Task Network is a Canadian based virtual assistant company with their head office in Toronto, Canada, and their fulfillment office in Metro Manila, Philippines. The company was founded in 2014 by founder and president Eric Opinion.

About Task Network

The company’s head office is in Toronto, Canada. The company’s directive is to provide businesses with highly-skilled, cost-effective, offshore assistants to apply their expertise to administrative support, customer support, technical support, and more.

They employ their virtual assistants in the Philippines, allowing them to offer competitive rates. This allows business owners to focus on other areas of their business while handing over tasks to skilled assistants at TaskNetwork.ca to carry out.

When you sign up with Task Network you will receive a consultation to best understand your requirements. You will then be assigned a virtual assistant with the necessary skills to carry out the work. The company puts their candidates through a screening and interview process to ensure their skills match up with your requirements, and you have a point of contact within their management team should you have any problems.

TaskNetwork Intro Video

Services

Task Network’s virtual assistants can handle a wide variety of tasks. In summary this includes:

• administrative work
• technical support
• IT support
• customer service
• ordering support
• data entry
• general ad-hoc tasks

You’re best off contacting them and giving as much detail as possible about what tasks you want to hand over and how long you expect the tasks to take. This will give you a good idea about how well equipped they are to handle your tasks, and how quickly they can turn the work around.

Plans and Pricing

The company currently has one package. This is for a full-time virtual assistant working 8 hours a day, 176 hours a month. For a quotation on price you need to contact Task Network directly as prices vary depending on the required skillset of the assistant.

Task Network Alternatives

While there are no shortage of virtual assistant companies in the Philippines, there aren’t a lot of well-known virtual assistant companies based in Canada. If you prefer to work with local companies and you’re in Canada then check out Task Network.

If you’re comfortable doing a little more of the legwork in hiring, you might consider OnlineJobs.ph, the largest virtual job board in the country, and if you don’t quite have enough work to keep a full-time VA busy, take a look at TaskBullet, which offers smaller buckets of hours that can be used over a 3 month period.

Your Turn

Have you worked with TaskNetwork.ca? If so please leave a review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

The post Task Network appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

2nd Office is a Philippines-based virtual assistant company. They have a team of virtual assistants, all based and managed in-house and they specialize in providing support to businesses of all sizes looking to outsource tasks.

The company was founded in August 2012, their headquarters is located in Antipolo, Philippines.

About 2nd Office

Their virtual assistants all work out of their offices in Antipolo. Unlike some companies that rely solely on assistants based from their homes, this enables 2nd Office to assign managers to oversee their assistants and provide an additional point of contact.

Carlo Silva is the CEO and founder of 2ndoffice.co. Carlo had an eCommerce business and started outsourcing tasks using companies in India, but was unhappy with the quality of the services he was using and decided to start his own virtual assistant company.

In his words, 2nd Office’s directive is to “help other businesses grow and to stand as a second office and a partner in reaching their clients’ potentials.”

Services

The virtual assistants at 2nd Office provide support across all aspects of running a business. Some of the key skills they list as areas of specialization include:

• E-commerce
• Web development
• Data entry
• Customer support
• Creative writing
• Social media
• Graphic design
• Marketing

There seems to be a focus on Amazon and eBay sellers, though interestingly you do not get a dedicated assistant to communicate with back and forth. Instead, you talk through your tasks and workload with one of their managers and the work is then assigned internally. It’s like they want a buffer layer between clients and the actual assistants.

Plans and Pricing

Frustratingly, 2nd Office does not have any pricing plans or subscription rate packages publicly available. You need to contact them directly to receive a quote for the work you want to outsource to one of their assistants.

To me, that’s a big hint that the company really isn’t aimed at individual operators or sole proprietors. I get the impression they’re looking for clients who need several full-time staff members and have the budget to pay for it.

2nd Office Alternatives

When hiring virtual assistants from the Philippines you have a number of options. If you prefer to screen and hire work-from-home virtual assistants yourself from a pool of applicants, consider the popular job board, OnlineJobs.ph.

If you want to work with assistants managed in-house like the 2nd Office model, VA Staffer might be worth a look.

Your Turn

Have you worked with 2nd Office? If so, please leave a short review below to help others with their decision.

The post 2nd Office appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

EasyOutsource is a virtual assistant job board based in the Philippines; they have a large database of Filipino virtual assistants and provide a platform to connect clients and assistants.

The company was founded in 2006, and was acquired by one of the larger companies in the space, OnlineJobs.ph in May, 2014.

About EasyOutsource

John Jonas and Dan Goggins are the co-founders of EasyOutsource. Something that separates EasyOutsource apart from a lot of the other virtual companies is that you can choose the assistant you want to work with based on the salary and skills you’re looking for.

Like other freelancing platforms, you can sign up as either an employer, or an employee. The affordable wages in the Philippines make Easy Outsource an attractive platform on which to recruit virtual assistants.

The Philippines is a hub for virtual assistants because many of the workers are fluent in English, and experienced working with international clients as a virtual assistant or in another business process outsourcing operation.

Depending on the plan you sign up with, you can contact a certain number of assistants and start narrowing down your selection based on communications with the assistants. This gives you the opportunity to find someone you feel has the skills you need to carry out the work, and someone you can communicate well with.

The company directive is clear: “EasyOutsource is a job hiring website used to help Americans hire affordable, high quality online workers from the Philippines.”

Services

The services offered by EasyOutsource are the connections between you and the virtual assistants in their database. With the help of TimeProof, an automatic time tracking software program, you can keep up-to-date with your assistant and see how much work is being done.

The skillsets of the assistants are listed in their profiles and you can ask them as many questions as you wish after you make that initial contact. You can expect to find assistants to help handle just about any task you’re looking to outsource, from general administrative support, to graphic design, data entry, bookkeeping, content writing, and more.

Plans and Pricing

EasyOutsource operate on a subscription-based model. They have three pricing plans as follows:

• Free: As the name suggests, this is free to sign up for but you cannot contact any of the assistants.
• Pro – $49 per month: You can post 10 jobs with the Pro plan and contact 75 assistants per month.
• Premium – $199 per month: The Premium plan allows you to post 10 jobs and contact 500 assistants per month.

If you want to get a feel for their platform and “try before you buy’” then you can sign up for their Free plan. You can post three jobs, mainly to see what kind of response you get because you cannot contact and work with any assistants without upgrading to a paid plan.

Once you find and hire your assistant, there’s no reason to keep paying the subscription fee — until your team grows again and you need to add another VA.

If you don’t want to deal with the headache of posting your job and screening all the responses yourself, EasyOutsource’s optional $500 recruiting service promises to do all the heavy lifting for you.

After you make your hiring decision, you’ll train, manage, and pay your VA directly; EasyOutsource is no longer in the picture.

