Best Executive Assistant Companies for Founders
TL;DR Executive assistant services split into real categories: premium dedicated (Delegate, BELAY, Boldly, Athena, Base), managed team coverage (Prialto), budget-dedicated (Time Etc, Zirtual, Double), LatAm-dedicated (Viva Talent), and region-specific options (DonnaPro for EU coverage). Commitment length, buyout terms, and employment model vary meaningfully across all of them and are worth checking as closely as the headline price. Delegate is the only premium-dedicated option on this list with no annual commitment or buyout fee attached. Why Pricing Alone Doesn’t Tell You Much Every provider in this space can quote a monthly rate. Far fewer disclose the commitment length, buyout terms, or employment model behind that rate until you’re deep into a sales call. If you’re not yet sure whether an EA is the right hire versus a general VA, that’s worth settling first, since it changes which providers on this list are even relevant to you. This comparison checks each provider directly, on their own current site, rather than repeating headline pricing without the terms attached. Quick Comparison Model Talent Region Employment Type Commitment Delegate Dedicated Philippines Managed placement Month-to-month, 30-day notice Base Dedicated US 1099 contractor Subscription, no long-term lock-in disclosed BELAY Dedicated US 1099 contractor Custom, not publicly disclosed Boldly Dedicated US & UK W2 employee Subscription, no long-term lock-in disclosed Athena Dedicated Philippines Employed by Athena 12-month commitment, $24,000 buyout to hire directly Viva Talent Dedicated Latin America Managed placement Not publicly disclosed Prialto Managed team Offshore, US-managed Managed service Monthly, setup fee waived on annual plans Time Etc Dedicated US Contractor Month-to-month, rollover hours Double Dedicated + software US Contractor No long-term contract Zirtual Dedicated US Contractor Month-to-month DonnaPro Dedicated European Union Contractor Zero commitment for the first 2 months Third-party figures checked against each provider’s own current site or cross-verified across multiple independent sources as of September 2026. Confirm directly before signing, terms change. 1. Delegate.co Model: Dedicated, one-to-one placement. Best for: Founders who want dedicated, Philippines-based EA support, with real vetting, structured onboarding, and no long-term contract standing in the way. What they do: Full-time dedicated executive assistants handling calendar protection, inbox triage, travel coordination, and operational support. Core capabilities: Vetting through paid work simulations rather than a standard interview, with recruiting, onboarding, access managed through a password manager rather than shared credentials, payroll and benefits handling, and a dedicated client success partner all bundled into the rate. Pricing: Scoped per placement rather than a flat published rate. Month-to-month, with a 30-day notice to terminate, no trial period, and no buyout fee if you’d ever want the relationship structured differently. 2. Base Model: Dedicated, US-based contractor placement paired with proprietary delegation software. Best for: Founders who want domestic talent plus a built-in tool for calendar summaries and briefing generation. What they do: Dedicated executive assistants who own calendar, inbox, travel, and projects, matched through a company built specifically around EA placement for 14 years. Core capabilities: Reported matching within 5 business days, with subscription support starting at 40 hours a month and temporary or trial-to-hire options also available. Pricing: Subscriptions reportedly start around $2,800/month for 40 hours, with earlier-career EA rates from around $45/hour. Assistants are 1099 contractors, fully vetted onto Base’s own talent bench before matching. 3. BELAY Model: Dedicated, US-based contractor placement. Best for: Founders who want the largest, most established provider with services beyond EA support. What they do: Virtual assistants, bookkeepers, social media managers, and website specialists, with EAs handling calendar, travel, email, and recurring admin. Core capabilities: Founded in 2010, headquartered in Atlanta, with team members across 48 states. Accepts a reported top 3% of US-based applicants and publishes a 93% first-match success rate. Pricing: Not published, quoted after a consultation. Assistants are 1099 contractors, worth factoring in if continuity and compliance are priorities. 4. Boldly Model: Dedicated, premium subscription staffing. Best for: Founders needing coverage across US and UK time zones. What they do: Senior executive assistants, plus project management, marketing, and customer service support on a monthly subscription. Core capabilities: Staff are W2 employees with benefits, founded in 2012, with reported experience drawn from Fortune 500 backgrounds. Offers a buy-out option if you want to hire your assistant directly later. Pricing: Reported starting rate around $2,600/month for 40 hours, scaling toward $4,800+ on higher-hour tiers, with specialist work outside core EA tasks billed separately. Confirm current rates directly. 