Virtual PAs can take the administrative burden off your hands, particularly if you are self-employed or run a small business where you need to focus on bringing in business, and don’t have the funds to splash out on a full-time wage.
A virtual assistant provides assistant services on a per hour basis remotely, similar to a freelancer, where you pay them for the work they do rather than a salary.
What services can a virtual assistant provide?
There are countless ways a virtual assistant can support your business: here are 5 service providers* worth checking out if you need help managing your administrative workload.
DailyPA is a task-based virtual assistant covering the UK and Europe. Founded in 2012, they have a lot of administrative, business and technical experience specialising in reservations, events, scheduling, diary management, entertainment bookings, client research and more.
They charge a monthly subscription that starts at £89 per month for 3 hours’ worth of tasks. A 9 hour plan is £259 a month, while the “Pro” plan costs £499 for 18 hours. A typical task might, of course, only take 15 minutes, but these plans give you the flexibility to offload bigger tasks, with each accruing time to be charged against your monthly total.
Hello VA is owned by Renowned Investment Ltd and has been in business since 2016. They provide virtual assistants for entrepreneurs, professionals and small to medium-sized businesses looking to outsource their most time-consuming tasks. They cover a large number of tasks:
Given the breadth of the service they can provide, when signing up you need to be prescriptive about what you want out of them.
Prices start at £75 per week for 20 hours, rising to £125 per week for 40 hours.
Since 2014, Virtalent have been recruiting highly experienced, professional virtual assistants specialising in helping small businesses and entrepreneurs who are looking to outsource some of their workload and free up some of their time. The company uses a task management portal which allows clients to log in and view their activity, from virtual assistant hours worked, jobs completed, outstanding current invoices, and any notes or feedback.
Prices start at £260 for 10 hours a month, rising to £1,380 for 60 hours a month. At the top end, this is the equivalent of paying £23 per hour. There’s flexibility in that if you need extra hours one month - they can be added to your chosen plan at that plan’s hourly rate.
https://web.timeetc.com/virtual-assistant/
Time Etc has been around since 2007 and is one of the most established virtual assistant companies operating in the UK. Since day 1, they’ve completed over 1.8 million tasks, and are focused on helping small business owners and entrepreneurs streamline their processes while making their lives much more efficient.
Their services include administrative assistance, marketing support and writing, customer service, sales and lead generation, accounting and bookkeeping, social media, recruiting and more, with rates ranging from £23 to £26 an hour, sold in blocks of 10 to 60 hours.
Hubberly have been around since 2012 and help busy individuals, entrepreneurs and small to medium-sized businesses looking to outsource some of their workload. While based in the UK, many of their virtual assistants are located in India, meaning their rates can be very competitive. Their services include data entry, virtual assistance, writing and editing, social media management, logo and graphic design, mobile app development and broader website development and maintenance.
Prices start at £160 for 20 hours a month, rising to £880 for 160 hours a month.
Each virtual assistant service offers an initial chat to discuss your business needs and to establish the number of hours you’ll require every month. You should expect to get a detailed breakdown of costs and services before signing up to anything. The main benefit of using a third-party company over sourcing your own freelance virtual assistant is that someone else will have already done the candidate vetting and screening. Whichever service you choose to help support your business growth, it’s always best to research the landscape and read reviews.
For more tips on how to grow your business, check out our Growth Library.
*Disclaimer: Accord Mortgages does not endorse or recommend any commercial products, processes, or services within the Growth Series as such mention of these, cannot be construed as an endorsement or recommendation.