EasyOutsource Alternatives

Although Easy Outsource is owned by the same folks as OnlineJobs, it’s still operated as a separate (and noticeably smaller) entity. That means the jobs you post here are likely to get fewer responses than they would if you posted them on the “primary” OnlineJobs.ph site.

While less “applicant clutter” can be a good thing, you might be missing out on talented workers who simply aren’t monitoring both sites.

Another option to consider is Upwork, the web’s largest freelancing platform. I wrote an in-depth comparison between Upwork and OnlineJobs, concluding that the former is probably best for short-term project-based work, and that the latter is better for ongoing hires.

Your Turn

Have you hired virtual assistants through EasyOutsource? If so, please leave a short review below to help others with their decision.

The post EasyOutsource appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

Pinoy for Hire is a Filipino virtual assistant company. Their head offices are located in Novi, Michigan, with their virtual assistants based in their offices in Bicol, Philippines. (Pinoy means someone of Filipino origin or descent.)

The company was founded in June, 2016, and is a subsidiary of Panda CashBack LLC. They also operate under the name of Top SEO Virtual Assistants across their social media platforms.

About Pinoy for Hire

Mohammed Khonizi is the founder of Pinoy for Hire and started the company in June, 2016.

When you sign up with Pinoy for Hire a member of their Human Resources team will discuss your requirements and then find the most suitable assistant to work with you.

You’re given the option to interview the assistant yourself. This is always an important step when selecting a VA to work with as you can personally check they have experience with the tools and type of work you will be sending them.

The assistant then works out of their offices in the Philippines. You also keep in touch with the team member who had the initial meeting with you to help resolve any issues that may arise.

Services

Pinoy for Hire’s virtual assistants are ready to handle a wide range of tasks, they group some of their general services as the following:

• Lead generation
• Data entry and research
• CRM management
• Bookkeeping
• Social media management
• Administrative support

They are brief in the areas they list as within their skillset. As with most virtual assistant companies they are ready and willing to take on just about any online work.

The list their area of specialization as search engine optimization. If SEO is your main focus then I suggest talking through your SEO goals with a member of their team to see what they can offer you.

Plans and Pricing

Pinoy for Hire has three different pricing plans as follows:

1. Test It – $49 ($6.10 / hour) – A one-time 8-hour bundle.
2. Part-Time – $369 ($4.60 / hour) – Half-time 80 hours per month.
3. Full-Time – $599 ($3.70 / hour) – Full-time 160 hours per month.

Full-time support for $600 a month for an office-based assistant is crazy cheap, even for the Philippines.

All their plans include a college educated, fluent English speaking virtual assistant. They provide continued on-site training, and there is additional support staff as a point of contact.

Your assistant works within business hours in the Philippines time zone with the Test It and Part-Time plans, or within your own time zone if needed when you sign up for a Full-Time plan.

They are also willing to discuss custom plans if none of the above meets your requirements. Just contact them to see what you can work out.

Pinoy for Hire Alternatives

There is an abundance of virtual assistant companies in the Philippines. The price is usually the attraction when outsourcing to the Philippines, and Pinoy for Hire definitely has some very competitive hourly rates.

TaskBullet operates on a similar business model but lets you buy “buckets” of hours without any expectation or requirement of automatic monthly renewals. Or if you want to cast a wider net with your assistant search, check out OnlineJobs.ph to access the country’s largest virtual job board specializing in finding full-time VAs.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Pinoy for Hire? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

The post Pinoy for Hire appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

Cloudstaff have been in business since 2005 and provides virtual assistants to businesses and entrepreneurs across Australia, UK, USA, China, and are soon expanding to cover the Middle East.

They have several offices in the Philippines and manage their assistants in-house. Their headquarters is in Pampanga, Clark, and they have offices in the business districts of Makati, and Ortigas.

About Cloudstaff

The company was founded by Australian entrepreneur Lloyd Ernst. Originally, Cloudstaff was a tech company and they still cite tech and being their strongest area. However, they work with businesses from all industries.

In an industry that has a high staff turnover and sees a lot of companies come and go, Cloudstaff says they have a monthly staff turnover rate of just 1%. That’s a vote of confidence if you want to build a long-lasting relationship with your VA.

They provide virtual assistants to entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes. Their mission statement best explains their goal:

“We help businesses be more efficient by providing the resources to do the time-consuming, repetitive tasks that stop your core staff from focusing on the things that are really important.”

Being based in the Philippines this also means they are able to offer competitive rates.

Services

When signing up with Cloudstaff one of their team members will communicate with you to fully understand your requirements and find the best suited virtual assistant to assign to you.

You are also assigned a dedicated account manager to communicate with if you have any questions, problems, etc.

They have some good tools to help keep you informed on how your assistant is progressing. There is a communicator app that allows you to view screenshots of your assistant’s PC, you can request daily updates, and the set performance KPIs.

You can expect support for all just about any remote tasks you are looking to outsource. However, to give you an idea of their assistants’ skillsets, they group their services into the following:

• Accounting and finance
• Back office
• Creative and marketing
• Customer service
• Development
• Engineering and drafting
• Software QA
• Technical support

Plans and Pricing

Cloudstaff do not have any monthly plans or hourly rates. To work with them you need to tell them about the tasks you want to outsource and what you’re expecting from their assistants and they will provide a custom quote.

When I pressed them for an idea of what clients can expect to pay, they said, “Prices can range depending on skills and experience needed, so maybe around $1,300 to $3,000 per month.”

They also added that there is a, “One month advance deposit, plus one month (refundable) security deposit, and a one-time setup fee of $760.”

Cloudstaff Alternatives

There is no shortage of virtual assistant companies operating out of the Philippines. It’s always wise to get a quote from more than one company and check out some reviews from clients.

If you’re attracted by a more transparent hourly or monthly pricing model then check out OnlineJobs.ph or TaskBullet, two highly rated VA companies also based in the Philippines.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Cloudstaff? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

The post Cloudstaff appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

VirtualStaff.ph is a virtual assistant job board based in the Philippines. The company was founded in 2016 and all of their assistants work from their homes across the Philippines.

The company offers a marketplace to post individual jobs that can be picked up by their assistants, and ongoing hires for long-term work.

If the site looks or feels familiar, it’s a near-identical copy of the much larger and more-established OnlineJobs.ph, which has been in business since 2009 and has more than 250,000 members.

About VirtualStaff

VirtualStaff.ph was founded by British entrepreneur Michael Brodie. Michael was one of Europe’s youngest retail entrepreneurs at 17, and after outsourcing some of his own workload to the Philippines, he decided to start his own virtual assistant business.

The business model of Virtual Staff is different than most of the other virtual assistant companies based in the Philippines.

Their staff are all home-based, and there are no project managers acting as a middleman or point of contact.

