VA Staffer is a virtual assistant company in the Philippines with a project management and consulting team in Portland, Oregon. Although the company had been serving limited select clients for several years, they opened their doors to the general public…
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Founded 2013, Bolton Remote is an offshore staffing solution based in the Philippines. They’re not so much a virtual assistant company as they are a simplified way to build a remote support team for your business. The team is led…
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5 Star VAs is a virtual assistant recruiting service with a twist. The Philippines-based company offers both “unmanaged” and “co-managed” matchmaking services. The company was founded in 2013 and has attracted a growing client base since then. When the co-founder, Neil…
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Virtual Staff Finder is more of headhunting service than a true virtual assistant company. Founded in 2010 by entrepreneur Chris Ducker, the firm promises to match you up with qualified workers in the Philippines. In my mind, Chris is right…
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TaskBullet is a virtual assistant company in the Philippines with US-sales offices in California and Utah. Although the company is a relative newcomer to the space having started in 2012, all the VAs have five years of experience in their…
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Outsourcely is a virtual jobs board serving clients all over the globe looking for remote workers.
Their headquarters are in Foresthill, CA, with a team working from their offices there, and some additional remotely based employees in the suburbs of Sacramento.
Currently most of their virtual assistants are in the Philippines, though it sounds like the team has plans to take this platform global now that the infrastructure is in place.
The company went live in December 2014 and was founded by current CEO Oleg Posternatsky.
Being in their infancy, I was interested to know what strategy they had to set them apart from other companies in such a crowded market. Oleg’s response was, “Outsourcely has set itself apart by charging a lot less from employers, putting more money in the pockets of workers and the development and implementation of systems to greatly increase the probability that workers and employers will establish and sustain long term full time partnerships.”
That strategy sounds like a win-win for clients and virtual assistants, with Outsourcely picking up the tab. So it’s going to be interesting to see the impact they make on the market.
They outline their target customers as being business owners with any online presence looking to free up more time by outsourcing some of their tasks. There are considerable payroll savings by outsourcing, and the ability to tap into the desired skills you’re looking for.
The company directive is straightforward; to provide clients with a versatile and vetted selection of virtual assistants. Predominantly situated out of the Philippines, Outsourcely VAs specialize in design, tech, administrative support and customer service support.
Outsourcely has a refined and smooth signup and membership process, allowing remote workers to be optimally matched with clients through their system. They have over 20,000 remote workers in their database, so there is a high chance of finding a VA with the appropriate skillset.
Their VAs aren’t a great fit for one-off projects or freelance tasks, but instead are seeking long-term stable employment.
Once the company helps match you with a virtual assistant, they integrate your workflows and processes into the project management system Basecamp. This lets you manage your projects in one place and have a clean line of communication.
After that, you work directly with your VA and pay them directly based on the terms you agree on.
They seem to be playing up their “team communication platform” as a point of differentiation, though I’m not entirely convinced that would be necessary for a single hire. Or what’s to keep users on the Outsourcely platform instead of moving to Skype/Slack/Asana/etc after you’ve made your hiring decision.
Outsourcely currently have three membership packages. You can choose to pay either $29 for the Standard plan, $39 for the Plus plan, or $69 per month for the Pro plan.
With the Standard plan you get access to view profiles of the remote-workers on their database, you can post 3 jobs per month, your jobs stay live for 14 days, and you can connect with remote-workers to discuss the jobs, and get your project off the ground.
With the larger packages you are able to post more jobs per month, your jobs stay live on the database longer, and you have more tools of communication.
You can also save 25% by pre-paying for an annual plan.
The primary alternative to Outsourcely is Onlinejobs.ph. They operate on a similar monthly membership model and really just want to play matchmaker, not concerning themselves with making a markup margin on a worker’s salary month after month.
I found the Outsourcely interface a little cleaner to work with than OnlineJobs, and the pricing is slightly lower ($49/mo for job-posting/contact privileges over there). The drawback is that OnlineJobs has a more deeply entrenched user base and probably at least 5x as many workers on the platform.
Have you worked with Outsourcely? If so please leave any feedback or comments you can share below to help others with their decision.
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Somebody 2 Hire is a virtual assistant company in the Philippines with a large number of virtual assistants ready to handle administrative, customer service, and marketing tasks.
Founded in 2013, they pride themselves on having virtual assistants with a wide range of experience and expertise.
Somebody2Hire are happy to take on small, medium, or large clients, and no task is too small, or too large. Each virtual assistant is managed in house, so clients can rest assured they will not be let down.
The company was founded a little over two years ago by founder Jozsef Kiss, with Mads Sorenson stepping on board as a partner. While this makes them a relatively new company in the virtual assistant landscape, it’s long enough to fill clients with confidence that they are here to stay.
When I asked what set them apart from other virtual assistant companies, Jozsef’s response was, “We have a dedicated support team on site in our office, in the Philippines. What makes us stand out as a leading outsourcing center are the skill sets that we can acquire to put in place for our clients.”
He went on to add that they only hire assistants with excellent English skills and years of experience, which anyone who has used a VA before will know is a huge advantage.
The company provides a wide range of services, and are happy to discuss any bespoke needs too. However, they wrap most of their expertise into three key areas:
Administrative – Including handling email support, scheduling support and management, data administration, database management, customer support, research, and more.
Customer Service – Inbound and outbound services, online chat support, and email support.
Online Marketing – Handling social media accounts, SEO, SEM, website maintenance, WordPress assistance, graphic design, and more.
