If you’re overworked and the tasks just keep piling up, you probably need an assistant. 

Getting a personal assistant is one of the best ways to deal with all those extra tasks that you really don’t want to do but need to get done. All that busywork that eats away at your brain and saps all your energy can be delegated to a personal assistant…  which will leave you free to get all your important work finished up.

This article will go into what a personal assistant does and how much it’ll cost you to hire one. 

What does a personal assistant do? 

A personal assistant helps keep you organized by managing all the monotonous, repetitive tasks that don’t advance your business but still need completing. For example, a personal assistant can help handle your calendar planning, scheduling your calls and meetings, your travel bookings as well as any other administrative tasks you need done. 

Mind numbing admin tasks like data entry, data organisation, invoicing and various other bookkeeping tasks that most people hate doing.

Personal assistants are great but they’re usually pretty expensive so a lot of business owners just don’t think twice and skip out on hiring an assistant. That’s unfortunate because while hiring a personal assistant isn’t cheap, it’s actually pretty affordable.

How much does a personal assistant cost?

The cost of an in-house personal assistant

There’s no “set-in-stone” cost for personal assistants. However, a full-time personal assistant that works with you in real life will usually be pretty costly. This is especially true if you compare that cost to the cost of hiring a remote personal assistant.

You need to pay an in-house personal assistant at least the minimum wage in the country you’re working in. If you’re working in America, the minimum wage can be $15 per hour. However, experienced and highly rated in-house personal assistants can earn upwards of $25 an hour. 

This means that you can pay $600 to $2400 per month if you want to hire an in-house personal assistant in America. You also need to take into account their work benefits, insurance and paid vacation time.

Let’s talk about employee benefits next. 

Providing employee benefits is extremely important. However, it’s also pretty costly and can make up a sizable chunk of an employee’s overall compensation. 

Please understand that we’re not telling you to cheap out on employee benefits like basic insurance. We’re just telling you that paying for and providing employee benefits is expensive.

Aside from benefits, you need to consider the other costs of hiring an in-house personal assistant. You need to get them their own equipment like work desks and chairs, work computers as well as other work amenities. 

Hiring an in-house personal assistant is convenient and makes you really feel like you’re a fully-fledged business owner. That being said, you need to understand that this is the more expensive choice.

Check out our article on What Business Can I Start With 5K.

The cost of a virtual personal assistant 

An in-house personal assistant might cost a bit too much for you right now, but what about a virtual personal assistant? Virtual assistants have gained a lot of traction in the past decade because of how effective they can be because of new technologies as well as how cost effective they are for business owners.

The going rates for VA services vary pretty widely because of a variety of different factors. For example, the place where your VA is working from is going to affect the price that you pay for said VA. Hiring a virtual assistant out of America or the UK is going to cost more than hiring a virtual assistant out of the Philippines or Malaysia. 

Another thing is that the type of VA you hire is going to affect the cost of hiring your VA. Hiring a generalist virtual assistant to handle simple tasks like data entry or scheduling is going to be less expensive than hiring a high level, specialised virtual assistant  to handle things like accounting or complex Excel work.

One way you can save money when hiring a virtual assistant is by having them handle a set amount of tasks at a fixed price every month. You won’t be able to have someone be available to help you 24/7 but you’ll still have someone to handle your busywork while saving a bunch of money. 

Quite a few virtual assistant providers provide fixed rate costs for hiring a VA these days. This will save you a lot of money compared to hiring an assistant and paying them an hourly rate.

Check out our article on Quick Guide to Starting a Successful Mobile Car Wash Business.

Looking for a personal assistant? You should go with a remote personal assistant. 

An in-house personal assistant is a tempting choice, but that option is quite expensive and primarily available to larger business owners with extra money. That’s one reason why if you’re a smaller business owner who still wants a personal assistant, you should consider hiring a remote virtual assistant. 

There are a bunch of reasons why getting a remote personal assistant is a good idea. Here are a few of them: 

1. Remote personal assistants are available 24/7 to handle any of your work that doesn’t need specialised knowledge and training. Simply delegate tasks to them and they will complete them for you! Remote personal assistants can handle scheduling, online payments or invoicing, and Microsoft Excel tasks.

2. Remote personal assistants can be accessed worldwide. That means that if you need to handle business while travelling, you can still get the help of your remote personal assistant if you really need it. It’s crazy to think that you can get a personal assistant from Malaysia to help you do work even if you’re based in Australia!

3. Remote personal assistants are cost-effective. If you set everything up correctly, you can get as much value out of a personal assistant as a full-time employee. An organised, systemised workflow can make sure that you get your money’s worth out of your remote personal assistant.

Closing  

Hiring a personal assistant costs a decent amount of money if you’re looking to hire a decent one. But getting someone to handle all your busy work and free up your time as well as mental headspace is well worth the cost. 

Whether you get an in-house personal assistant or a virtual assistant is up to you. However, you must always make sure to do your best when choosing your personal assistant. You need to make sure that your assistant saves you from headaches and doesn’t cause you extra ones!