This enables them to offer very competitive rates, however, interviewing and selecting an assistant from their database comes down to you.

Their target customers are entrepreneurs, bloggers, coaches, podcasters, busy CEOs, and anyone else who wants to free up more time by outsourcing some of their business tasks.

How it Works

Services

The service provided by VirtualStaff.ph is as an online marketplace and job board to help you connect with virtual assistants in the Philippines.

They have a database you can sort through by skills, ratings, or hourly rate. You can then reach out to the assistant and interview them or ask any questions to help you establish if they’ll be a good fit.

Their assistants cover the wide range of tasks you would expect from virtual services. So any remote tasks like social media management, website content, audio editing, online research, etc, you’ll find an assistant to work with.

For more bespoke tasks like php editing or handling your customer service, look for an assistant listing the specific tasks in their bio and discuss your project with them.

Plans and Pricing

It’s free to post jobs on their job board, but that’s almost entirely useless, since you won’t be able to contact the applicants until you pay. I guess the advantage is you can see if your job listing attracts any candidates before you plunk down the cash to be able to communicate with them.

There is a monthly fee of $39.99 to enable you to connect with their assistants, and then once you make your hiring decision, you’ll pay your assistant directly based on the salary you agree on. 

At press time, that $40 monthly fee had been slashed to just $10 though.

VirtualStaff.ph Alternatives

Like I mentioned, the primary competitor to Virtual Staff is OnlineJobs.ph. They charge $49 a month to access their job board and communicate with candidates, but I think you’ll find a much broader talent pool there.

If the direct hire model is a little intimidating, you might consider a managed VA solution, with companies like TaskBullet or VA Staffer. 

Your Turn

Have you worked with VirtualStaff.ph? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

The post VirtualStaff.ph appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

Remote Workmate is an Australian-registered virtual staffing solutions company that puts a spotlight exclusively on outstanding Filipino virtual assistants.

The company has been known to some since 2008 when Australians John Paul Grant and Matt Canty, who were then based within the Philippines, started offering multiple forms of virtual assistant services to entrepreneurs and business owners.

About Remote Workmate

In 2014, Darwin-based Chris Whitrod, the current company CEO, bought the name Remote Workmate from Paul and Matt and focused on providing long-term, dedicated virtual assistants with ongoing support as the company’s main form of service to entrepreneurs and businesses primarily from Australia, New Zealand, North America, and Europe.

Remote Workmate Services

Remote Workmate provides virtual assistant recruitment plus ongoing client support with no lock-in.

Their recruitment process requires 1-2 weeks or until the client is happy with their selection. Remote Workmate provides unlimited HR support and payroll management while the client takes care of the virtual assistant task delegation.

If in the unlikely case that the client is unhappy with the performance of the person they hired, they can ask for a replacement for no additional processing or recruitment cost!

Remote Workmate aims to work on roles specific to their client needs as opposed to the pre-packaged role descriptions. If they think that the expectations that clients have are quite impossible, they make recommendations on how to make it more realistic.

Based on their past experiences, here are some of the most usual type of roles that they have helped clients fill:

• Social Media Marketing Specialist
• SEO Specialist
• AdWords Expert
• Content Writer
• Virtual Administrative Assistant
• Telemarketer/Appointment Setter
• Real Estate Virtual Administrative Assistant
• Property Management Assistant
• Graphic Designer
• WordPress Expert
• Business Development Specialist
• Customer Service Specialist
• Recruitment Specialist
• Bookkeeper

All Remote Workmate virtual assistants are working from home and comply with certain equipment standards like minimum internet connection speed and ideal computer specifications. They work for a minimum of 20 hours per week promoting better and longer working relationship with their clients.

How it Works

Remote Workmate’s hiring process is pretty straight forward. The company works closely with their clients from the discovery call and allows them to take part in the recruitment process as much as they want.

After the discovery call, the recruiting specialists hit the trail and try to find the best possible candidates from their network. They’ll present those assistant profiles to you, and you can schedule interviews with the ones that look most promising.

Plans and Pricing

Remote Workmate does not have a “one-size fits all” pricing plan. As the company strives to have experienced virtual assistants take interest in open roles, the rates are then driven by their skillset and years of experience.

On their website, Remote Workmate gives a rough idea of the average rate for each type of role, in USD:

• Social Media Manager $7.00 – $8.50
• Graphic Designer/Web/PHP Developer $9.00 – $11.00
• General Virtual Assistant $6.00 – $7.50
• Marketing Assistant $6.50 – $7.50
• Content Writer $6.50 – $7.50
• SEO Specialist $9.00 – $11.00
• Customer Service Specialist $6.00 – $7.00
• Payroll Officer/Bookkeeper $6.00 – $8.00
• Content Writer $6.50 – $8.00
• Real Estate Virtual Assistant $6.00 – $7.50

If you’d like to have an idea of what the ballpark rate would be for a role specific to your requirements, you can email them at hire@remoteworkmate.com.

So what’s included in the rates?

• The recruitment process
• The replacement process (if requested)
• VA Pay
• HR & payroll management
• Client consultant (client’s go-to person)
• Time tracking software

Each client receives one billing invoice per month on a pre-payment basis. Payments are done via bank-to-bank transfer, Transferwise, or Paypal.

Why Remote Workmate?

One thing that stands out with Remote Workmate’s service is the freedom to end it if you are unhappy for any reason at all. That speaks volumes as to how confident they are with the quality of service they can provide.

Since they have quite an extensive recruitment process, with 3 out of 4 stages allotted to it, you can rest assured that they won’t stop trying to find a VA you’ll be happy with until you say so. By the time you are working with a VA and you feel that you’ve selected the wrong one, you always have that free replacement to fall back to.

Remote Workmate Alternatives

Remote Workmate is an interesting model that falls between the do-it-yourself recruiting model of OnlineJobs.ph (where you’ll pay a small upfront fee to access the job board, and likely a lower monthly rate ongoing), the straight-up recruiting service of Virtual Staff Finder (where you pay a bigger upfront fee and likely a lower monthly salary ongoing), and a managed VA company like VA Staffer (where you’ll pay a higher monthly fee in return for a dedicated office facility and on-site infrastructure).

Your Turn

Have you worked with Remote Workmate? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below and help others with their decision.

The post Remote Workmate appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

OkayRelax is a new task-based virtual assistant company based in Tampa, Florida. The business was founded in 2015 with a mission to help busy people save some time and sanity.

About Okay Relax

OkayRelax operates on kind of a hybrid model between a dedicated virtual assistant service and a task-based approach where any available team member can tackle your assignments. The service is set-up around tasks, mini-projects up to 30 minutes, but unlike competitors Fancy Hands and Efficise, you are assigned a dedicated assistant.