As with most virtual assistant providers, you will get most value by providing as much detail as possible when outsourcing and identifying early into the process how well the relationship is working.
With such a wide range of tasks being handled, I asked if there are any areas of specialization clients can use. Their response was that they specialize in ‘grunt work’, which while that may be an unusual choice of words, it paints the picture that they are happy handling any task.
Somebody 2 Hire has a clear and simple pricing plan. You choose a plan by how many hours a day you want the virtual assistant, then you pay a flat rate. All rates are without commitment or contract.
You will see from the pricing below that you get considerably more value when you pay for the full 8 hour day package, which is something worth considering if you have a workload that will conclude once completed as opposed to daily ongoing tasks.
These rates aren’t rock-bottom in the industry, but they’re competitive, especially for having a dedicated office infrastructure. I found Somebody 2 Hire very easy to contact and talk to. I would suggest contacting them if you have any specific requirements and want to discuss pricing.
There are a lot of virtual assistant providers in the Philippines. If you like the idea of office-based employees, VA Staffer runs a similar model near Manila. If you’re comfortable with home-office-based workers, you might consider Virtual Staff Finder or OnlineJobs.ph, though both of those will specialize in finding full-time VAs.
Have you worked with Somebody 2 Hire? If so, please post some comments about your experience below to help others make an informed decision.
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Mr. Outsource is a professional virtual assistant company. The company is headed up by Erlend Bakke, and all of their VA’s are based in the Philippines. They have been in business since 2008, and provide virtual assistant solutions to entrepreneurs and business owners.
Their business model is straightforward. You can hire one or more of their full-time virtual assistants to help with your business needs. They have VAs qualified in different areas of business, such as customer service, handling social media accounts, real estate specialists, eCommerce specialists and more.
The company directive is to free up business owners’ time by handling some of their workload, allowing them to focus on the more important aspects of their business. They are strategically based in the Philippines to allow them to outsource their tasks at a price much more affordable than other places in the world.
The company founder Erlend Bakke formed the company after he started outsourcing his own workload to the Philippines. He not only saw his own business start to grow quicker, but realized the potential to help other business owners using his experience.
Erlend Bakke is a bestselling author with his book called Never Work Again, and has a number of year experience with outsourcing, particularly in the Philippines.
The company currently offers a free 30 minute business consultation with no strings attached. You can use this as an opportunity to see if their services meet your requirements before committing to a price plan.
The company provides dedicated virtual assistants, as well as offering a “Dream Team.” When choosing a payment plan you have the option to choose a VA with either a specific skillset, or a general VA to help with a wide range of miscellaneous tasks.
When hiring one of their full-time VAs you go through a short and simple process. You choose any particular skillset required and purchase a plan, then you are contacted by a team manager to discuss you needs. The team manager then assigns the ideal VA, sets up an orientation session, and the work begins.
Dream Team Service
If you purchase the Dream Team service you get access to a team of VAs. You pick a monthly plan and you’re assigned an account manager. You explain all of the tasks you want completed and how you want these tasks carried out. Your account manager’s role is to assign all of the tasks to VAs with the necessary skill sets, then provide you with ongoing feedback as the work is completed.
The Dream Team of VAs include the following services:
I can see this service proving particularly useful for new businesses with a lot of set-up tasks.
Mr. Outsource have several plans to choose from. If you’re interested in their Full Time VA Services their plans start at $995 a month. For this price you get to choose between a General VA or Customer Service VA.
Their $1,295 plan offers the services of a Graphic VA or Bookkeeping VA. While, their top plan comes in at $1,495 and offers the services of either a Real Estate Specialist, an Amazon Specialist, or an eCommerce Specialist VA.
If you want to hire their ‘Dream Team’ plans start at $1,000 a month with a 500 credit. With $1,500 and $2,000 plans coming with 900 and 1,200 credits respectively.
How it works is you use your bank of credits to pay for the services you need from the various team members on-demand. As you might expect, certain skill sets cost more credits per hour than others.
At the $1000 level, credits are $2 each. If a General VA costs 9 credits per hour, you’re essentially paying $18 an hour, which seems awfully high for a Filipino VA compared with what you might pay elsewhere. (This system is pretty confusing — can someone double-check my math?)
If you utilize the Dream Team SEO specialist at 24 credits an hour, you’re looking at $48 an hour. Pretty steep, right?
The Dream Team affords some flexibility but that comes at a cost.
There are no shortage of virtual assistant companies offering VA services from the Philippines. As far as alternatives that offer similar services to Mr. Outsource the top picks are OnlineJobs.ph, TaskBullet, and VA Staffer.
One of the areas that separates Mr. Outsource from these other companies is their Dream Team. It’s an interesting concept hiring a complete team of VAs to handle a large and varied workload. I’m interested to hear from anyone who have used this service and how it worked out for them.
If you have used their Dream Team services, or their VA service, please leave any feedback you have below to help others with their decision.
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Zen Virtual Assistants Finder, or ZVAF as they are known, is a self-titled ‘professional matchmaking service.’ Which is another way of saying they supply virtual assistant services to entrepreneurs and business owners.
The company was formed in January 2013. Founder Joel Nelson decided to form the company after being frustrated by his own experiences with finding virtual assistant services. Putting his own experience to task, Joel decided there had to be a better way to match virtual assistants with clients.
They only use virtual assistants in the Philippines as Joel believes they offer the best value when it comes to VA work.
