Tried hiring a virtual assistant for $15 an hour and it actually worked out

I always thought VAs were just for big companies, but after burning out on data entry for weeks, I gave one a shot through a site called Belay. Three months in, she handles my invoicing and I'm actually getting home for dinner now. Has anyone else found a good price point for part-time help?

3 comments

3 Comments

alice_kim1mo ago

Belay's pricing is pretty standard for the quality you get - I pay $18 an hour through a smaller agency called Prialto and my guy handles scheduling plus inbox zero every morning. Once you realize you can ghostwrite replies for a VA to send, it feels like cheating at life.

grant.nina23d ago

Wait, is the ghostwriting thing actually common? I thought I was being slick doing that but felt kinda shady about it at first. My friend Sarah tried this with her VA last year and it backfired hard. She wrote these super casual replies for her VA to send to clients, but the VA sent them from the wrong email account by accident. The client replied back to the VA's email thinking it was Sarah, and the poor guy had no clue what was going on. Took her like two weeks to fix that mess and explain it was just a "miscommunication." So yeah, it works great until technology decides to ruin your whole day.

vera_campbell1mo ago

Oh man, @alice_kim nailed it, I hired a VA through Zirtual for $18 an hour to handle my calendar and client follow-ups, and it's been a total game changer for getting my evenings back.