Virtual Assistant Cost: Virtual Assistant Rates, Pricing and Hourly Rate in 2026

A US-based virtual assistant costs $30 to $75 an hour in 2026, and general administrative support runs $15 to $35. Monthly, most US businesses spend $300 to $3,000 depending on hours and skill level.

Published ranges look absurdly wide, from $4 to $80 an hour, for one reason: location. Offshore assistants, mostly in the Philippines, average around $11 an hour. US-based assistants average in the mid $30s. Those are two different markets sharing one job title, so any single average is close to meaningless.

The comparison most buyers actually want is against hiring someone. Federal wage data says an in-house administrative assistant really costs about $5,665 a month once benefits are counted, and an executive assistant about $9,127. That puts the break-even at roughly $33 an hour: below that rate a full-time admin hire can never be cheaper, because you would need more hours than a month contains. The arithmetic is in the table below.

One structural cost trap is worth knowing before you sign anything. Monthly retainers bundle a fixed block of hours, commonly 20, 40 or 80, and unused hours usually expire rather than roll over. Buying a 40 hour block when you generate 15 hours of work quietly doubles your effective hourly rate. Start smaller than you think and scale up.

Last updated August 2026

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$15 to $75/hr US $300 to $3,000/mo typical $33/hr in-house break-even

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Every assistant we match quotes a rate on the card before you talk, so you compare real numbers instead of guessing at a range. See freelance virtual assistants and freelance bookkeepers with rates attached.

Read this first

Why one quote says $8 an hour and the next says $75

No other category on this site has a spread this violent. A ten to one gap is normal in virtual assistant quotes, and almost all of it comes down to two variables that quotes rarely state plainly: where the person sits, and whether they are following instructions or writing them.

Location is the bigger factor. Assistants based in the Philippines, India and Latin America average roughly $4 to $15 an hour. US-based assistants average in the mid $30s. That single variable moves the price more than experience, industry or task complexity combined, which is why any published "average virtual assistant rate" is really an average of two unrelated markets.

The second factor is whether the role is executional or judgment-based. Data entry, inbox sorting, appointment scheduling and CRM updates are executional: the instructions exist, and someone follows them. That work sits at $15 to $25 an hour in the US and much less offshore. Once the assistant has to decide what matters, draft in your voice, handle a client without checking in, or own an outcome, the rate roughly doubles.

Specialization is the third step up. Bookkeeping, marketing support, technical tasks and real estate transaction coordination all price at $35 to $75 an hour because they need a skill you cannot train in a week. Buying a generalist for specialized work is the most common expensive mistake here: you pay the generalist rate, get generalist output, and redo it yourself.

So before you compare two numbers, make both quotes answer the same three questions: where is the person based, are they executing a documented process or exercising judgment, and does the work need a specialist skill. Two quotes that answer those differently are not competing offers. They are different purchases.

The in-house question

What an in-house assistant really costs, and the break-even against a virtual assistant

Most people compare a monthly retainer to a monthly salary and conclude that hiring is cheaper. That comparison is wrong, because salary is not what an employee costs. Here is the arithmetic on primary federal data rather than vendor estimates.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes two relevant occupations. Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical and executive, have a median wage of $47,540 a year, or $22.86 an hour. Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants have a median of $76,590 a year, or $36.82 an hour. Both figures are BLS 2025 wage data. Which one applies depends entirely on whether you are replacing admin capacity or executive support, and the answer changes the break-even by about twenty dollars an hour.

Then apply the benefits load. The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release for March 2026 reports that private industry wages and salaries average $32.60 of a total $46.60 per hour worked, so wages are 69.9% of what an employer actually spends and benefits are the remaining 30.1%. Dividing salary by 0.699 gives a true-cost multiplier of 1.43.

Applied to those medians, an in-house administrative assistant costs about $67,982 a year, or $5,665 a month. An in-house executive assistant costs about $109,524 a year, or $9,127 a month. Neither figure includes software, recruiting, equipment, paid time off coverage or the management time the role consumes. Divide by a virtual assistant hourly rate and you get the hours of work per month at which the employee becomes the cheaper option. This is arithmetic rather than a survey, so it does not go stale.

