80 | $6-21 |
| Mobile development (Android and iOS) | $35-80 | $4-10 |
| Quality assurance | $40-60 | $5-10 |
The range of real estate virtual assistant services rates is a bit wide. There are online professionals who can handle the more basic niche requirements such as listing research and maintenance and buyer and seller lead research as well as building and maintaining your social media presence.
On the other hand, there are virtual assistants who specialize in the field and can help you with processes like transaction management, property valuation, and credit analysis as well as the creation of property lead, investor, and banker list, property research, comps reports, and CRM software administration.
We have an article on getting the best real estate virtual assistant for your needs that you can guide you in the recruitment and hiring process. In the article, we discuss:
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Listing research, social media management, social media marketing, graphics editing, personal assistance, writing | $35-40 | $3-5 |
| Property lead, investor and banker list, comps reports, property research, credit analysis | $40-100 | $10 |
You can hire a virtual assistant to handle financial plans, digital reports, bookkeeping, accounting, and everything in between.
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Accounting, bookkeeping, payroll | $40-75 | $4-10 |
| Xero, QuickBooks, financial management | $45 | $10-21 |
E-commerce experience is valuable to any online business owner whether it is fulfilling orders, responding to customer queries, adding product listings, or optimizing content for search traffic and ranking. Check out our article on Amazon listing product optimization to learn more about:
You will find someone well-versed with your platform of choice for very affordable virtual assistant services rates.
| Type | Local | Overseas |
| Product research, listing writing, optimization, inventory management | $45-65 | $4-8 |
| Web store management | $50-90 | $7-10 |
There are a number of factors that define the rates of a virtual assistant. Reflecting on your needs and the scope of responsibilities you are looking to delegate will help you zero in on an excellent outsourced professional who can help you achieve your goals at the lowest cost possible. Here are the things you should take into account:
There are two types of virtual assistants online: generalists and specialists. What you end up hiring will depend on your needs. A generalist is a skilled individual who can take on all facets of a particular field or offers a set of related skills. This type of virtual assistant is recommended for small business owners and newcomers to the outsourcing game since it is a good way to see if the business model is for you.
Specialists, on the other hand, are experts in a specific field. These virtual assistants are perfect for filling the gap in an important aspect of your business that you are struggling with, for example, Google Adwords advertising. Use them for specific or demanding tasks that require full attention.
You have the option to hire a task-based virtual assistant for one-time projects or a dedicated full-time professional who will work for you on a long-term basis. Generally, if the virtual assistant services will be integral to your business, a full-time employee will save you the time and effort to search, assess, and retrain a new virtual assistant every time you need the extra hand.
A full-time VA is also the better option for business owners looking to build a remote team, anticipate extended assistance, or need the services to sustain the business.
Experience is one of the defining factors of virtual assistant services rates. If you are working with a tight budget or just starting to build your staff, hiring an entry-level VA makes the most sense. While they have little experience to bring to the table, they can still help you refocus your time on profitable tasks or just make your daily responsibilities more manageable.
Another benefit of hiring an entry-level virtual assistant is the opportunity to mold the individual into a valuable asset of the company if you are at a slow pace and has the luxury of giving them full training.
This makes the search process all the more crucial. You will essentially be making an investment and long-term risk so you want someone who has the potential, the passion, and the drive to make an impact on your business.
Here’s a step-by-step guide that will help you find the right person for the job. In this article, you’ll learn:
The more experienced virtual assistants, on the other hand, will be ready to take on the job the moment you hire them. These professionals will need little to no training so they can immediately help you get your business where you need it to be at a faster pace.
Obviously, taking this “shortcut” comes at a higher price, but a good deal nonetheless if you are serious about optimizing your business in no time or dealing with a deadline-driven goal on your hands. Plus, there are ways to find online, experienced professionals for affordable virtual assistant services rates.
You don’t always get what you pay for when it comes to outsourcing because sometimes you get so much more. So if you are looking for the best virtual assistant services rates that will allow you to get the competent help that you need without running the well dry, consider hiring an overseas professional with the matching skills to bring to the table.
Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below!
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