Hiring your first virtual assistant is less about finding a website and more about picking the right model: do you want to screen and manage someone yourself at a lower hourly rate, or pay more for a service that pre-vets, matches, and backs up the assistant for you?
Table of Contents
This guide walks through the main platform types, breaks down five specific options worth comparing, and covers the tools most small businesses use to actually manage a VA once they’re hired — not just find one.
Quick Answer
If you want the lowest cost and don’t mind interviewing candidates yourself, use a marketplace like Upwork or OnlineJobs.ph. If you’d rather pay a premium for a pre-vetted, managed assistant with a replacement guarantee, use a done-for-you service like Time Etc, BELAY, or Wing Assistant. Once hired, manage the relationship with a shared task board (Trello, Asana, or ClickUp) and, for hourly hires, a time tracker like Hubstaff or Time Doctor.
Marketplace vs. Done-for-You Agency
Freelance marketplaces such as Upwork, Fiverr, and OnlineJobs.ph give you a huge pool of independent VAs to browse, interview, and hire directly. You set the rate, write the contract, and handle onboarding and oversight yourself. This route is usually cheaper, but it puts the recruiting workload on you, and quality varies widely from one candidate to the next.
Done-for-you agencies like Time Etc, BELAY, and Wing Assistant work differently: you describe what you need, they match you with a pre-vetted assistant, and you pay a monthly subscription that bundles in account management and (with most of these providers) a free replacement if the assistant isn’t a fit. It costs more per hour, but it removes most of the hiring and vetting effort — a better fit if you don’t have time to run a full interview process.
5 Platforms Worth Comparing
Upwork (upwork.com) is the largest general freelance marketplace, and VAs on it commonly charge in the high-teens to mid-$30s per hour depending on skill and experience. On top of the freelancer’s rate, clients pay a marketplace fee (5% on Upwork’s Basic plan, or 3% for eligible U.S. clients paying by bank transfer, and 8-10% on the Business Plus plan) plus a small one-time contract-initiation fee per hire. It’s strongest for one-off projects or very specific skill sets, and weakest if you want a fully managed relationship.
OnlineJobs.ph (onlinejobs.ph) is a job board focused specifically on Filipino talent, popular for long-term, lower-cost, full-time hires. Posting is free at a limited volume; paid Pro ($69/month) and Premium ($99/month) plans unlock more job posts and applicants. You negotiate salary directly with the worker with no ongoing platform cut, but — like Upwork — you’re responsible for screening and managing the hire yourself.
Time Etc (timeetc.com) is a subscription-based, done-for-you service using U.S.-based assistants. Published plans start at 10 hours/month for $390 ($39/hour) and scale to 60 hours/month for $2,160 ($36/hour), with custom larger plans available. Plans include expert matching, the ability to add or share assistants at no extra cost, and hour rollover on 20-hour-plus plans, with no long-term contract required.
BELAY (belaysolutions.com) is a done-for-you agency built around U.S.-based executive and administrative assistants. It doesn’t publish pricing — you get a custom quote after a consultation call — and industry reports commonly put BELAY VAs in the roughly $2,500-$3,800+/month range for a dedicated assistant. It’s aimed at founders and executives who want white-glove matching and minimal recruiting involvement.
Wing Assistant (wingassistant.com) publishes tiered pricing for its General Virtual Assistant plans: part-time (roughly 80 hours/month) starts around $699/month, and full-time (roughly 160 hours/month) starts around $999/month, with higher tiers priced up from there as assistant experience level increases. Specialist roles (bookkeeping, social media, and more) are priced separately. Plans are billed month to month with no long-term contract, and Wing pairs each account with a Customer Success Manager.
Managing Your VA Once You’ve Hired One
The platform you hire through matters less day-to-day than how you run the relationship afterward. Give your VA a shared task board — Trello, Asana, or ClickUp all work — so work items live somewhere visible instead of scattered across email and chat. Use Slack or Google Chat for quick async questions, and record short Loom videos for recurring how-tos instead of retyping the same instructions.
If your VA bills hourly, which is typical for marketplace hires, a time-tracking tool such as Hubstaff or Time Doctor gives you timesheets and optional activity/screenshot data so you can verify hours without hovering over every task. Done-for-you agencies like Time Etc, BELAY, and Wing Assistant generally track and bill hours internally as part of the service, so a separate tracker usually isn’t necessary with them.
Tips / Common Mistakes
Write a short scope of work or SOP even for tasks that feel obvious — vague instructions are the most common reason a new VA relationship stalls in the first few weeks. Start with a small trial project or a lower-hours plan before committing to a full-time arrangement, so you can confirm fit before scaling up.
Match time zones deliberately: real-time work like customer chat or live scheduling needs real overlap with your hours, while asynchronous work like research or data entry doesn’t. Agree on exactly how hours will be tracked and invoiced before work starts, not after the first bill arrives, and budget for the platform’s own fees — Upwork’s marketplace fee and contract-initiation fee, for example — on top of whatever rate the assistant quotes.
Explore more: More small business tech guides.
Virtual assistant platforms for small business FAQs
How much does a virtual assistant cost for a small business?
Marketplace VAs on platforms like Upwork or OnlineJobs.ph commonly charge in the high-teens to mid-$30s per hour. Done-for-you plans vary by provider: Time Etc runs roughly $36-$39/hour, while Wing Assistant’s general VA plans start around $699/month part-time or $999/month full-time and scale up with assistant experience level.
Should I hire through a marketplace or a managed agency?
Pick a marketplace if minimizing cost matters most and you’re willing to screen candidates yourself. Pick a managed agency if you’d rather pay more for pre-vetted matching, a replacement guarantee, and significantly less recruiting work.
What’s the best way to track a virtual assistant’s hours?
For hourly freelancers hired directly, use a dedicated time-tracking tool such as Hubstaff or Time Doctor. Done-for-you agencies generally handle hour tracking and billing internally as part of their service.
Build It With GTStudios
Need help with your website, app, or small-business tech? GTStudios builds web, apps, and software for small businesses. See how GTStudios can help.
Images: Time etc Virtual Assistant Service.