While a distributed team approach does have certain advantages, the founders of OkayRelax felt there were some major problems with it as well. For example, if you’re constantly explaining repetitive tasks to new VAs, you’re never gaining any efficiency or process improvement ideas. Plus, if you’re sharing sensitive data or login information, you don’t want that spread around to an army of anonymous virtual assistants.

OkayRelax assistants work from home and serve (English-speaking) clients worldwide. The company’s proprietary screening and training process makes sure they can deliver exceptional service.

Services

OkayRelax handles a range of virtual assistant tasks, but they really do focus on your individual needs as opposed to the needs of your business or company. For example, they can book you a table at a local restaurant if you’ve forgotten to make a reservation or they could recommend an activity for you if you’re not quite sure what to do next weekend.

Clients rely on their OK Relax assistant to help with online research for upcoming travel or product purchases, or administrative tasks like email and calendar management, data entry, or dealing with customer service on your behalf.

OkayRelax Video Review

Plans and Pricing

OkayRelax plans start at $29.95 a month for a 5 task plan. For comparison, Fancy Hands is also $30 for the same 5 tasks.

The popular 25-task plan runs $94.95 per month and heavy users can outsource unlimited tasks under the OkayRelax Unlimited plan for $399.95 per month.

If you max out the 30-minute per task guideline, you’re looking at equivalent labor rates as low as $12 an hour on the Starter plan, $8 an hour for the Professional plan, and theoretically as low as $2.50 an hour for the Executive plan (assuming you max out a full 160-hour work month).

You can assign tasks of up to 2.5 hours, and they’ll just charge 5 credits from your account. This is super handy because they recognize that not all jobs fit into nice 15-30 minute chunks.

These rates have increased 25-50% since I recorded the video, but are still quite affordable.

OkayRelax Alternatives

OkayRelax follows in the footsteps of other task-based virtual assistant companies, but with their own unique twist. As mentioned above, Efficise, Fancy Hands, and Perssist all operate similar models, though without the dedicated assistant.

In fact, I’m having a hard time thinking of another service that offers a dedicated VA for less than $100 a month.

Your Turn

Have you worked with OkayRelax before? Please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

The post OkayRelax appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

OnlineJobs.ph is a Filipino job board that caters exclusively to remote online work opportunities. It was created in 2009 by Utah-based entrepreneur John Jonas as a way to connect the affordable Filipino workforce with business owners in North America and around the world.

If that name sounds familiar, it’s for good reason. Jonas is also the guy behind Replace Myself, a leading outsourcing education membership service.  In a relatively short amount of time, OnlineJobs.ph has attracted a large user-base of both virtual assistants and employers.

About OnlineJobs

The beauty of OnlineJobs is in their powerful filtering system. It’s basically a resume database, and you can filter by the date the listing was created, skills required, the level of skill (very important), and desired salary.

According to the experts, the most important filters are to choose only resumes updated within the last month, and strong English writing skills. The logic behind these selections is that the ones with older resumes will either already have jobs or they aren’t great candidates.

For the English skills, writing is a great indicator of overall understanding, comprehension, and communication skills. If your virtual assistant has that baseline knowledge, you can train them in whatever you need done.

OnlineJobs.ph Review

OnlineJobs.ph recently added a new metric called ID Proof. It’s not a measure of skill or reliability, but a 1-100 rating of to what degree the candidate is who they say they are. Apparently it’s a common practice to create multiple profiles under fake personas to hedge your bets and theoretically give yourself a better chance of getting an application noticed.

In general, I’ve found the higher the ID Proof number, the more professional the candidate. It’s a measure of how seriously they’re staking their reputation online. I wouldn’t immediately rule someone out who has a low score here, but choosing between two equally qualified candidates, I’d go with the one with the higher ID Proof for sure.

Video Overview with the Founder

Plans and Pricing

The way OnlineJobs makes money is on a subscription-based pricing model, where it is $49 a month to be able to contact the workers. You can do all the filtering and searching you want, but you can’t communicate with the workers until you pay.

Considering the potential long-term cost savings over a virtual assistant company in the Philippines or elsewhere, it’s still a strong value proposition.

Discounts are available for extended membership terms, but unless you need to build a large team or are using it as a recruiter, it shouldn’t take  you that long to find a suitable selection.

For instance, I posted a virtual assistant job recently and was inundated with responses overnight. From more than 70 candidates, I picked my top 10 to send some trial tasks. Five or six completed those and I picked my top 2 for a Skype video interview. All done in less than a week.

As an alternative, you can get OnlineJobs.ph access for “free” if you buy into the Replace Myself training program, starting at $97 per month.

Virtual Assistant Tracking

OnlineJobs has introduced a piece of software called TimeProof to track the working hours of your remote team members. It’s completely free to use (currently in beta), and aims to provide a level of protection and verification for both workers and employers.

As the employer, you’ll get time sheets and screenshots of what your VA was working on during their shift.

OnlineJobs.ph Alternatives

A popular alternative a while ago was a site called BestJobs.ph — but for some unknown reason, they’re are no longer accepting job posts from international employers. In fact, my account was banned with no explanation or warning after posting just one (completely legit) VA job there.

Today you’re left with the alternatives of the Craigslist crapshoot, finding a freelancer, or potentially contracting with Virtual Staff Finder to do the legwork for you.

Related: Upwork vs. OnlineJobs.ph

Your Turn

Have you had any experience with finding a VA on OnlineJobs.ph? If so, please share it here and help others with their decision.

The post OnlineJobs.ph appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

The Virtual Hub is a virtual assistant company based in the Philippines. Since 2015, they’ve specialized in recruiting virtual assistants and providing continual support and training to strengthen the relationship between you and your assistant.

The company is headed up by founder and CEO Barbara Turley. Barbara is based in Australia, while all their virtual assistants, known as “angels”, work remotely from their homes in the Philippines.

About The Virtual Hub

The Virtual Hub (formerly Virtual Angel Hub) give emphasis to training both their clients and virtual assistants. This is something not often by virtual assistant providers, and is described as a “game changer” on their website.

Before you are introduced to their virtual assistants their team work with you to better understand your business to make sure you’re ready for an assistant. They have a series of training videos to help you get ready for your assistant, outline some tasks you need to carry out, and even give you some tips on how to scale your business.

The Virtual Hub then connects you with a number of virtual assistants that will be a good match for you based on your requirements. You choose which assistant you want to hire, the assistant is overseen by a supervisor and undergoes continual training to ensure they are supporting you at the highest level possible.

Although marketed toward Australian entrepreneurs and small business owners, you can sign up with The Virtual Hub from anywhere in the world. The Philippines and Australia are in similar time zones, so I can see that scheduling working hours would be easy from Australia, but arrangements can be discussed for your time zone if you contact them.