When you first make contact with ZVAF you’re offered a free 30-minute consultation with one of their experienced virtual assistants. This gives you the opportunity to ask any questions you have and assess if the company’s services are going to match with your requirements.
If you decided to go ahead, you fill out a detailed VA requirement form to be be matched with their experienced VA’s best suited to your needs. ZVAF then set up video conference calls with three VA’s, where you can ask any questions you like to select the most suited VA.
You will communicate directly with your VA, and a manager will then check in after a couple of weeks to ensure things are running smoothly.
The company has access to a large pool of virtual assistants and will match you with one or more assistants depending on the volume of work you anticipate. They arrange one-on-one client consultations to help clients strategize with a clear line of communication.
When I spoke with Joel, he explained their target customer is any busy and stressed entrepreneur, business owner, or even stay at home parent that needs a custom and professionally vetted VA or team of VAs to handle a project.
He emphasized that there are no limits to the type and services their clients are looking for. The company specializes in finding the ideal VAs to handle any client requirements.
With a commitment to helping clients hire the right VA the first time to save them time and money, they carry out background checks, confirm references, and personally interview all virtual assistants on their books.
And as students of the “content marketing” trends, Joel and his team host live webinars and even have a podcast. (I was a guest on episode 7!)
I had the chance to sit down with Joel for an extended chat about his company. If you’re on the fence about using their service (or another recruiting service, or posting a job yourself), this conversation will clear up a lot of your questions.
Joel shares how he first got into outsourcing and how that turned into a business. Then he walks us through Zen Virtual Assistants Finder’s 5-step process to match clients with a “rockstar VA” and set them up for long-term success.
VAA Exclusive: Get $97 off your ZVAF matchmaking service with this link.
ZVAF offers its totally custom VA finder service for a flat fee of $497.
This is preceded by their 30 minute free consultation, so you can make an informed decision before parting with any money.
VAA Exclusive: Get $97 off your ZVAF matchmaking service with this link.
ZVAF’s primary alternative is Chris Ducker’s Virtual Staff Finder. They are both virtual assistant ‘matchmaking services’ that are strictly Philippines based. There are a few differences however.
ZVAF offer a free consultation before committing to spending and money. They also feel they offer a more bespoke service when it comes to matching clients with VA’s on particular skillsets. (VSF has scaled back their service to ONLY recruit general VAs.)
The other alternative we mention in the video is the “DIY method” at OnlineJobs.ph. I’ve found some good people there, but it does take some time and effort. Zen aims to remove the time-consuming screening / vetting process from the equation.
Have you used ZVAF’s matchmaking services? If so please leave a review below to help others make an informed decision of their own.
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Sidekicks enables entrepreneurs and business owners to quickly hire and build their own virtual teams. The company does this by connecting clients with hand-picked assistants that are skilled in handling the tasks required.
I think this is my favorite name for a VA company I’ve come across so far — every superhero needs a sidekick!
The company went live in early 2015. It’s run by Jeremie Rodger, Erik Hatterscheidt, Collin Vine (Zirtual), Till Kruss and Todd Herman.
The company is based in Canada, and depending on time zone requirements they offer virtual assistants from the Philippines or Argentina. (Odd geography? Their community manager, James, explained they employ a bunch of US graduates living in Argentina.)
Sidekicks.co aims to connect clients with virtual assistants at a cost effective price, with their site stating ‘time is money, money is time’. They put a lot of emphasis on saving time and money by hiring one of their virtual assistants, known as ‘sidekicks’, affording business owners the time to work on other areas of their business.
Each sidekick is required to complete a 100+ step video training course. With only 3% of applicants passing their rigorous filtering process. This ensures that only the most qualified and competent applicants make it through to be matched up with their clients.
Their target customers are small teams, entrepreneurs, busy people, Amazon businesses, and any type of small business looking to increase their productivity through outsourcing tasks to a shared VA.
In chatting with Jeremie, I was surprised to hear him mention the clients that tend to get the most value from the service are those already doing $500,000 in revenue a year, because the service seems like a strong value for businesses of all sizes.
The company provides clients with a versatile and vetted selection of virtual assistants. So depending on the client’s type of business, the VA will offer support as directed by the client.
Sidekicks have a comprehensive and rigorous process when vetting their remote workers. They put their applicants through their own academy training course and only match them with clients after they have passed to a high standard.
As a client, you can discuss your needs with Sidekicks and you will be matched with the best-suited assistant.
For example, as an e-commerce owner you can expect to receive support with email filtering, implementing systems, content creation, travel planning, social media marketing, blog management, customer support, WordPress support and much more.
Sidekicks currently have three monthly membership packages. You can choose to either pay $449 for their Part-time VA, $859 for their Full-time VA, or $1699+ for their VA Team package.
With the Part-Time VA you receive 20 weekly hours or virtual assistant time. This will be a shared sidekick available between 9-5 (UTC+8 — approximately a 12 hour flip from US east coast time), along with a CEO training course and email support.
VAA Exclusive: Get 25% off your first month of Sidekicks service through this link.
The Full-Time VA package gives you access to a dedicated sidekick for 40 hours a week, along with the CEO training, email, and phone support. The current $859 price-point is quite competitive among virtual employee options and perhaps reflects the relative strength of the US dollar overseas lately.
The VA Team package provides a team of sidekicks with 80+ weekly hours, along with the same training and full priority support. It’s the go-to option for small businesses with a lot of work to delegate.