Virtual assistant hourly rate	Break-even vs admin assistant ($5,665/mo)	Break-even vs executive assistant ($9,127/mo)	Reachable in a 173 hour month?
$20/hr	283 hrs/mo	456 hrs/mo	No, neither
$25/hr	227 hrs/mo	365 hrs/mo	No, neither
$30/hr	189 hrs/mo	304 hrs/mo	No, neither
$35/hr	162 hrs/mo	261 hrs/mo	Admin only, barely
$40/hr	142 hrs/mo	228 hrs/mo	Admin only
$50/hr	113 hrs/mo	183 hrs/mo	Admin only
$60/hr	94 hrs/mo	152 hrs/mo	Both
$75/hr	76 hrs/mo	122 hrs/mo	Both
$100/hr	57 hrs/mo	91 hrs/mo	Both

The finding that matters

A full-time month contains about 173 working hours. Any break-even above that number is unreachable, because you cannot buy more hours from one employee than the month holds. The admin-assistant break-even crosses 173 hours at roughly $33 an hour, and the executive-assistant break-even crosses it at roughly $53.

So if your virtual assistant bills under about $33 an hour, an in-house administrative hire can never be cheaper, at any workload. Not at high volume, not at full utilization, not ever. The same holds under about $53 an hour for executive support. Above those rates in-house can win, but only if you genuinely have the volume.

Now look at what a real engagement buys. A typical part-time retainer of $800 to $1,500 a month at $35 an hour is 23 to 43 hours of work, against a 162 hour break-even. In other words, an in-house hire needs roughly four to seven times more administrative work than a typical small business actually generates. That gap, not the hourly rate, is why part-time and fractional arrangements dominate this category.

Hourly

Virtual assistant hourly rates by skill level and location

Read this table by column, not by row. The US and offshore columns are separate markets, and the right question is not which is cheaper but which one the task belongs in. Rates reflect 2026 US market data corroborated across freelance marketplace figures and managed-service published pricing.

Level	US-based	Offshore	What the work looks like
Entry admin	$15 to $25	$4 to $10	Data entry, inbox sorting, calendar, research lists, CRM updates
Experienced admin	$25 to $40	$10 to $18	Owns the inbox and calendar, drafts replies, coordinates vendors
Specialist	$35 to $75	$15 to $30	Bookkeeping, marketing support, technical tasks, real estate coordination
Executive assistant	$50 to $100	$20 to $40	Gatekeeping, travel, board prep, acting with delegated authority
Market averages	$30 to $75	~$11	US average sits in the mid $30s; Philippines average about $11.33

One caveat on averages. Salary aggregators such as ZipRecruiter, Indeed and Glassdoor put the US virtual assistant hourly figure at roughly $24 to $26, while freelance market data lands closer to $35. The gap is a definition problem: aggregators capture employed assistants on payroll, freelance data captures independent contractors who carry their own taxes, insurance, software and downtime. A contractor charging $35 is not more expensive than an employee earning $25. They are quoting a different number.

Monthly

Virtual assistant pricing per month, by package tier

Most engagements are priced monthly rather than hourly, because both sides prefer a predictable number. The tiers below are what US buyers actually pay in 2026. Note how the effective hourly rate moves: the bundle discount is real, but only if you use the hours.