Services

The Virtual Hub’s virtual assistants offer a wide range of professional services. The unique angle to their business model is the ongoing training they provide their assistants. So, whatever your requirements or tasks are, you can communicate with your assistant and their supervisor to arrange training in your processes and business.

The Virtual Hub Founder Interview

Note: The video references Virtual Angel Hub. The company has since re-branded.

Plans and Pricing

The Virtual Hub has two pricing plans, Part-Time/Full-Time and Advanced.

Their prices are in Australian dollars, but I will include the approximate American dollar equivalent at the exchange rate as I’m writing this. The cost of each plan is as follows:

• Part-Time/Full-Time – $10 AUD/hour ($7 USD), plus a $297 AUD ($225 USD) setup fee.
• Advanced – $14 AUD/hour ($10.50 USD), plus a $297 AUD ($225 USD) setup fee.

When you choose a Part-Time/Full-Time plan you can have your VA work either 20 or 40 hours a week. You will have access to a dedicated staff team leader, time tracking software, online project management tools, their online training videos, access to their “Expert Resource Hub”, and of course the virtual assistant you chose to work with.

The Advanced plan includes all the services in the Part-Time/Full-Time, with the addition of a Infusionsoft/Ontraport/Active Campaign/Podio trained assistant, along with access to systems integration specialists.

If you prefer an office-based assistant, The Virtual Hub can help you there as well. For an extra $3 AUD per hour, your VA will work from one of the company’s secure and managed office locations in the Philippines.

The Virtual Hub Alternatives

There is no shortage of virtual assistant companies with their VAs operating out of the Philippines. If you’re comfortable or enjoy doing the recruiting work yourself, check out OnlineJobs.ph.

Task Bullet is another service with good ratings and a unique “bucket” pricing model without any long-term commitments.

Your Turn

Have you worked with The Virtual Hub or Virtual Angel Hub? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

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TaskGators is a virtual assistant company with offices in the US and Sri Lanka. The business was founded in 2013 with the mission of connecting entrepreneurs, professionals, and small teams with virtual assistants.

Their virtual assistants are based in Sri Lanka and the Philippines, allowing them to offer some very competitive hourly rates.

About TaskGators

The company is owned by founder Roshana Mallawaarachchi, and they say their mission is to, “Support entire teams and busy professionals with flawless execution.”

Their target customers are professionals and entrepreneurs. They have teams of virtual assistants in both Sri Lanka and the Philippines, and when asked what their areas of specialization are TaskGators said, “Admin support including data entry and medical transcription.”

So, while their assistants handle a wide variety of remote tasks, you will find some added value if you have a large volume of data entry or transcription tasks.

When you sign up with TaskGators you are assigned an assistant based on your requirements, a dedicated project manager as a point of contact, and they ensure there is an assistant available as a backup should the assistant you’re working with fall sick or take a vacation.

Services

TaskGators assistants can handle a wide variety of tasks you would expect from a virtual assistant.

To give you an idea, they list some of their services as:

• Admin tasks
• Data entry
• Online research
• Social media marketing
• Bookkeeping
• Customer service
• Writing
• Medical transcription
• Graphic and web design

When you sign up with TaskGators and have been matched up with an assistant you are given the opportunity to ask them any questions you have. This is an opportunity to check they have the necessary experience and skills before agreeing to go ahead.

So, if you have any specific tasks you need completed that aren’t listed above you can talk these through with the assistant one-on-one which is a mutually beneficial to your working relationship.

Plans and Pricing

TaskGators offer four different monthly pricing plans ranging from $70 for 10 hours of assistant time over the month, to $640 for 160 hours of time.

A complete list of their plans are as follows:

• 10 hours per/mth, $70 ($7 per/hr)
• 40 hours per/mth, $240 ($6 per/hr)
• 80 hours per/mth, $400 ($5 per/hr)
• 160 hours per/mth, $640 ($4 per/hr)

As you can see, the hourly rate drops the larger the plan you sign up for. $4 per/hr for the 160-hour plan is a very competitive hourly rate.

TaskGator Alternatives

There are plenty of virtual assistant companies to choose from with assistants based in the Philippines. I recommend checking out OnlineJobs.ph as they offer similar rates and are one of the larger companies in the space.

Okay Relax and Task Bullet are two more companies with a good deal of positive feedback. Their rates just a little higher than TaskGators but it’s worth getting a quote before making a decision.

Your Turn

Have you worked with TaskGators? If so, please take a moment to leave a review below to help others with their decision.

The post TaskGators appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

Hire Your Virtual Assistant – H.Y.V.A. for short – is a virtual assistant company founded in 2009 by Owen McGab Enaohwo. Enaohwo is a Washington DC-based entrepreneur who went into the business of helping others save time. If you watch any of his video interviews, you can immediately tell how passionate he is about your success. With a large 200+ person facility in the Philippines, Hire Your Virtual Assistant is ready to tackle the needs of busy professionals and business-owners everywhere.

HYVA offers a variety of virtual assistant plans, ranging from 40 hours a month to 160 hours a month, at rates of $358 to $1120. On an hourly basis, you’ll find these rates are fairly competitive for Filipino VAs. The most popular H.Y.V.A. plan is the part-time, 20-hour a week plan for $672 a month, which works out to about $8.40 an hour.

The availability of these part-time plans is one thing that sets HYVA apart from other Philippines virtual assistant companies.  Others are focused solely on full-time employment, which might be overkill for first-time outsourcers.

Sponsored Link:

UPDATE: HYVA specifically targets ecommerce companies in the fashion and clothing vertical who want to offer 24/7 live support to their website visitors. The assistants will expertly handle live chat, email, and phone support for that industry.

HYVA Intro Video

I had the chance to sit down with Owen to get the inside scoop on the origins of HYVA, how their process works, and the exact kinds of tasks they really excel in — as well as who should NOT hire them. The video portion of the call didn’t actually record, so you’ll just have to pretend our mouths are moving.

Hire Your Virtual Assistant uses the popular Basecamp web-based software for a secure online interface that allows clients and VAs to communicate effectively and monitor results.

Have you had any experience working with Hire Your Virtual Assistant? Please share it here and help others with their decision.

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Virtual Coworker is a remote staffing agency specializing in long-term full- and part-time positions. The company was founded in 2011 in Australia by Braden Yuill, a successful entrepreneur and outsourcing expert.

Virtual Coworker works exclusively with virtual employees in the Philippines, citing their strong work ethic, loyalty, and English language skills.

Services

The company has a positive track record of filling a variety of positions, including virtual assistants, web developers, SEO specialists, copywriters, designers, and more. The basic premise is that any job that can be done remotely can be done for far less in the Philippines.

The way it works is you submit your job description, and Virtual Coworker’s team of local recruiters puts the word out about your position. They screen resumes and pre-interview candidates, and then provide you with a short-list of the most promising candidates. Depending on the nature of your job, this step can take a couple weeks to find the right people.