The virtual assistant marketplace is a crowded one, but in addition to Sidekicks I’d take a look at companies like Uassist.ME, Task Bullet, or Carve as viable alternatives.
When I asked Sidekicks what sets them apart from the competition, they argued their CEO training course and putting their assistants through the 100+ step video training course gives them a comparative advantage.
If you have hired a Sidekick? Please leave a review below to help others with their VA hiring decision.
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Outsource Workers is an Australian based company specializing in providing virtual assistants from the Philippines.
Founded in July 2013, they have worked with hundreds of clients and have established themselves in the Australian and New Zealand markets as reliable, and reputable virtual assistant providers.
OutsourceWorkers core client base is small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs, and especially real estate agents. Although no task is too large or too small, any requirements can be discussed with their service team.
The company was founded in 2013 by founder and CEO Brett Russo. While two years isn’t a long time for a business to be in operation, in the virtual assistant landscape that’s probably long enough to establish the company as trustworthy. If they’ve managed to stick around that long, they must be doing something right.
When I asked what sets Outsource Workers apart from their competitors, their response was,
“There are other companies offering outsourcing services, but OutsourceWorkers offers the most affordable quality outsourcing solution for entrepreneurs. Hundreds of clients all over the world have tried our services and we have never received a complaint.”
They went on to add that their virtual assistants are very polite and can handle any task presented by the client, no matter how difficult.
The company supplies virtual assistants who are trained in a wide range of areas. They screen and interview each candidate, and after evaluating the client’s needs they match up a virtual assistant with the most relevant skillset to meet the requirements.
They guarantee that each virtual assistant can use the following tools: Outlook, Excel, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Team Viewer, YouTube, Adobe Lightroom and Nitro PDF Editor. If you have any other tools you use you should contact their team to discuss these.
Some of the typical services they provide for their clients include:
The key to getting the most value from any virtual assistant hiring company is to provide as much detail as possible, along with preferred tools, programs, and give a lot of feedback of the service in the first few weeks.
Outsource Workers have a lot of information on their website, and can be contacted via email or phone. So if you have any questions I would not hesitate to contact them.
Their pricing starts at $7 per hour. This can increase according to the client’s needs and required experience. Outsource Workers do not go into any more detail into the pricing until a consultation to establish the required skillset has been carried out.
All their virtual assistants work from their own home offices.
There are no shortage of companies offering virtual assistant services from the Philippines.
TaskBullet and VA Staffer are two highly rated companies. Closer to home, I know Uassist.ME also does a lot of work in the real estate field.
Have your worked with OutsourceWorkers.com.au? If so, please be sure to share a brief review of your experience below to help others with their hiring decision.
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123Employee is one of the largest outsourcing firms in the world, with more than 350 virtual assistants working with clients all around the globe.
The company started its operations in 2006 with just ten employees, but has seen tremendous growth following a simple mission of helping small to medium sized businesses get more done at affordable rates.
They now operate 3 different outsourcing centers in the Philippines.
The physical offices of 123Employee.com are located in the Philippines, and they have American managers on-site. This VA firm offers hard-working Filipinos the opportunity to use their outstanding skills, while enabling American businesses to increase their productivity at minimal costs.
In contrast to many virtual assistant companies who seem to try and remain anonymous, I really like how 123Employee features real VAs in their real offices. While there’s still a little bit of stock photography lurking around, it’s clear the workers and founder Daven Michaels like to have fun too:
The virtual assistants from 123Employee offer professional help with:
• Customer Support/Service
• Research / Datamining
• Database admin
• Telemarketing
• Video Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Social networking
• Facebook fan pages
• Personal assistance
Businesses provide their job descriptions and 123Employee matches them with candidates having relevant education, skill level, and experience and then allow the businesses to interview and select the best candidate. This is a great advantage over other firms that simply assign you a VA based on whoever is available.
You are in control of your VA’s working hours to match your time zone if necessary.
If you sign up for 123Employee, you’ll get a dedicated virtual employee, with all the office infrastructure and support you’d expect at no additional cost.
123Employee.com offers 3 different Small Business VA plans, ranging from 10 hours a week to 40 hours a week:
The mid-level Gold plan is the most popular offering, and is the equivalent of adding a half-time employee. All plans require pre-payment via credit card after you hire your virtual assistant.
These rates are competitive but perhaps a little on the higher end to support the management layer and added infrastructure investments.
One downside to 123Employee is the one-time admin fee of $199 per employee, which covers everything the employee will use (chair, desk, phone line, computer, etc.). Many other VA companies have the same overhead expenses, but few charge this fee.
At press time, there’s an offer for 30 hours of free virtual assistant service plus an audio version of Michaels’ Outsource This! book.
Beyond the set-up fee and recurring monthly charges, there are no hidden fees or long-term contracts. You can cancel anytime.
If you selected “Enterprise” on their homepage, the story is a bit different. You’ll find a site that’s more call center-focused where you’ll have to contact them to get a pricing quote.
The trend among VA companies in the Philippines is to hire home office-based staff, so 123 is a strong entry if you prefer an assistant working from a dedicated office environment. (VA Staffer would be another to consider.)
If you’re comfortable with a home-based VA, you might check out Chris Ducker’s Virtual Staff Finder, a virtual headhunting service, or John Jonas’ OnlineJobs.ph, a virtual job board.
And if you’re not married to the Philippines, Uassist.ME out of El Salvador might be worth a look as well. Their 20-hour a week plan is similarly priced.
Have you worked with 123Employee.com? We’d love to hear about your experience in the reviews below.