Tier	Monthly cost	Hours included	Who it fits
Per-task plans	$35 to $300	Task-based, no block	Irregular one-off jobs; no relationship or context builds up
Entry part-time	$300 to $500	10 to 20 hrs	Solo operators offloading scheduling and inbox triage
Standard part-time	$800 to $1,500	20 to 40 hrs	Small businesses with steady recurring admin. The most common tier
Specialist retainer	$1,600 to $2,800	30 to 50 hrs	Bookkeeping, marketing ops or industry-specific coordination
Managed full-time	$1,988 to $3,000	Full-time dedicated	Teams wanting one dedicated person with agency backup and cover
US executive assistant	$3,500 to $6,000	Full-time dedicated	Founders and executives needing judgment and delegated authority
In-house employee	$5,665 to $9,127	~173 hrs	True cost with benefits, from BLS medians. Rarely justified below full utilization

The jump worth pausing on is between the standard part-time tier and managed full-time. Going from $1,500 to $2,500 a month roughly doubles capacity, but it only pays off if the work is there. Buy capacity you have already proven you need, not capacity you hope to grow into, because the unused half of a retainer is pure loss.

Pricing models

The four ways virtual assistant work gets priced

The pricing model shapes your cost as much as the rate does, because each one shifts risk between you and the assistant. Pick the model that matches how predictable your workload actually is.

Model	How it works	Best when	The catch
Hourly	Tracked time, billed at an agreed rate	Workload is unpredictable or you are still testing fit	No cost ceiling, and slower work costs you more
Monthly retainer	Fixed fee for a block of 20, 40 or 80 hours	Recurring, steady work you can forecast	Unused hours usually expire; overages bill separately
Per task	A set price per defined deliverable	Repeatable, well-specified jobs with clear boundaries	Scope disputes, and nobody builds context on your business
Managed placement	An agency recruits, trains and supervises a dedicated assistant	You want cover for absence and a replacement guarantee	A markup over the assistant's own rate buys the management layer

Retainers create a utilization problem in both directions, and it is the most under-discussed cost in this market. Finish faster than expected and you have prepaid for capacity you never used. Run slower and you are into overage billing. The fix is boring but effective: track actual hours for the first two months and resize the block, rather than setting it once and never revisiting it.

Price drivers

Six things that move a virtual assistant quote

01

Location and time zone

The single largest factor, worth a three to five times swing. Full US business-hours overlap costs real money. Ask whether you are paying for the person or for the hours they are awake.

02

Judgment versus execution

Following a documented process is cheap. Deciding what matters, drafting in your voice and handling a client unsupervised roughly doubles the rate, and is usually worth it.

03

Specialist skills

Bookkeeping, ad platforms, CRM administration and transaction coordination price at $35 to $75 an hour in the US. Buying a generalist for these means paying twice.

04

Dedicated versus shared

A shared assistant splitting time across five clients costs less and context-switches more. A dedicated one holds your systems in their head, which is most of the value after month three.

05

Compliance exposure

Access to patient records, financial accounts or client PII raises the rate, because it requires vetting, agreements and controls. Do not shop this on price alone.

06

Onboarding depth

Expect four to eight weeks before an assistant is fully productive. Assistants who charge more often ramp faster, which can make the expensive one cheaper across a year.

Budget traps

What the quoted rate does not cover

Onboarding time, which is yours. The first month costs you hours of explaining, reviewing and correcting. Budget 10 to 20 hours of your own time before an assistant saves you any. This is the cost that makes people quit in week three.
Software seats. Your assistant needs access to your CRM, scheduler, password manager and project tool. That is often $30 to $150 a month in extra seats, and it is never in the quote.
Expired retainer hours. Unused hours rarely roll over. A 40 hour block where you consistently use 25 means your real rate is 60% higher than the one you agreed.
Turnover and re-onboarding. If the assistant leaves, you pay the onboarding cost again. Managed placements charge a markup precisely to absorb this, which is the honest argument for paying it.
Rush and out-of-hours work. Coverage outside agreed hours, weekend turnaround and same-day requests commonly carry a 25% to 50% surcharge, or are simply declined.
Classification risk. Direct an independent contractor like an employee, set their hours and supply their equipment, and you are drifting toward a misclassification problem. Keep the arrangement genuinely contractual.