Virtual Coworker Intro Video

After you have your short list of candidates, you interview them as you normally would via a skype video call. Once you have your selection, the company creates a contract on your behalf and handles all the payroll processing and HR requirements.

Sponsored Link:

Plans and Pricing

Because the recruiting service is free, you can expect to pay slightly higher wages for your Virtual Coworker on an ongoing basis to make up for that.  For general administrative staff, the rates are in the $5-6 an hour range, and go up to $9-11 an hour for those with more technical skills. Obviously these are still very attractive rates for anyone used to paying Western wages, but are generally more than you would pay if you paid your VA directly.

VirtualAssistantAssistant.com Exclusive: Mention referral code VAA to get 5% off your first month!

In return for the premium on the wages, you get the layer of protection and management afforded by working through a company. In addition, Virtual Coworker VAs use a proprietary time tracking software and project management tool so you can monitor their work throughout the day.

Like similar systems employed by Elance and oDesk, the software takes screenshots of your worker’s computer at random intervals, and even measures mouse clicks and keystroke volume.

Have you worked with Virtual Coworker? If so, please share your experience below.

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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.

About 123Employee

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:

Services

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

Sponsored Link:

How it Works

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.

123Employee Intro Video

Plans and Pricing

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:

• Silver – 10 hours a week, $497 per month ($12.43/hr)
• Gold – 20 hours a week, $797 per month ($9.96/hr)
• Platinum – 40 hours a week, $1287 per month ($8.04/hr)

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.

123Employee Alternatives

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.

Your Turn

Have you worked with 123Employee.com? We’d love to hear about your experience in the reviews below.

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Bottleneck Virtual Assistants is a virtual assistant sourcing firm connecting clients to responsible VAs in the Philippines. While Bottleneck is a relatively new company, opening their virtual doors in 2016, the founder Jaime Jay has been working with VAs from the Philippines for almost 10 years.

After helping peers and clients find talented VAs on an informal or private basis, Jaime decided to open up his unique sourcing service to a broader audience.

About Bottleneck Virtual Assistants

Bottleneck’s target customers are entrepreneurs that are experiencing growth in their existing company and are finding it more and more difficult to manage their tasks on a daily basis. “We place both general and specialized VAs,” Jaime explained.

The majority of customers are based in the US, the UK, and Canada, while assistants work from their home offices in the Philippines.

“We are noticing a large amount of call center workers leaving that line of work for virtual assistant work,” Jaime added. “While these people don’t have the same type of experience, they are eager to learn and they work hard.”

Services

Bottleneck.online will currently help you find a VA in one of two categories:

1. General Virtual Assistants
2. Specialized Virtual Assistants

Bet you can guess which one comes with a higher price tag

In the General Virtual Assistant realm, you’re looking at tasks like travel arrangements, email management, basic research, appointment setting and scheduling, data entry, and other administrative tasks.

Specialized Assistants include web developers, graphic designers, video and audio editors, SEO specialists, content writers, and bookkeepers.

How it Works

Once Bottleneck knows your job requirements they get to work on sourcing a short list of candidates for you. For each potential assistant, they arrange an initial Skype interview while a representative from the company manages the interviews.

Once you make your hiring decision, there is no management layer between you and the VA; you communicate and train them directly.

The company focuses on and specializes in fulfillment for full-time roles. “Our virtual assistants, for the most part, are seeking full-time pay,” Jaime explained. (Aren’t we all!) “If a position is only part-time, Bottleneck will help them find another position.”

Plans and Pricing

The cost vary depending on experience and type of work. Bottleneck charges a $250 “sourcing and training” fee upfront, but then do all the recruiting, screening, and salary negotiations on your behalf.

After that, you’ll pay $7-8/hour for a General VA and $10-13/hour for a Specialized VA. 

Bottleneck Virtual Assistants Alternatives

When I asked Jaime what sets Bottleneck apart from the competition, he mentioned their vetting process is designed to minimize risks for both clients and VAs. “There are stories of VAs not getting paid and stories of clients not getting the work done that was promised and their assistant seemed to just disappear. While we can’t guarantee that will ever happen on either end, we do have a great system in place,” Jaime explained.

On the recruiting side, Zen Virtual Assistants Finder might be worth a look. You’ll pay a higher upfront sourcing fee ($500 vs. $250), but after that you won’t pay any markup on your VA’s hours. If you’re planning a long-term hire, that could end up being a cost savings.

The other resource to look into is OnlineJobs.ph, especially if you’re comfortable doing the job posting and candidate screening yourself. The service costs $49 a month but you should have no problem finding the right person for the job within a month or two. Similarly, once hired you’ll just pay your VA directly each pay period.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Bottleneck Virtual Assistants? If so, please be sure to leave a review of your experience 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.

About TaskBullet

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.

How it Works

The Bucket System

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.

Assigning tasks

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

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.

Task Bullet Founder Interview

Services

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.

Plans and Pricing

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:

• You have 90 days to use the hours in your bucket.
• There are no contracts and no monthly fees.
• This is a one-time purchase for hours that you can use any time over the next 3 months.
• You do not purchase additional hours until your current bucket runs out.
• You can use as many or as little hours as you want per day/week/month.

TaskBullet Alternatives

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.

*Dedicated option available.

Your Turn

Have you worked with TaskBullet? If so, please share your experience below and help others with their search.

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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 up there with Tim Ferriss when it comes to lifestyle design and using virtual assistants to help achieve your goals. He’s been in the outsourcing arena for 10 years and he and his staff know the Philippines very well.

How it Works

Virtual Staff Finder is a simple process which works like this. After you sign up, you complete your Job Description requirements, listing all the skills you’d like your virtual assistant to have and what kind of tasks they may be doing for you. Then, for your viewing pleasure, Chris has put together a series of helpful training videos on how best to select and work with your new VA.

Meanwhile, the team at Virtual Staff Finder is hunting for the best candidates. All their virtual assistants are screened, tested, interviewed, and background checked – all before you’re even involved.

Then, the company presents you with the 3 best candidates, and you can do your own interviews and make your selection from there. If you’ve ever tried to find a VA on Upwork, you’ll appreciate all the screening work Virtual Staff Finder does for you.

Sponsored Link:

Over the years, VSF has helped place over 1000 virtual assistants with new employers so they definitely have their systems down.

Virtual Staff Finder Intro Video

This video is a little dated, but still explains their general process well. Just know that they now only recruit General Virtual Assistants.

Services

Virtual Staff Finder specializes in matching entrepreneurs with general virtual assistants. These are administrative professionals who generally have good English skills, a college education, and some prior experience in working for overseas clients.

You will have the freedom to train your VA on whatever role you need them to fill, but if you’re looking for specialized skillsets in web development, content writing, SEO, or other areas, VSF may not be the best fit. (See below for alternatives.)