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Virtual Done Well is a virtual assistant company based in the Philippines. They specialize in supplying virtual assistants to small and medium sized companies in Australia.
The company is headed up by Rob O’Byrne. All of their VAs are based in the Philippines, and they have been in business since February 2012.
The company is fully owned and managed by Filipino entrepreneurs. All of their virtual assistants are based in the Philippines and work out of their company offices in Davao to maintain a cohesive company culture and quality of work.
The company directive at Virtual Done Well is to form long lasting relationships with their clients by matching up full-time dedicated virtual assistants.
Their website states they work with Australian businesses and, ‘carefully selected ‘external’ clients’. So the Australian market is clearly their area of specialization, but they work with clients all over the world.
It makes sense since Australia and the Philippines are in similar time zones so it can make communication and work scheduling a little easier.
Virtual Done Well offers a wide range of professional business services including;
These are just the titles of the packages they offer. Within these titles they provide a long list of the services you would expect from the job titles.
As with any virtual assistant provider, the more questions you ask and the more specific you are with your requirements, the better the understanding you will get about how well they can match you with an assistant.
The company always aims to match clients with the most suitable virtual assistant, creating a “win-win situation,” as they call it.
Virtual Done Well have several plans to choose from, all of which are monthly plans for a full-time virtual assistant. Their prices are in Australian dollars, but I will give you the approximate American equivalent at the current exchange rate.
With a general virtual assistant working out at around $4.50/hr this is within the industry norm for a Filipino virtual assistant.
The plans on their site don’t seem to offer the flexibility to pay for less than a full-time VA. Something to think about before committing to a plan.
With no shortage of virtual assistant companies based in the Philippines there are a number of alternatives. For office-based staff, I’d take a look at Carve or VA Staffer.
If you’re comfortable with a home-based worker and doing the recruiting and screening yourself, OnlineJobs.ph is the place to go. And finally, if you want a hybrid of the two, with some upfront recruiting help but the ongoing cost-savings of a solo virtual employee, check out Zen Virtual Assistants Finder.
If you have worked with Virtual Done Well please leave a review below to help others with their decision.
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Virtual Valley is a UK-based virtual assistant company specializng in connecting entrepreneurs and small business owners with virtual assistants based in the Philippines.
The company is headed up by Tom Hunt, who started accepting new clients in 2016.
VirtualValley.io is one of the newer virtual assistant companies to enter the marketplace, starting operations in January of this year. The company is founded and run by Tom Hunt, an entrepreneur who has appeared on Dragon’s Den, Location Independent Entrepreneur, and is a TEDx speaker.
Tom started the company to help connect business owners who are in the early growth phases of their business, with virtual assistants capable of taking on some of their workload. All of Virtual Valley’s virtual assistants are home-based in the Philippines to make them available at an affordable price. Allowing the business owner to use their time in more profitable ways.
Virtual Valley has a curated database of virtual assistants already vetted, and have designed their platform to be quick and easy to use. (Allowing clients to browse their database, post jobs, and hire a VA within minutes.
Being a new company, Virtual Valley are currently just offering virtual assistants to fulfill general VA roles. So data entry, inbox management, research, etc. They have plans to expand and have more role-specific virtual assistant options in the future, such as web development, graphics, accounting, and more.
Their services have been designed to offer a quick, streamlined solution to hiring and managing a virtual assistant. Tom explained that with Virtual Valley, “You can hire a virtual assistant within 5 minutes and 7 clicks of creating a Virtual Valley account, as opposed to searching through pages and pages of VAs just relying on reviews/ratings for assessment.”
There are six steps to follow when filling out an application to find a virtual assistant:
The time your VA works is tracked using their proprietary time tracking software managed in-house. The software provides screen shots and data to your own dashboard so you can keep track of what tasks have been completed and how much time has been used.
When hiring a virtual assistant you choose either a part-time assistant at 4 hours per day, or full-time assistant at 8 hours per day. Then you agree to their hourly rate which is typically between $3-6 an hour.
For example, this means if you were to hire a part-time virtual assistant at $3 an hour, you can expect to pay around $240 a month. Virtual Valley take a 20% fee which is included in the VA’s hourly rate.
When I filtered for part-time VAs, these are the results I found:
There is no upfront fee and payments are taken from PayPal at the end of the month.
There are several companies vying for your Filipino VA recruiting attention. Zen Virtual Assistants Finder will perform a similar candidate search on your behalf for an upfront fee, and then set you loose to work with your virtual hire with no ongoing markup on their salary.
OnlineJobs.ph is for the do-it-yourselfer. For $49 a month you’ll have access to their massive resume database of virtual assistants, ability to post your job, and communicate with candidates.
But where Virtual Valley falls is somewhere in between; you won’t pay the upfront fee or have the recruiting headaches you might encounter with OnlineJobs or Upwork, and you also won’t pay anywhere close to the same markup you’d pay through a more traditional virtual assistant company.
Have you worked with Virtual Valley? If so, please be sure to leave a review of your hiring and working experience below.
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Outsourced.ph is an Australian based virtual assistant company with employees in both Australia and the Philippines. The company was founded by Mike Larcher, who has over 15 years’ experience in the digital space and also runs an award winning digital agency in Australia.
The company was founded in May 2012 to serve a core client base of small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs. They specialize in providing high quality technical virtual assistants to assist businesses with outsourcing tasks.