5. Athena Model: Dedicated, Philippines-based, employed directly by Athena. Best for: Founders wanting a premium, full-time dedicated EA with structured delegation coaching, and who are comfortable with a real annual commitment. What they do: Full-time dedicated Executive Partners covering calendar, inbox, research, travel, and personal tasks, working US hours. Core capabilities: A reported sub-1% applicant acceptance rate, a structured onboarding bootcamp, and ongoing delegation coaching for the founder. Pricing: Runs around $3,000/month with a 12-month commitment, roughly $36,000 annually, and a buyout fee of up to $24,000 if you later want to hire the assistant directly. This is cross-verified across seven independent sources; some competitor comparisons describe this as a “90-day commitment,” which does not hold up against the weight of independent evidence and should not be relied on. Whether “dedicated” genuinely means one-to-one exclusive support varies by provider more than the word suggests, worth verifying directly with any company on this list. 6. Viva Talent Model: Dedicated, Latin America-based, fully managed placement. Best for: Founders wanting real-time US-hour overlap from a nearshore assistant, without an offshore overnight shift. What they do: Full-time dedicated executive assistants covering scheduling, inbox management, travel, meeting prep, and cross-team coordination. Core capabilities: Reports over 300 executives matched, a sub-4% re-match rate within the first 30 days, sub-24-hour onboarding claimed, and assistants trained on common AI tools including Claude, Notion, and Zapier. Pricing: Not published on Viva’s own site; third-party estimates for LatAm-based dedicated EA placements generally range from roughly $1,500 to $2,500 a month, confirm directly before assuming a specific figure. 7. Prialto Model: Managed team, not a single dedicated hire. Best for: Founders who want built-in backup coverage rather than a single-person
Virtual Assistant vs. Executive Assistant: What’s the Difference?
TL;DR: A virtual assistant executes defined, repeatable tasks, inbox sorting, scheduling, data entry, customer replies. An executive assistant owns context: protecting a calendar, filtering an inbox with real judgment, anticipating priorities before being asked. The difference isn’t seniority, it’s where judgment sits in the role. Hiring the wrong one for your actual bottleneck is a common, avoidable mistake, and it usually shows up as either constant escalation or an expensive hire sitting underutilized. Why This Question Comes Up So Often Founders often hire a VA expecting EA-level judgment, then wonder why the arrangement creates friction. The issue is rarely competence, it’s an expectation mismatch. Both roles support busy people. Both often work remotely. Both touch a calendar and an inbox. But the real difference isn’t where they sit, it’s what they own. If you’re still not sure which side of this line your actual problem falls on, that’s worth settling before comparing candidates or providers, since the mismatch tends to get blamed on the hire when it’s really a scoping problem. The Core Distinction: Execution Layer vs. Judgment Layer A virtual assistant is process-driven. You define the workflow, document the steps, and hand off the task. The VA executes consistently against that documentation. Success looks like task accuracy, turnaround speed, and adherence to the process. An executive assistant works alongside leadership to manage complexity and filter interruptions. The primary function isn’t administrative volume, it’s judgment: deciding what actually needs the founder’s attention, anticipating needs before they’re articulated, and making calls that don’t have a clean, written-down right answer. Neither role is more valuable in the abstract. They solve different problems. Detailed Comparison Virtual Assistant Executive Assistant Primary focus Task and workflow execution Priority and workflow management for one leader Input required Clear SOPs, step-by-step instructions High-level goals, business context, judgment calls Autonomy level Operates within predefined guidelines Makes autonomous scheduling and filtering decisions Calendar role Books appointments per direct instruction Protects the calendar, audits time allocation, sets buffers Inbox role Sorts and drafts using set templates Filters high-stakes items, flags urgency, acts on the founder’s behalf Client model Often one dedicated account, sometimes shared across a small pool Dedicated to one leader or a small leadership team Ideal fit Repeatable back-office and customer-facing work Direct leverage for founders, CEOs, and partners What a Virtual Assistant Handles Inbox and calendar scheduling based on standard rules CRM and database maintenance, tagging, updates, cleanup Guest