Virtual Staff Finder Review

Plans and Pricing

For this, they charge a one-time $495 fee. After that, you and your new virtual assistant agree on a salary and you pay them directly. Because there is no more company overhead, you can expect to pay market rates for your VA, which typically range from $400 a month for full time general administrative help up to $750 a month for more skilled work.

If that price seems steep, consider the average referral bonus given for full-time hires is $1200 (according to Inc. Magazine), and that doesn’t even include the recruiting expenses.

The company offers a 10-day guarantee, which means if you don’t end up hiring any of the 3 candidates they selected for you, or if you did hire one and they didn’t work out without the first 10 days, Virtual Staff Finder will source you another 3 candidates for free.

Virtual Staff Finder Alternatives

Aside from the big freelance marketplaces, you have a couple alternatives to consider when trying to find an awesome VA in the Philippines.

The first is the “DIY method,” which involves posting your job on OnlineJobs.ph, the largest job board for virtual work in the country. Here you’ll cast a wide net but spend more time narrowing down your candidate pool to the few “diamonds in the rough.”

The second option is a competing “matchmaking service” called Zen Virtual Assistants Finder. For a similar price point, they’ll source 3-5 qualified VA candidates for you. They also do free one-on-one consulting calls and an extensive needs assessment before you fork over your cash.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Virtual Staff Finder? We’d love to get your feedback below.

The post Virtual Staff Finder appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

VA Staffer is a Digital Marketing and Virtual Assistant Company with the majority of it’s team in their Makati City (Metro Manila) office, Philippines. The marketing, project success and consulting is operated in the USA, and VA Staffer has also expanded recently into South America, India and the Caribbean for specific skillsets.

They have a very diverse team that offers a wide range of services to entrepreneurs, small businesses and CEOs. They’ve built a talent pool backed up with built-in Project Management Tools to deliver results.

They opened their doors to the general public in November 2013 immediately after Typhoon Haiyan devastated much of the country, and local job opportunities were scarce, even for qualified candidates. At that time, founder Jeff “J” Hunter and his team decided that bringing on more clients would help empower college grads with amazing technology skills in the Philippines.

In return for a reliable, rewarding career opportunity, the new virtual assistants promised to provide superior services to their clients.

About VA Staffer

VA Staffer has virtual assistants who work from home offices as well as their office in Makati and report directly to their clients.

The team uses ActiveCollab software for communication and project management, and aims to build a long-term win-win relationship with clients. This set-up provides for work tracking (screenshot monitoring) and accountability.

With VA Staffer, you’re assigned a dedicated VA based on your job requirements, but have access to rest of the team for specialized skills as the need arises. This set-up is somewhat rare among VA companies in the Philippines, where most just aim for a dedicated relationship and ask you to hire out other skills and jobs separately.

VA Staffer Review

VA Staffer Services

VA Staffer provides 100% manual and personalized SEO, Marketing, Website Design, Social Media Management and a variety of other virtual assistant services for start-ups, entrepreneurs, authors, and real estate agents.

Your virtual staff can also help with data entry, lead generation, online research, link-building, book promotion, reputation management, ecommerce solutions, and more.

The real pride of the company comes from the founding principal that entrepreneurship is the best method to solve global poverty.

VA Staffer Intro Video

Exclusive Offer: Mention Referral Code VAA for a Free Outsourcing Consultation and a 4-hour Free VA Trial!

Plans and Pricing

VA Staffer offers a range of services with their new pricing system.

A one-time membership setup fee of $299 gives you access to the entire team and an invitation to their project management software. You’ll also be assigned a dedicated project coordinator. 

The minimum monthly retainer is just $160, and work is billed out against that retainer at competitive rates:

• Data entry and lower skilled work = $7/hr
• Administrative work like email templating or CRM help = $8/hr
• Web development, graphic design, and voice Support = $10/hr

Native English Content / Blog Creation

VA Staffer copywriters are native American and UK English speakers. They’ll craft content for you at a rate of $45 per 300-500 word blog post–or you can write your own content and they’ll optimize it for you.

Social Media Management Plans

VA Staffer has customized social media content creation packages they offer with their native English-speaking team. (This is not at the typical $7-$10 dollars an hour because it’s created by American and UK social media experts on their team.)

They offer support for Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, on an à la carte menu:

• You pick any one of the platforms for: $250 / mo
• You pick any two of the platforms for: $325 / mo
• All three platforms: $399 / mo

For Twitter, the package includes 3-4 daily tweets and 3 image tweets per week. On Facebook, they’ll make two posts daily on your behalf, with 3 of them every week being custom images. For LinkedIn, they’ll post two daily updates.

Posting would be on any 5 days you choose; it doesn’t have to be Monday-Friday.

SEO Keyword Research & Competitive Analysis

VA Staffer’s SEO Keyword Research & Competitive Analysis is a one-time $399 investment. It takes 4-5 business days and the research package comes with a 1 hour strategy session afterwards to determine the best keywords for you and next steps.

The research will give you great keywords for blog topics, titles, and phrases which will help optimize your social media campaign. Basically, when you know what people are searching for, all you have to do is be the answer to what they want. You will use the keywords as topics and subtitles, and this will increase your ranking in Google.

It’s a very flexible and scalable system that can adapt with your business and growth.

Why VA Staffer?

One thing that sets VA Staffer apart is their on-site recruiting and hiring process. When I spoke with Jeff, he explained that he personally flies to Manila 3-4x per year to screen the brightest talent in the Philippines and conduct face-to-face interviews.

Out of an applicant pool of 30 people, he might hire 1 or 2. The candidates must have a college education, and great communication skills.

Jeff explains, “The key to our success is the longevity of our staff. We offer great benefits to our employees and wages much higher than the average outsourcing company. That builds pride and creates a great connection between the staff and our clients.”

Interview with the VA Staffer Founder

VA Staffer Alternatives

Before you make your decision, you might want to check out the rest of the field of Filipino VA companies.

*Dedicated option available.

Task Bullet and Carve operate similar models, though perhaps without the full project management tracking capabilities and access a team.

Have you worked with VA Staffer? If so, please leave a quick review of your experience below.

The post VA Staffer appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

Prialto provides remote administrative assistants to executives, entrepreneurs, and businesses. Our virtual executive assistant services are curated and managed from our headquarters in Portland, Oregon, with creative insights from our global staff in Asia and Central America.

Prialto calls itself the “virtual support service for executives,” and touts that their dedicated Prialto Assistants (PAs) and team “will actually pull your business forward.”

About Prialto

Founder, Eric Taussig, says that he’s a bit uncomfortable with calling Prialto assistants “virtual.”

