Is $10 Per Hour Too Much for A Virtual Assistant?

Thats a good question...

I guess it depends on the experience of the person and what they can offer.

Also $10 per hour in some countries would be great money
Where as others not so great.....

So to me also, I think currency exchange can be an important factor also...

But I do think if you have a great assistant $10/hour is a bargain price for someone who can take away the chores you may not have time to do....

If I had someone who could do it all....

The things i tend to focus on are

Blog Setup
Adding the artcles and video tutorials to the blog etc
Link Building....
Help Desk also....

I tend to still do niche maket and keyword research myself as i like to have control of that...


Take Care

Tas

Depends what your looking for. I know some UK based assistants that charge $70/hr but they are not doing link tradining etc...

I was paying my VA $5/hr and was really happy with them but just lost them due to someone making a better offer. If you find someone good overseas and they do the business for you then paying a little over the standard price will ensure you dont lose them.

It depends on how much they will make you per hour.

If you are paying someone $5 per hour, they should in theory, make you $10 per hour, or more.

If they cost you $50 per hour, they should make you $100 per hour.

As long as that person is bringing value to you more than you are paying them, it is worth you expense in the short run.

Why not hire them for 10 hours work, wait a week and see how much business their work brought you from those ten hours, then decide if you want to keep them on.

It helps to have one if your time is worth more than what you would be paying. That said, it's pretty hard to find someone trustworthy, and that has been the reason that's holding me back from hiring one thus far.

I have not used this but I understand that using odesk you can see the VA screen from time to time to see that they are actually working when they are supposed to be.

Is $10 per hour too much?

No, but....

It depends on the circumstances.

Personally, in my own business, I have people writing content for me whenever I can. It's the worst part of this thing for me.

I love writing blog posts of all kinds, shape and size within my niches... but the exterior content is a pain for me.

Link building is another.. I've not built links to a site of mine for a long time, but they are still being built

And the major one, is blog creation. I must do about 5 a week... the rest I get somebody else to do for me.

hmm.. i think it's really too high. If I were to hire $10, they would be doing the tasks of project management - creating pdts, testing and tweaking copy, launching pdts, creating graphics etc.

If you are talking about link buildings, you can get around $2-3 per hour.

Pricing depends on what the VA can do for you and their location. I know many excellent VA's who do administrative work for $10 who live in a rural area of the US. That $10 allows them to make more than flipping burgers and stay home with their kids.

On the other hand, I charge much more an hour and I only do internet marketing.

Bonnie

My time is currently sold for $100 - $200 an hour. I do not think $10 is very expencive.

Wow, so far the replies give me good intel on price range.

It's cool. So far we have the following:

High end rate for VA's (all around service) - Higher than $10 per hour
Mid range rate for VA's (all around service) - $5 to $10 per hour
Low end rate for VA's (SEO, Link Building) - $2 to $3 per hour

Outsourcing sites:

oDesk.Com
BestJobs.Ph
OnlineJobs.Ph

Common Task Assignments:

Link Building
Article Writing
Blog Setup
Help Desk

Thanks and keep it coming.

10$ an hour doing what you listed is fine by me
ive got loads of time on my hands and would definitely work for 10$ an hour seems like a fair price to
PM me if your still looking

Hi Chris,

PM sent.

Along with many other things, I do VA work too. I get paid $15. So no I don't think $10 an hour is too much.

What I usually do for clients (really whatever they ask)
Blog commenting
Setting up accounts: Mixx, Facebook, Digg, etc
Blog moderation
Product reviews
Article posting
Bookmarking
Pinging

it depends on what you're looking for and what you need the VA to get done. The rate depends on where the VA is located. You'll know if you're paying your VA enough if the job gets done right and provides quality work. You could maybe try to go a lower rate and your VA has proven the skills they have, then go for an increase.

IMHO, $10.00 per hour fair enough for VA, especially if you're going to hire from the sites mentioned (oDesk.Com, BestJobs.Ph and OnlineJobs.Ph)

I had my fair share of working as a freelancer on those sites and based on my experience people who charge $2-$8 /hour are just starting on with their craft or inexperienced hence making your projects their guinea pigs. So as much as possible stay away from freelancers who charge so low to avoid wasting time and money. Just as what they say you get what you pay for.

Hope that helps. Thanks!

In this case..

If I would to hire a VA.. $10 is considered quite good already especially if the person I'm hiring comes from oDesk.com or BestJobs.ph..

What if I want to pay them monthly instead of hourly.