communication and property operations for short-term rental businesses specifically, including the full range of day-to-day operational tasks that a trained STR assistant typically owns Bookkeeping support, invoice matching, expense categorization Marketing administration, scheduling posts, uploading content A VA is the right hire when the process is clear, the rules are documented, and the actual bottleneck is volume of work, not judgment about what to do with it. A useful starting exercise is listing the specific tasks eating the most time before comparing candidates against that list. What an Executive Assistant Handles Calendar protection, declining low-priority requests and reserving real focus time Inbox triage that requires judgment, not just sorting, prioritizing urgent items and drafting bespoke replies Meeting preparation, briefing documents, stakeholder background, follow-up tracking Travel logistics with real-time contingency handling Operational follow-through across stakeholders without the founder personally chasing every item An EA is the right hire when the bottleneck is the founder’s own cognitive load, not just task volume. Where the Line Actually Blurs In practice, the distinction isn’t always clean. A VA managing STR guest communication is making real judgment calls, when to escalate a dispute, how to de-escalate an upset guest, that look closer to EA-level decision-making than pure task execution. The same is true of handling a guest damage claim, which requires documentation discipline and tone judgment well beyond a typical task-execution role. And plenty of EAs handle repeatable admin alongside the higher-judgment work. The more useful question isn’t “which title do I need,” it’s how much of the role requires judgment versus following a defined process. A role that’s mostly repeatable with occasional escalation is a VA role. A role that’s mostly ambiguous, context-dependent decisions is an EA role, even when some daily tasks look similar on paper. How to Know Which One You Actually Need Can you write a step-by-step guide for the work? If the tasks follow a fixed pattern, replying to guest inquiries, updating records, hire a VA. If the work requires discretionary judgment and prioritizing trade-offs, hire an EA. Is the bottleneck bandwidth or decision fatigue? More manual tasks than hours in the day points to a VA. A day derailed by meeting coordination, context-switching, and tracking deliverables across a team points to an EA. What’s the actual scope of access required? Task-specific tool access, a PMS, a CRM, a billing dashboard, fits a VA working within assigned boundaries. Broad visibility across inboxes, board materials, and strategic plans fits an EA, and either way, access should be scoped and revocable, not handed over wholesale by default. Common Mistakes Worth Avoiding Hiring a VA when you actually need an EA. The calendar’s a mess, follow-ups are slipping, and a VA gets hired to “help with admin.” Months later, nothing’s changed, because the role needed judgment calls the VA was never hired or trained to make. If the real need is someone making decisions on your behalf, that’s an EA hire, even at a higher rate. Hiring an EA when you actually need a VA. A founder with a manageable, repeatable task list hires premium EA-level support, and the role ends up underutilized because there isn’t enough high-judgment work to justify it. Starting with a VA for execution and upgrading later, once the founder’s own time specifically becomes the constraint, is usually the better sequence, and it’s worth knowing this distinction holds regardless of whether the placement comes through a managed provider or a freelance arrangement. Expecting VA-level pricing to deliver EA-level judgment. A role hired and priced for task execution won’t reliably anticipate needs or make discretionary calls, that’s
How to Hire a Virtual Assistant in 2026: Step-by-Step Guide
TL;DR: Hiring a virtual assistant well comes down to eight sequential steps: define the role with a real job brief, choose a hiring model, set a realistic budget, screen and interview properly, run a paid test task before committing, put access and security in place, sign a real contract, and structure the first 30 days. Most hiring regrets trace back to one of these steps being skipped, not done poorly. Why Most VA Hires Fail Most business owners don’t fail at hiring a virtual assistant because they picked the wrong person, they fail because they never built a process to pick the right one. A vague job post, an interview run on gut feel, no test task, nothing in writing, and then confusion when the engagement fizzles out in six weeks. Hiring well isn’t luck. It’s a repeatable process anyone can run. If you’re still unsure whether now’s actually the right time, that’s worth settling before starting the process below, since a half-committed hire tends to fail for reasons that have nothing to do with the candidate. Step 1: Define the Role Before You Recruit The most