The Outsourced head office is in Sydney, Australia. They specialise in providing offshore virtual assistants based in the Philippines to businesses all over the globe. The company has a quality assurance directive, stating:
“We are dedicated to delivering quality assurance and are committed to providing staff of the highest standards, all backed by our award winning management in Australia with over 16 years technical staffing experience.”
The company recruit their virtual assistants in the Philippines to supply skilled staff at the lowest possible cost to the client. Allowing busy business owners to outsource time consuming tasks at an affordable rate, freeing up their time to work on growing their business or other areas.
The company provides virtual assistants who are trained across a wide range of job roles, but as you might infer from their logo, they specialize in technical roles like web developers, QA testers, and IT support.
You can choose a virtual assistant based on their skill set to meet your requirements. They also have accountants, telemarketers, customer service reps, graphic designers, and many more roles.
This narrows down the selection for you. It’s then down to you to communicate your exact requirements and see how their virtual assistants match-up.
Outsourced price their service with an hourly rate per position of the virtual assistant.
The least expensive option for example is a Customer Service Assistant which will cost you $8 per/hr. While a Mid Developer is $14 per/hr, or a Senior Developer is $22 per/hr.
Outsourced state on their website that their pricing is only a guide, there is some room for negotiation based on your own unique requirements and the skillset of their assistants. If you want to secure the best possible price, have all of your requirements clearly laid out and be prepared to discuss this with a customer service rep.
Understand that as a recruiting agency, Outsourced.ph is making a markup on these salaries (just as any 3rd party VA company would).
There are lots of companies to choose from when sourcing virtual assistants from the Philippines. One other recruiting service that might be worth checking out is Zen Virtual Assistants Finder.
If you prefer the do-it-yourself route, you may be able to find similarly skilled staff through a jobs board like OnlineJobs.ph and save quite a bit on your hourly rate by hiring directly.
Have you worked with Outsourced.ph? If so, please be sure to share a brief review of your experience below to help others with their decision.
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TayStone BPO is a business-class virtual assistant company, providing virtual assistants for entrepreneurs and small businesses all over the globe.
The company has been in operation since 2012. They are a family-owned business operating primarily out of Liverpool, England, while their virtual assistants are based throughout the UK, the Philippines, and in the US.
The company is managed by CEO Keith Taylor, with Sarah Taylor providing training and educational direction. Their headquarters are in Liverpool, England, with satellite offices in Northern Ireland, New York and the Philippines.
The company is completely remote, however they do arrange meetings in any of these locations for staff training and events when required.
TayStone specializes in working with all sizes and types of organizations from startups to established companies, entrepreneurs to small and large businesses. Although most of their virtual assistants are based in the Philippines, they also have staff in the UK and the US. This is to offer a “local feel” to their customers where required.
Keith explained they are extremely selective in their hiring process, eventually bringing on less than 1% of all applicants.
The company provides two different services:
Dedicated Offshore Virtual Assistance – With this service, you are assigned a virtual assistant based in the Philippines. You will communicate with the VA directly and build up a relationship over time.
On Demand US or UK Virtual Assistance – With this service, you submit tasks to UK or US based virtual assistant teams to complete.
Both services come with a wide range of benefits as detailed in the plans and pricing below.
The two different services give you the option of either using virtual assistance from staff based in your home country and working normal business hours similar to yours, or staff in the Philippines, which is naturally much less expensive.
TayStone points out that they put a lot of emphasis on ensuring there are backup plans in place should the worst case happen. They are aware that Internet connectivity or power issues can be a problem when working with VAs overseas and have set emergency backup plans in place to ensure work flow is not interrupted for long.
Their larger plans also include a backup VA in case your assistant falls ill.
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TayStone offers four dedicated offshore virtual assistant plans.
These start with a Lite plan, which includes 20 hours per month at a rate of $8.75 per/hr.
The Part-Time plan includes 80 hours per month at $8.50 per/hr, the Busy plan with 120 hours per month at $8.25 per/hr, and a Full-Time plan with 160 hours per month at $8.00 per/hr.
These plans are sold as a monthly subscription service with a dedicated virtual assistant.
All plans come with a local US phone number, unlimited in/out calls, secure PC and high speed internet with backup and local US management. The larger plans have additional services bolted on, such as a backup employee in place, SMS alerts, call transfers, and more.
Their on demand US virtual assistant plans start at 10 hours per month at $27/hr, ranging up to 80 hours per month at $22/hr.
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With these on-demand plans, your hours are converted into buckets of tasks, each with a 20-minute allocation. For example, with the 10 Hour Bundle, you’ll get 30 20-minute tasks for your $270 subscription. If you have tasks you anticipate taking longer than 20 minutes, just let your VA know it’s OK to use more task credits.
(This seems like an unnecessarily complex conversion process, and would perhaps be simpler to just think of buying the promised number of VA hours.)
In contrast to the offshore plans above, these plans come with a dedicated account manager but tasks may be assigned across TayStone’s entire team of VAs, rather than a dedicated VA you work with each time.
Because there are a lot of services offered in their plans, I recommend contacting TayStone and detailing your exact requirements to be matched with the best plan. (This BPO division is part of a larger call-answering and admin assistance company, so they are well-equipped to handle a variety of business needs.)
While the on-demand service is somewhat unique for US-based assistants, Time Etc is a well-rated alternative that offers a similar array of monthly packages in both the US and the UK.