I've been thinking.. there's always this possibility where we hire them for 5 hours.. and give them a task which can be completed in one hour. So they could do 5 of the same task for 5 hours.

What if they slack off.. for example.. one task took them about 2 hours.

How do we counter this?

Vic,

oDesk & I think other outsource sites require that the contractors use a special desktop software when they do their work. The software basically takes snapshots of the work they are doing & you can view this in their "work diary". This way you can see exactly what they are doing pretty much all the time. It also tracks how much they interact with their computer (i.e. keystrokes or mouse clicks) & thus you also get a feeling if they are doing work & whether or not they are slacking. It's quite a good system. I had caught one of my telemarketers talking to friends on Skype when they were meant to be calling..

Hope this helps..

Now, if you able to pay a VA $50 p/hour. What do you expect from him irrespective of he is doing for you.

If you decide to use one of the outsourcing and pay $10/hr, make sure to limit the number of hours per week. Odesk makes it easy to set your project criteria.

Have you thought about paying per project? If you set a flat fee of $35 or $50 and list what you need accomplished, you may be surprised at the number of applicants for your job. Several of my friends have found that a successful tactic.

It entirely depends on the skills the person needs. $10/hr for most SEO tasks is a decent amount if not overpaid from what I've been reading. I just forwarded some of the warriors for hire deals to my boss and lots of those work out to $2/hr for what it would take a normal person to do!

So unless they are doing something brilliant $10/hr is a lot!

I think $10/hour is fair. Unless you outsourcing to oversea countries, but i think paying monthly and get all the stuff done might work out better. Say 10,000 a month and you have to finish this and that. Good luck!

I guess it really depends. $10.00 an hour is decent enough money to some people but when you compare it to a normal job, it almost the same for a basic hourly wage.

In the hotel industry a typical receptionist can earn anything from £6.50 upwards per hour. The normal average is between £7 and £10 per hour. So if I take it at the normal basic of £6.50 and hour, I would expect to get paid $11.00 and hour. I would say it's worth it.

To be honest I envy VA's... I wish I could work from home for $11.00 an hour or more.

It's all a matter of perspective - it depends on how much work your willing to do, how much skill this work is and the quality of it. I probably wouldn't pay that high unless your really really good.

I personally would not work for anything less than $15 USD an hour.

Chris

yes it's too much.. i can get you one for half that price.

So for the same jobs a freelancer from USA ask more than $20 or $30 per hour whereas for the same jobs a Filipino ask for $5 to $10.So its all about skills and quality you have.

I think it all depends on how much you're making as well as the value of the assistant. If the assistant costs $x.xx/hour, I think they should be at least helping you make that much back per hour if not more.

Personally..... Pay by project.

1. Outline what needs to be done - be specific.
2. Find references or a portfolio depending on what needs to be done.
3. Be loyal to who you hire. If they do good work go back to them time after time. Then when you get into a bind they will set aside a project they are working on and focus on YOU!

I love it. I have a list of 15 coders, graphic designers, etc that I can call on if I get in over my head and I know that they will do good work. Oh btw, freelancer.com is what I use.

More people should look at sites live Fiverr for these kinds of resources. (You can get work done there for as little as $5 bucks).

There are people on these micro sites who have developed the discipline of delivering quality work on time.

More importantly, they usually have a main site where you can get a phone number and actually speak to them!

Don't overlook these resources.

Good luck.

Yah that seems fair to me

well, those who charge more, they set up a definite price and get the work done. Like, why would i pay someone per hour for copy writing?

Its like, some copywriter come here and say "I wrote good copy and i charge $30 per hour. I normally take 10 hours to finish copy, but i am charging per hour coz, i might take more time".

You wont hire him. Instead you will say "Dude, give me a fixed price". Thats why, those who have better skills end up getting per month salary or fixed price for specific jobs.

I think you have to consider how much profit they bring to your company, like most positions really. However it is important to adhere to the financial standards, although the standards can differ greatly between nations. exporting work for cheaper labour is unfortunately common and not just for online businesses. It is important to have a fixed price for all people doing the same work. $10 and hour is below the minimum wage for an adult where I am from. Consider the quality of the work, and as a general rule, ask yourself would you work for someone else's business for that much per hour.

I love Odesk.. seriously less than 4 an hour and you can get amazing workers, just trial everyone first and you will see that there are some amazingly hard working people out there.

$10 buck is very cheap. i have friends that are making least $100 buck a hour

rapidscc,

You may also wish to check out EasyOutsource.com.