common hiring mistake is recruiting for a fuzzy “I need help” instead of a defined role. The businesses that get real value from a first hire start with 2 to 3 clearly written tasks, each described as a single sentence with a clear output, not a vague list that sounds comprehensive but gives a new hire nothing concrete to execute against. This is also the point to get clear on role type, a general VA and an executive assistant solve genuinely different problems, and hiring for the wrong one is a common, avoidable mismatch. A one-page job brief should include: The role and hours (e.g., part-time admin support, 20 hrs/week, with time zone overlap specified) The actual mission in one sentence (what this role protects or frees up) Core tasks, named specifically Tools the role requires Must-have qualifications What success looks like, in measurable terms That single page does triple duty: it filters out poor-fit candidates, becomes the backbone of your interview, and later becomes the basis for a paid test task. Step 2: Choose Your Hiring Model There are three basic paths, and the honest version of this comparison matters more than the flattering one. Freelance Marketplace Direct Hire Managed Service Who vets and screens You, entirely You, mostly The provider Time to start Days to weeks of sifting Weeks Typically 1–2 weeks Management load High, all yours High, mostly yours Shared Replacement if it fails Start over yourself Re-hire from scratch Provider handles it Best for Best for Long-term role, cost priority, ops bandwidth available Ongoing role, low risk tolerance, less setup time A freelance marketplace puts sourcing, vetting, and management entirely on you. A managed service bundles those functions into the arrangement, though what’s actually included varies by provider more than the word “managed” suggests, which is what the higher headline rate is actually paying for. Compare total cost of hire, not just the number on the page, before ruling anything out on price alone. Step 3: Set a Realistic Budget Pricing spreads widely across role, country, and hiring model, and most of that spread has an explainable cause rather than being random. Managed, dedicated placements typically run $1,300 to $3,200 a month depending on scope. Offshore rates for general admin support commonly fall between $5 and $17 an hour depending on experience and country, while specialized US-based support runs considerably higher. Before fixating on the rate itself, it’s worth calculating what an hour of your own time is actually worth, a concept popularized as the “buy-back rate” by entrepreneur Dan Martell: roughly your target annual income divided by your working hours, then halved as a rule of thumb. If your time is worth $80 an hour and a capable VA costs $15 an hour, every low-value hour you delegate is a real trade in your favor, not just an added expense. Step 4: Screen for Real Signal, Not Just a Resume Standard interview questions like “are you organized” produce unreliable answers. Behavior-revealing questions tell you more: “Walk me through how you’d handle an inbox you’ve never seen before. What’s your first hour?” “Tell me about a task you misunderstood. How did you find out, and what changed?” “When you’re blocked and I’m offline in a different time zone, what do you actually do?” “How do you handle sensitive passwords or client data?” If you’re evaluating an agency rather than an individual, ask specifically how their candidates are tested before placement. A resume review and a friendly call tell you far less than a structured, scenario-based evaluation. And if “dedicated support” is part of the pitch, verify what that word actually means at this specific company before assuming it’s a one-to-one arrangement. Red flags worth screening out: vague, copy-paste applications that ignore your brief, reluctance to do a paid test task, and overclaiming expertise with no specific examples to back it up. Step 5: Run a Paid Test Task Before Committing The interview tells you who’s likeable. A paid test task tells you who’s actually capable, and it’s the step most people skip. Give a small, real task that mirrors the actual job, set a clear deadline, and pay for the candidate’s time. A simple scoring approach: Criterion What to look for Followed instructions Did exactly what was asked, in full Quality of work Accuracy and attention to detail Communication Clear written English, a useful summary, smart clarifying questions Judgment Flagged the right things, made sensible calls on ambiguity Timeliness Delivered on deadline, or communicated early if at risk Weighting instruction-following and quality highest is deliberate. A talented but unreliable hire creates more work than they remove. Step 6: Confirm How Access and Security Actually Work Before handing over a single login, know how credentials will be shared and revoked. Access should run through a password manager, never a direct message, with permissions scoped to what the role actually