For the dedicated offshore staff, your best bets are OnlineJobs.ph for direct hires or Task Bullet if you prefer working through a third-party company. With OnlineJobs you won’t have the infrastructure or backups, but you will have much lower ongoing costs. Task Bullet is a smaller operation than TayStone but has a unique pricing system where you just buy a bucket of hours that don’t renew monthly or expire until you use them up.
Have you worked with TayStone, either with their US or UK team, or their virtual assistants in the Philippines? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.
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Xilium is a Philippines based virtual assistant company with offices in the US, and offices and virtual assistant staff in the Philippines. They provide a wide range of services and have been in operation since 2011.
If you’re curious what the name means, as I was, apparently it’s loosely derived from the Latin word “auxilium” meaning “assistance” or “aid.” So there’s your trivia for the day.
The company is headed up by Vanessa Estrella. I asked Xilium what their areas of specialization are and they said, “[we] specialize in virtual assistant services,” which wasn’t helpful at all. Then they clarified their target customers are “medical professionals, Amazon sellers, and business owners.”
If your businesses focuses on either of these areas and you are struggling to keep up with your workload it’s worth making contact with Xilium to see how they can help.
Xilium hire staff in the Philippines to take advantage of the geoarbitrage that comes with the lower cost of living in the Philippines (see plans and pricing below). You can hire part or full-time staff at a much lower cost than in the US. Staff in the Philippines typically have very good English skills too, so you’re less likely to encounter communication problems as you would with some other counties.
All of their staff are vetted, have college-graduate level qualifications and years of experience in the virtual assistant industry. Their staff work flexible hours, so your timezone or prefered hours of operation are not going to be a problem.
The company provides college-graduate, professional virtual assistants ready to handle the day-to-day tasks you want to outsource to free up more of your time. Their services are categorized into three areas as mentioned above, with the breakdown of services as follows:
Medical Assistant Virtual Assistants
Business Virtual Assistants
Online Marketing Virtual Assistants
Xilium plans range from $335 per month to $1195 per month.
Their Bronze package is at the low end of that spectrum at $335 and includes a dedicated assistant for an 8-hour shift, one day a week. At 32 hours a month, it comes out to a little over $10 an hour.
The Bronze+ package gives you 10 hours a week, spread across a 5-day workweek at 2 hours a day. The current price is $395 per month (slightly less than $10 an hour).
The Silver package is $100 more but has some really confusing terms, hours, and scheduling so I’d probably avoid it.
Much simpler are the Gold and Platinum packages, at $695 and $1195 respectively. These are for 20 hour per week and 40 hour per week virtual employees. The Gold package averages out to around $8.70 an hour, while the Platinum clocks in at around $7.50.
There are no shortage of virtual assistant companies operating out of the Philippines. I’d take a look at Task Bullet or VA Staffer for a similar dedicated assistant set-up. TaskBullet has the advantage of not locking you in to a long-term subscription.
If you’re comfortable with a home-based VA, you might consider OnlineJobs, the largest virtual work job board in the country.
Have you worked with Xilium? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.
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TaskBullet is a virtual assistant company in the Philippines with US-sales offices in California and Utah. The company was founded in 2012, and has quickly become a leader in the industry.
The Task Bullet model is a virtual employee model, where all the VAs have at least five years of experience in their fields. You get an assistant who can handle your website management, email marketing, social media accounts, customer service, research and more.
Since they are your dedicated VA, you can train them to meet your specific needs and requirements.
Virtual assistants either work from their home offices or from TaskBullet’s central PCI compliant facility, which is ideal for assistants to handle inbound and outbound calls.
TaskBullet project managers are also located in the Philippines and there is a U.S. based customer support staff, if ever there is a problem.
TaskBullet virtual assistants go through a rigorous hiring process. In particular, they company seeks out VAs who are quick learners and who have advanced English skills.
TaskBullet doesn’t have monthly bills, contracts, or fees.
TaskBullet uses buckets of hours that the VA pulls from while they are actively working on your tasks. When your bucket is empty, simply purchase another bucket of hours and continue on.
You can upgrade, downgrade, or take a break, it’s up to you. Every TaskBullet Bucket of Hours comes with a project manager to oversee your tasks. You can delegate your tasks to your project manager for quick assignment to an available and skilled VA. If you have the same reoccurring tasks you can have a dedicated VA to delegate tasks to directly.
Your project manager will be available during U.S. business hours and your VA will work your business hours.
TaskBullet uses Basecamp, a very simple and effective task management system to upload and monitor your tasks. When you sign up you will get an email from them inviting you to set up your free TaskBullet Basecamp project.
All your tasks, files and communication can take place in one convenient location.
Getting started with TaskBullet is very quick and easy. They can usually have you submitting tasks the same day you sign up.
They offer a Welcome Call to all new sign ups, where they show you around Basecamp and help you upload your first task. They will send you an email asking you to pick a time for one of their on-boarding specialists to call you.
The company is able to provide dedicated virtual assistants, while still being able to tap into a team with a broad range of skills. You have 3 points of contact: your VA, your dedicated VA project manager, and your US-based team lead in Utah.
For advanced skills or roles your dedicated VA isn’t the best fit to handle, you can apply your pre-paid time to others on their team to get your work done without having to source a new company or freelancer.
It’s a service by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. As such, they have a strong understanding of what you need – affordable quality help, and what you don’t – stress, overhead, headaches.
Task Bullet service comes with no start-up fees and a 60-day money back guarantee. If you’re unhappy with your VA, the company will set up with a new one immediately. In addition, new customers receive a free consultation on how to most effectively work with their VA.