Where do they pay that much do tell me ... (:
I have worked as a VA for only $2 per hour and even less.
HIRE ME IF YOU WANT TO HIRE A CHEAP VIRTUAL ASSISTANT FOR ALL YOUR NEEDS (:

I had to say, if I am looking for a virtual assistance, I can get them for much less. I know where some offer numbers between $1 and $2.

It depends on the business and their abilities. Virtual Assistant are not getting paid much better than $15 at top specially as the competition goes overseas

Deciding how much to pay for what work can be tricky. I agree that it needs to take into account the area of the world, and what the cost of living is, what you can afford, the type of work they do, the speed and quality of it, but the most important consideration for the person doing the hiring, is what is my ROI?

Obviously you should try to be decent and fair, but you also have to make a profit and grow your biz. But do not just pay as little as the market will bear, since your best people will soon find better gigs, and it just isn't right anyway imo.

Here is an illustration of how insane and short sighted I think it is to try to save money by paying your helpers as little as you can:

Let's say I find a VA to help me handle SEO for clients that pay $500 a month. Let's also say I'm old school, and do a lot of manual link building, and spend say, 5 hours per month on each customer, and that I have only 5 hours a week to budget toward the work. So by myself, I can't make more than $2K per month with the SEO biz-4 clients is my limit.

So I find a VA that is faster than me, can service each client in 3 hours, and is willing to work 30 hours per week. Let's say I also have a client acquisition strategy that allows me to gain about 10 new clients per month.

Look what that does to my future earnings: 30 hours per week divided by 3 hours per client, times 4 weeks a month makes their capacity, 40 clients. Since I can add 10 new clients the first month, I increase my gross by $5000! And with their capacity, I can do the same each month for 3 more months, until I reach their limit: 40 clients they serve in addition to my current 4.

If I hire someone from bestjobs.ph, for $2 per hour, because that is what they advertised, and they are doing this fantastic work for me, I would be crazy not to give them a fat raise as soon as they satisfactorily service the 10 new clients the first month. I mean, why would I not be delighted to go from paying $240 a month to $400 immediately, leaving me with an extra $4600 profit from their efforts!?

Even if they were idle for 3 weeks, because all I have for them to do is the 10 added clients, I'd be smart to pay them the $400, just to keep them from looking too hard for another gig, and I could maybe find other things they could do until I fill up my roster, like relieve me of the 4 I'm servicing, and handle other tasks.

Then, I could increase it each month until we are at capacity, where maybe it settles at $10 an hour, or $1200 per month for them, enabling me to service the extra 40 clients, which earn me a gross of $20K per month!

How dumb would I have to be to keep paying them $2 an hour just because they are willing to take it? Why chance losing an extra person that allows me to keep working only 5 hours a week, while having increased my gross from $2K to $22K!? It would be an insanely good investment to raise them to the level where they would very likely never consider leaving for a better job, since there probably aren't any.

The point is, you need to save money at the start, until you see how well they do, and their work starts paying for itself, but as soon as they are earning you substantially more than you pay them, make sure to give up some of that extra revenue to reward them, and keep rewarding them over time, as people do become more valuable the longer they do something.

There are not many investments that pay off better than a good worker, as long as you apply them to a good profit model, and that is on you (and the people you bought your WSOs from-lol), not them.

The rate of a Virtual Assistant varies on their experience and knowledge. If you think your VA works well at $10, then $10 is fair enough for your VA. Being a Virtual Assistant is not easy.

Market and Society segmentation is basically what you guys are referring to.

As a VA myself, since being a member of VAnetworks and forums in Australia, what has stood out to me is the awareness level of a person looking for a VA. If you are in Australia and basically an offline business, personal contact and local advertising will bring in the $ rate you are asking for.

For most of us that have max internet exposure and experience, we are aware of overseas VA's working for much less.

And then you get those Australian businesses that just want Australian VA's because we all know how hard the outsourced telecentre workers can be to understand on the phone.

I think the question should not be is $10.00 too much for a VA, but rather, how much is my work worth and what am I happy to work for? My rates are $22.00 per hour upwards - that's for basic admin services, the rate then increases depending on which group of services my clients need, the next rate up being desktop publishing, bookkeeping etc with the higher rate being providing staff training.

I wont even think about taking on an ongoing service or one off job for any less than that. Its not worth my time. But I expose my services to local business and family connected business owners. It helps that they know me and know my work so it comes back to target market and society segmentation.

I think $10 is a reasonable amount, considering the virtual assistant is doing all the things a normal secretary/receptionist would be doing