Virtual Assistant Data Security: A Practical Access-Control and Offboarding Checklist
TL;DR Nearly 90% of former employees and contractors retain access to at least one corporate system after they leave, and roughly 20% of data breaches involve a former team member within six months of departure. The fix isn’t avoiding delegation, it’s layered access control: share credentials by reference through a password manager rather than by value, keep two-factor codes on your own device for high-stakes accounts, grant the minimum access each role actually needs, and run the same offboarding checklist every time a relationship ends, regardless of how it ends. Why This Actually Matters Most operators think about VA security as a hiring-stage question: is this person trustworthy. The bigger, more overlooked risk sits at the other end of the relationship. Osterman Research found that 89% of former employees were able to access sensitive corporate applications well after their departure. Gartner’s data shows only 44% of companies revoke all access within 24 hours of someone leaving. Per the Ponemon Institute, roughly 20% of data breaches involve a former employee or contractor within six months of their exit. And Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report attributes about 22% of breaches globally to stolen or compromised credentials. None of this is specific to virtual assistants. It’s what happens whenever access control isn’t treated as a standing operational process. But it applies directly to VA relationships, since remote, contractor-based access is exactly the kind of arrangement that tends to get set up quickly and revisited rarely, the same pattern behind most of the operational bottlenecks that eventually force a founder to bring on support in the first place. The Core Principle: Access by Reference, Not by Value Most VA security problems trace back to one habit: sharing the actual password rather than sharing access to the account. A password manager built for teams, not a personal one, fixes this directly. You share a login by reference, the assistant clicks through and gets logged in automatically, and the actual credential is never displayed, copied, or pasted into a chat log or email. This single change eliminates the riskiest and most common failure mode: a password sitting in a searchable, forwardable Slack thread or email chain indefinitely. A practical note on tool choice: 1Password and Bitwarden both support hidden-password sharing through team or business plans, letting an assistant use a login without ever seeing the credential, and both support instant, centralized revocation. LastPass offers similar functionality, but it’s worth knowing LastPass disclosed a significant security incident in 2022 in which an attacker accessed source code and later customer vault data, worth factoring in if you’re choosing between providers today. Whichever tool you use, the “hide password” feature is a strong deterrent, not an unbreakable seal, a sufficiently determined, technical person could still extract a password the browser has to fill in somewhere. Treat it as one layer among several, not the whole defense. A Three-Tier Access Framework Not every account needs the same level of lockdown. Sorting systems into tiers up front tells you exactly which controls to apply where, rather than defaulting to either “share everything” or “share nothing.” Tier Examples Recommended access Tier 1: Restricted Banking, payment processors, domain registrar, primary email Owner-only, or read-only if genuinely needed for a task Tier 2: Sensitive CRM, PMS, social and ad accounts, customer data Named individual account, role-scoped permissions, 2FA retained by owner for irreversible actions Tier 3: Operational Scheduling, project boards, shared inboxes Vault-based shared access, standard credential hygiene Running your own accounts through this framework before delegating anything usually reveals that the genuinely critical logins, Tier 1, should rarely if ever leave your hands. This matters especially for financial systems: the same discipline that keeps property management books accurate depends on clear ownership of who can actually touch the numbers, not just who can view them. Most of a VA’s actual day-to-day work, meanwhile, lives comfortably in Tiers 2 and 3, and the same tiered thinking applies directly to how documentation and SOPs should be structured so access levels and process documentation stay aligned rather than drifting apart over time. Two-Factor Authentication: Delegate the Work, Keep the Veto Two-factor authentication requires a second proof of identity on top of the password, a rotating code or a device tap. Even if a credential leaked somewhere, an attacker without that second factor generally can’t get in. For delegated access specifically, 2FA does something more useful than just blocking attackers: it lets you delegate day-to-day work while keeping a hand on anything irreversible. If the authenticator lives on your own device for high-stakes