“Virtual means ‘not real’ and suggests work that can be ‘algorithmically’ driven by software. Our people are quite real and personable,” he explains. “We provide a valuable management layer alongside them and equip them with technology so that they can focus on the more strategic, value-add aspects of assistant work.”

While most virtual assistant companies match you with an individual assistant working out of their home or within a corner of a large call-center, Prialto provides a team-approach with assistants working in their managed offices supported by US-based “engagement managers” who serve as a coaches to constantly optimize your service.

Regardless of the physical location of your assistant, they will be made available during your local business hours. The service is aimed at high-performing sales professionals and executives at start-ups and smaller entrepreneurial clients, as well as enterprise accounts.

Prialto Overview Video

How it Works

Getting Started: Prialto’s team leverages best practices culled from a half million hours of support experience across clients to develop and train your assistant, whereas clients of other VA companies may need to be much more involved in training their assistant.

Security: Prialto’s team works in secure offices on its own IT system with complete security processes in place, while other virtual assistants might work out of their home on their own computers.

Proactive Approach: Prialto’s team is focused on offloading processes to improve your productivity and being proactive on your behalf, leveraging admin to strategically pull your workflow forward, while other companies may be focused on completing low-level tasks that you define and send to your assistant.

Real-Time and Phone Support: Prialto’s team is on-call throughout your service hours and provides you a phone number you can call for direct access to your assistant. If your assistant isn’t available, one of their team is backing them up.

Prialto PAs often make and field calls on your behalf via a local phone number that Prialto requisitions on your behalf.

Scalability: Because Prialto works as a team, documents all your processes, and is focused on constant process improvement, they say that they can quickly scale with your organization. In home-based models, each new executive may require a new assistant which works separately rather than as a team. Prialto assistants work side-by-side so that they can share knowledge and learn on your behalf.

Backup and Continuity: Prialto’s team-based approach means that at any time 4-5 other teammates across its three offices know your processes, which are documented in the Prialto system. Prialto says that this minimizes your downtime if an assistant is out on vacation, sick or leaves the company. If you hire directly, through Upwork or another home-based platform, you may be left on the hook to replace your assistant and re-train a new person from scratch.

Plans and Pricing

Pricing starts at $1200 per month, and includes up to 50 hours of dedicated support, plus backup assistance when your VA is unavailable.

Prialto boasts that all these support features are available at a price in line with other US-based assistant services, but it also admits that they require a higher commitment from its customers to achieve this.

Andy Mowat, Prialto co-founder and former Elance.com executive, explains that “Prialto provides all this enterprise-grade support at rates that are similar to companies like Zirtual and that are far less than what you might pay a lower-level admin to sit in your office in Los Angeles, New York, or San Francisco.”

He adds that to get the most out the service, it’s best if clients have “a minimum of 12 hours a week of need. That’s the only way we can marshal the resources to consistently provide the high-level of support around which we are building our brand.”

More Info

To learn more about Prialto, fill in the contact form below and they’ll be in touch!

Prialto Alternatives

The challenge in finding a viable alternative to Prialto is that not many competitors have this level of specialization and infrastructure. With companies like Zirtual, Uassist.ME, or even other firms in the Philippines, you might one day achieve the level of integration and sales support Prialto promises, but I imagine it will take some time investment in training.

Have you worked with Prialto? If so, please be sure to drop in a quick review below to help others with their VA search.

The post Prialto appeared first on Virtual Assistant Reviews.

7 Virtual Assistant Services is a virtual assistant company with offices in the US, UK, Philippines, and India.

The company started operations in 2015 providing virtual assistant services to doctors and realtors. They have since added a full range of virtual assistant services aimed at small to medium-sized businesses.

About 7 Virtual Assistant Services

7 Virtual Assistant Services has sales offices in the UK and US. They also have a team of medical virtual assistants based in their US offices, and their other virtual assistants used to service small and medium-sized businesses are based in the Philippines and India.

This enables them to have points of contact for their UK and US clients while leveraging the cost-effective hourly rates of using staff based in the Philippines and India.

When you sign up with 7 Virtual Assistant Services a member of their senior staff will contact you to talk through your requirements and build a plan going forward.

They will then choose the best-suited assistant and send you their plan with milestones and dates for completing the work. They manage their assistants to ensure everything stays on track.

Services

7 Virtual Assistant Services’ virtual assistants are ready to handle a wide range of tasks. They group their services into three main areas they specialize in:

Doctors / Medical Professionals

They offer assistants trained and experienced in assisting doctors and medical professionals.

They can provide personal assistance handling scheduling, calendar management, and bookings. “7” also does transcribing, research work, and other tasks to free up time for busy medical professionals.

Realtors / Mortgage Loan Officers

Their assistants can post ads, set up meetings with clients, manage your social media, track and report on competitors, manage your calendar, research real estate trends in your area, and more.

Small to Medium-Sized Businesses

They have a team of virtual assistants experienced in handling all those day-to-day tasks involved in running a business.

This includes administration, customer service, data entry, marketing, writing services, website management, transcription services, and much more.

Plans and Pricing

7 Virtual Assistant Services has three different pricing plans for their general virtual assistants as follows:

• Basic – $99 per month for 10 hours ($9.90 per hour).
• Premium – $285 per month 30 hours ($9.50 per hour).
• Platinum – $450 per month for 50 hours ($9.00 per hour).

Virtual Assistant Assistant Exclusive: Use referral code VAR-10, VAR-30, or VAR-50 for $10, $30, or $50 off your first month of service for each 7 Virtual Assistant Services package.

With each of their plans, you’re introduced to a dedicated virtual assistant to work with and each plan offers a different range of services and skills from your assistant.

Their Max Basic plan enables you to outsource a wide range of administrative tasks. Such as those day-to-day routine tasks, calendar management, scheduling appointments, online research and data entry.

Their Max Premium plan also includes content writing and transcriptions services, and their Max Platinum plan brings in SEO, marketing, graphic design, and website management assistance.

It’s always a good idea to check exactly what services are offered and the skills the assistant you’re going to be working with has before committing to a plan, so I recommend going through your requirements with a member of their team.

For their healthcare assistants you need to contact a member of their team for a customized quote.

7 Virtual Assistant Services Alternatives

If price is a decision factor, there’s no shortage of virtual assistant companies to choose from in the Philippines. For affordable part-time dedicated support, I like OkayRelax and for full-time help I’ve had some success with OnlineJobs.ph.

(OnlineJobs is more of a virtual job board instead of a true VA company.)

Closer to home, I know Uassist.ME in El Salvador works with quite a few real estate clients and may be worth checking out as well.

Still, if you’re in the market for real estate or medical support, it doesn’t hurt to contact 7 Virtual Assistant Services to see how they can help.

Your Turn

Have you worked with 7 Virtual Assistant Services? If so, please leave a brief review below to help other with their decision.

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