I appreciated how they were upfront with their pricing – with none of the “contact us for a quote” stuff you see on some other sites.
The rates start $6/hour when you buy a 240 hour block, enough for the equivalent of 6 weeks of full-time support.
Customers aren’t billed on a recurring monthly basis, but rather can renew their hours or upgrade or downgrade at any time.
That structure makes sense if you don’t have a consistent workload each week, but are confident you’ll use the time eventually. And if you do have routine tasks to assign, you’ve got an affordable flexible VA service.
Highlights:
While there are certainly other virtual assistant companies in the Philippines, TaskBullet is the only one I’m aware of that operates without monthly subscription fees.
Have you worked with TaskBullet? If so, please share your experience below and help others with their search.
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Carve is a virtual assistant company based in Davao City, Philippines. The company was founded in 2013 by Tom Secuya, who’s overseen the business’ growth from 3 people to a team of more than 100.
Tom had several years of experience in business process outsourcing and has emerged as a capable leader in the industry and in the local community.
You can tell just by looking at the Carve.ph website that this is not your average virtual assistant company. No, Carve stands out with a bold, modern design, a fun-loving staff, and a mission to good in the world by doing well in business.
They wanted to help people by creating opportunities for them, and have been tremendously successful in doing that in just a short time. That company culture extends beyond borders as well, as client success translates into more growth opportunities and expanded partnerships.
Carve specializes in branding, training, automation, and business process management. In the international market, they’ve found a niche in serving coaches from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Carve’s Virtual Managers can setup webinars, create websites, build landing and sales pages, do audio and video editing, graphic design, and more. In addition, clients use them for help with transcription, list building, social media management, content creation, Internet marketing, and search engine optimization.
All virtual assistants work from the company’s central Davao office, and Carve invests heavily in recruiting, training, and coaching team members who buy into their culture and attitude.
Sponsored Link:
A full-time Carve virtual assistant (a “ninja”) costs $998 per month for 120 hours (so not “full-time” in the 40-hour per week sense). If you don’t have that volume of work to outsource yet, you can engage their services on a per-hour basis of $18-22 per hour depending on the type of work.
You can opt for dedicated service, or a team-based approach to tap into different skill-sets as needed.
Carve pledges 20% of their earnings to local charitable causes in Davao. Tom explains, “We have seen the pressing need for support in this area and as a business we want to continue to exist to do just that.”
The company has instilled a unique culture in that they believe they are not merely a business, but a movement. Hence working with us would mean, taking part in that movement. We are happy that you can find success in your own business because of us and create success for others through us.
I asked Tom what sets Carve apart from their virtual assistant competition, and got this awesome reply:
“What sets us apart is that we offer not only awesome ninja-like skills but also we put a glass of love and a bottle of passion for every project we have. We have that drive and determination to have an epic relationship with our clients.
Not only that but we also practice radical honesty. We tell you how much we are getting, how your virtual assistant is getting, how they are doing in terms of performance, behavior and attendance.”
Naturally, Carve isn’t the only game in town when it comes to virtual assistants in the Philippines. Their competition comes in two main varieties: other VA companies, and independent work from home VAs found through services like OnlineJobs.ph or Zen Virtual Assistants Finder.
Have you worked with Carve? If so, please be sure to leave a quick review of your experience in the comments below to help others with their decision.
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Ask Virtual Services is an international virtual assistant company with clients primarily in the US, UK, and Canada, as well as servicing clients in other countries across the globe.
Their virtual assistants work remotely from locations such as the Philippines to allow the company to offer competitive hourly rates.
Ask Virtual Services head office is in Palo Alto, CA. They employ virtual assistants in locations around the globe that allow them to offer competitive rates. They do however have US-based customer support staff should you have a problem, and you will be assigned a member of their customer service team to communicate with if you buy one of their plans.
Their target customers are primarily entrepreneurs and business owners. It often makes sense to hire a virtual assistant to take on some of your workload regardless how large your business is however. The rates you pay through companies like Ask Virtual Services are often lower than local rates, and there are no other employee or contractor costs.
The company have a number of virtual assistants and will match you with the best suited candidate. You can start outsourcing tasks the day after you sign up for one of their plans.
Sponsored Link:
You can either pay per hour for individual tasks, or buy a set amount of hours to use over a three month period. There are no contracts or fees to pay up front, you just pay for the amount of hours you want and can top up at any time.
Ask Virtual Services provide an array of services covering web development, PPC and email marketing, social media management, SEO tasks, and more. As with all virtual assistant companies you get the most from the services by contacting them and discussing your requirements in detail.
In terms of pricing, Ask Virtual Services offer some flexible plans and pricing depending on your requirements.
For individual tasks:
Their packages are priced as follows:
All of their packages come with a free consultation and setup when you make your first purchase. They also have an on-demand plan with no monthly recurring fee, and any tasks you request done are billed out at $12.75 an hour.
Discounts are available for agreeing to a longer term contract of 6 or 12 months.
The hours can be used over a 3 month period, your virtual assistant will work your local business hours, and you have access to a US-based member of their support team.
Although Ask Virtual Services are a US-based virtual assistant company, their prices reflect the fact that they use overseas virtual assistants. Their prices and even the names of their packages are very similar to those at TaskBullet if you want to compare their services. It’s always a good idea to get quotes from more than one company,
I’d recommend checking out OnlineJobs.ph (great resource for full-time Filipino VAs) and Uassist.ME (well-rated company in Central America) as well.
Have you worked with Ask Virtual Services? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their search.
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