accounts, banking, domain registrars, ad accounts, any sensitive action that re-prompts for a code, changing a password, adding an admin, moving money, routes back through you automatically. A few practical notes: prefer an authenticator app over SMS codes, since SMS is vulnerable to SIM-swap attacks in a way app-based codes aren’t. Store backup recovery codes in your own vault, not a shared one, so you’re never locked out if a device is lost. And for lower-sensitivity, frequently-used operational logins, it’s reasonable to let a password manager store the second factor alongside the credential, reserve keeping codes strictly on your own device for the genuinely high-stakes accounts. An Overlooked Risk: Account Health, Not Just Data Here’s a risk that has nothing to do with hackers and rarely gets mentioned in security guides. Social and advertising platforms actively watch for logins from geographically distant locations in a short window. If an operator logs in from one country and a VA logs into the same account from another country minutes later, the platform can interpret that as account compromise, and lock, flag, or checkpoint the account entirely. A shared-region VPN solves this quietly: both the operator and the VA appear to log in from the same general location, which stops the platform from flagging the pattern. This is worth setting up specifically for location-sensitive accounts, social platforms, ad managers, and some payment dashboards, but it’s not necessary for tools that already support proper multi-user access
8 Things to Know Before Choosing a Dedicated VA
TL;DR A dedicated virtual assistant works exclusively for your business, all their working hours committed to your tasks and processes. A shared VA divides time across multiple clients and works from a task queue. Almost every VA company markets “dedicated support” somewhere on its homepage, but almost none mean exactly the same thing by it. Here are eight things worth verifying before you sign anything. The “Dedicated” Marketing Problem When administrative friction starts stalling growth, the search for a virtual assistant usually begins with the same promise: dedicated support. In practice, “dedicated” ranges from a genuine full-time, one-to-one account allocation to a fractional assistant who’s your primary point of contact while quietly juggling two or three other clients behind the scenes. When your assistant is context-switching across multiple companies, you end up absorbing the management overhead that “dedicated” was supposed to eliminate in the first place. Here are eight things worth verifying before you sign anything. 1. Ask What “Dedicated” Actually Means at This Company There’s no industry-standard definition. For some providers, dedicated means one assistant works exclusively on your account, full stop. For others, it means one assistant is your primary point of contact but gets pulled into other client work during slow periods. Both get marketed with the same word. Ask directly: Does this person work on anyone else’s account, ever, under any circumstance? If part-time, are those hours blocked and reserved exclusively for my account? Is exclusivity a written policy, or just something said verbally? A provider with a genuinely dedicated model answers without hesitation. A vague one, “we do our best to keep continuity,” is itself the answer. 2. Check What Happens During High-Demand Periods This is where a lot of “dedicated” claims quietly break down. Ask specifically what happens if the provider is short-staffed or another client has an urgent need. Ask directly: If you’re short-staffed, does my VA get pulled to cover other accounts? During peak season, does my assistant maintain full allocation to my account? Has a dedicated VA ever been reassigned mid-engagement? What was the reason? A provider with a genuinely dedicated model has a clear, specific answer. Hedging, or a description of a “flexible resource pool,” means you’re evaluating a shared model dressed in dedicated language. 3. Separate Executive Support From Operational Support A dedicated executive assistant, calendar management, inbox triage, travel coordination, is a different role from a dedicated operational VA handling recurring tasks like data entry, CRM updates, or customer communication. Some companies specialize in one and market broadly as if they cover both equally well. Executive support is high-touch, judgment-dependent work requiring deep familiarity with your preferences and communication style. Operational support is process-driven, recurring work that benefits from consistency and SOP adherence. A provider strong in one isn’t automatically strong in the other. Get specific about which one your actual bottleneck requires before evaluating anyone against it. 4. Ask About the Actual Client-to-Assistant Ratio “Dedicated” should mean one assistant, one account, not one assistant quietly split across two or three clients who are each told they have dedicated support. Ask directly: What’s your client-to-assistant ratio for dedicated placements? Is my VA working on any other accounts, even occasionally? If part-time, how many other clients share that VA’s time? The genuine dedicated ratio is 1:1. Some executive support providers run fractional arrangements with multiple executives sharing one assistant, which is a legitimate model, just a different one than dedicated. A provider confident in their actual model answers this without hesitation. 