Side by side

Freelance virtual assistant, managed service, or in-house hire

	Freelance VA	Managed service	In-house employee
Typical monthly cost	$300 to $1,600	$700 to $3,000	$5,665 to $9,127
Time to start	Days	One to three weeks	Six to twelve weeks
Cover for absence	None, you absorb it	Usually included	PTO is yours to cover
Scaling hours down	Easy, month to month	Contract terms apply	Hard, and expensive
Replacement if it fails	You restart the search	Guaranteed by the provider	Full rehire cycle
Best fit	Under 40 hours a month	Full-time need, low tolerance for gaps	Sustained 100+ hours a month with onsite or confidential work

For most businesses under roughly 40 hours a month of administrative work, a freelance arrangement wins on both cost and flexibility, and the break-even table above explains why the gap is so wide. The managed tier earns its markup when a missed week would genuinely hurt you. The in-house hire makes sense when the work is sustained, confidential, or has to happen in a physical location. If you are weighing this against bringing on an agency instead, the same logic appears in our breakdown of what a marketing agency costs, and the bookkeeping equivalent is in how much bookkeepers charge.

Questions people ask

Virtual assistant cost questions, answered

How much does a virtual assistant cost?

A US-based virtual assistant costs $30 to $75 an hour in 2026, and a general administrative VA typically runs $15 to $35. Monthly, most US businesses spend $300 to $3,000 depending on hours. Offshore assistants cost far less, roughly $4 to $15 an hour, which is the main reason published ranges look so wide.

How much does a virtual assistant cost per hour?

General administrative work runs $15 to $35 an hour in the US. Specialized work such as bookkeeping, marketing support or technical tasks runs $35 to $75. Executive-level assistants charge $50 to $100 and up. On freelance marketplaces the average sits around $18 to $35 an hour.

How much does a virtual assistant cost per month?

Budget $300 to $500 a month for 10 to 20 hours of entry-level admin support, $800 to $1,500 for 20 to 40 hours from an experienced assistant, and $1,600 to $2,800 for specialist work. A managed full-time dedicated assistant commonly costs $1,988 to $3,000, and a US executive assistant $3,500 to $6,000.

What is the average cost of a virtual assistant?

The average US virtual assistant charges in the mid $30s per hour, with ZipRecruiter, Indeed and Glassdoor data clustering around $24 to $26 and freelance market data closer to $35. Averages mislead here because the same title covers $10 offshore data entry and $90 executive support. Price the task, not the title.

How much does a virtual executive assistant cost?

A virtual executive assistant costs $50 to $100 an hour, or $3,500 to $6,000 a month for a dedicated full-time arrangement. That is still well below an in-house executive assistant, whose federal median salary of $76,590 becomes about $9,127 a month once benefits are counted.

Is it worth hiring a virtual assistant?

It is worth it when the work you would hand over is worth less per hour than your own time and it still has to get done. If you bill $150 an hour and a $30 assistant absorbs eight hours a week, you free roughly $4,800 of billable capacity for $960. The math fails when the tasks are irregular or need context only you hold.

How many hours should I hire a virtual assistant for?

Most small businesses need 10 to 30 hours a month, which is why part-time retainers dominate. Track the recurring admin you actually do for two weeks and double it. Starting at 10 hours and increasing is cheaper than buying a 40 hour block and leaving most of it unused, because retainers rarely roll over.

Are offshore virtual assistants cheaper than US virtual assistants?

Substantially, at roughly $4 to $15 an hour against $30 to $75 in the US. The trade is time zone overlap, native-level written English for client-facing work, and context on US systems, tax forms and business norms. Offshore fits defined, repeatable, back-office tasks best.

How much does a real estate virtual assistant cost?

Real estate virtual assistants cost $10 to $25 an hour offshore and $25 to $50 an hour in the US, above general admin because the work involves MLS entry, transaction coordination and lead follow-up. Licensed transaction coordinators charge more, often per file rather than hourly.

Is it cheaper to hire a virtual assistant or an employee?

A virtual assistant is cheaper for almost every small business. Federal data puts an administrative assistant at $47,540 median, which is about $5,665 a month with benefits. Against a $35 an hour assistant that is a 162 hour a month break-even, and a full-time month contains only about 173 hours.

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