5. Understand What Happens If the Assistant Leaves Every dedicated relationship eventually faces this. The real test isn’t whether a replacement is offered, it’s whether the institutional knowledge, your specific workflows, tone, and preferences, actually transfers to the new person, or whether you’re starting from zero. Ask directly: What’s your replacement timeline if my VA leaves? How do you document and transfer institutional knowledge during handoff? Do you maintain SOPs centrally, or does that knowledge live only with the VA? What does your replacement guarantee actually cover? A provider with a strong continuity model maintains central documentation and a structured handoff process. One without leaves you rebuilding from scratch every time someone leaves. 6. Check How Scaling From One VA to Several Actually Works A founder who needs one dedicated assistant today may need three specialized ones in a year. Ask whether additional hires plug into the same existing structure, documentation, communication norms, oversight, or whether each new hire means rebuilding onboarding from scratch. Ask directly: If I add a second or third VA, do they integrate into the same systems and SOPs? Is there a management layer or account manager as I scale? How is task ownership handled between multiple VAs on one account? This matters more than it seems early on, since the second and third hire are usually where founders discover whether a provider’s model actually scales or was only ever built for one. 7. Ask About Contract Terms Tied to the Dedicated Model Dedicated support sometimes comes with longer minimum commitments than pooled or freelance options, since the provider is allocating a person’s full capacity to one account. That’s not inherently a red flag, but it’s a real tradeoff worth knowing upfront. Ask directly: What’s the minimum term for a dedicated placement? What does exiting early actually cost? Is there a trial period, and how does it actually work? Pricing for genuinely dedicated placements through managed providers typically runs $1,300 to $3,200 a month depending on scope and hours, though this varies meaningfully by provider and should be confirmed directly. What matters more than the number itself is whether the commitment length matches how confident you actually are in the fit after a short trial. 8. Verify Fit for Growing Teams, Not Just Solo Founders Some providers build their dedicated model around a single founder’s calendar and inbox. Others are built to support a small team, multiple stakeholders, shared priorities, and a communication structure that doesn’t collapse when more than one person is
How Much Does a Virtual Assistant Cost in 2026? Pricing by Role, Country, and Hiring Model
TL;DR Virtual assistant pricing spans roughly $4 an hour for general offshore admin support to $85 an hour for specialized US-based expertise. Three variables set the price independently: where the assistant is based, how specialized the role is, and whether you’re hiring through a marketplace, direct hire, or managed agency. A US in-house hire’s true first-year cost typically runs 1.25x to 1.4x their base salary once payroll taxes, benefits, and onboarding are counted, a comparison most VA pricing guides skip entirely. Why VA Pricing Spans a 15x Range Ask five VA providers what they charge and none of them are lying, they’re just describing different products wearing the same job title. Geography, specialization, and hiring model each move the price independently, and most pricing pages only show you one variable at a time. Freelance marketplace Low headline rate Direct hire Medium headline rate Managed agency Single flat invoice Self-vetted, high turnover risk Founder handles payroll, compliance, replacement Vetting, onboarding, replacement included Freelance marketplace Low headline rate Self-vetted, high turnover risk Direct hire Medium headline rate Founder handles payroll, compliance, replacement Managed agency Single flat invoice Vetting, onboarding, replacement included A general admin VA in the Philippines costs meaningfully less than a specialized bookkeeping VA in the same country. A US-based executive assistant costs more than either, regardless of model. And the same role at the same experience level can cost two or three times more or less depending on whether you’re hiring a freelancer directly or working with a managed agency that bundles recruiting, training, and replacement coverage into the rate. This guide breaks all three variables down separately, then puts them together. Pricing by Country Cost of living, not skill or quality, drives most of the gap between regions. Region Hourly range Full-time monthly Best for Philippines $5–$17/hr $1,000–$2,800 English proficiency, mature BPO infrastructure India $4–$18/hr $700–$3,000 Technical, data, and analytical work Latin America $8–$30/hr $1,400–$4,800 Live US-hours overlap, bilingual support South Africa $5–$25/hr $900–$4,000 Native English, UK and US East Coast overlap Kenya and Nigeria $4–$8/hr $700–$1,100 Budget-conscious, full UK-day overlap United States $18–$65/hr $3,200–$10,400 Domestic presence, regulatory-specific work United Kingdom $20–$60/hr $3,200–$9,600 UK business hours, client-facing roles Ranges aggregated across multiple independent salary and market-rate sources as of mid-2026. Individual providers vary. The Philippines has become the default choice for a lot of English-speaking VA work, not because it’s the absolute cheapest option (India and parts of Africa can undercut it), but because of English proficiency, a mature BPO infrastructure, and decades of built-up cultural alignment with US business norms. South Africa carries a modest premium over the Philippines that buys native-level English fluency and a timezone that overlaps the full UK workday and US East Coast mornings, real-time collaboration that async-only offshore markets can’t offer. Latin America’s premium reflects the same logic in reverse: LATAM-based assistants work the same hours as US teams without an overnight shift. $4–$85/hr Full market range across all countries, roles, and hiring models $4,700–$5,475 SHRM’s average cost per hire for a US employee, recruiting costs alone 1.25x–1.4x True first-year cost of a US employee relative to base salary once benefits and onboarding are included Pricing by Role Skill and specialization move price more than almost anything else once geography is held constant. Role Entry level Mid-level Senior/specialits General admin $15–$25/hr $18–$28/hr $25–$40/hr Customer service $15–$22/hr $18–$28/hr $25–$40/hr Bookkeeping $18–$25/hr $22–$35/hr $35–$75/hr Marketing support $18–$28/hr $25–$40/hr $40–$85/hr Executive assistant $20–$30/hr $25–$45/hr $45–$85/hr These are US-market rates specifically, aggregated across independent salary and marketplace sources (ZipRecruiter, Indeed, Glassdoor, Upwork, PayScale). Offshore rates for the same roles run meaningfully lower, following the country ranges above. Specialization compounds with experience rather than adding to it: a senior bookkeeping VA isn’t “senior admin plus a bit more,” it’s a genuinely different skill set, which is why the top of that range roughly triples the bottom. Pricing by Hiring Model Freelance marketplace Direct hire (self-managed) Managed agency Typical hourly range $10–$35/hr $4–$45/hr depending on country Often billed monthly, $1,300–$3,200/mo dedicated Vetting Self-managed by you Self-managed by you Handled by the agency Onboarding support None None Usually included Replacement if it doesn’t work out Start over yourself Start over yourself Often included Best for One-off, well-defined tasks Founders with bandwidth to manage directly Ongoing, recurring operational support The headline rate on a marketplace or a direct-hire job posting is genuinely the lowest number on paper. It’s also the number that excludes the most: your own hours sourcing and vetting candidates, ongoing management overhead, and the cost of starting over if the hire doesn’t work out. A managed agency’s monthly rate looks higher in isolation because it’s pricing in work that the other two models simply shift onto you. The Hidden Cost of a US Direct Hire This is the comparison most VA pricing guides skip, and it matters because a $25/hr in-house hire and a $25/hr VA aren’t actually the same cost once everything else is counted. According to SHRM’s benchmarking data, the average cost per hire in the US runs $4,700 to $5,475 for non-executive roles, and that figure covers only direct recruiting costs, job postings, recruiter time, interview hours. It doesn’t include what happens after the hire. Once payroll taxes (7.65% employer-side FICA, a fixed federal obligation), health insurance, paid time off, training, and the productivity ramp during someone’s first few months are factored in, the true first-year cost of a US employee typically lands at 1.25x to 1.4x their base salary. A $60,000 salary hire often costs $75,000 to $85,000 in actual first-year spend, and that’s before factoring in what happens if the hire doesn’t work out and the process restarts. None of this makes a US direct hire the wrong choice. For roles that genuinely require domestic presence, specific regulatory knowledge, or real-time collaboration during US hours, it’s often the right one. But it’s a materially different cost basis than a job posting’s hourly rate suggests, and comparing that rate directly against a VA’s hourly rate without adjusting for it compares two different
7 Managed vs Freelance VA Differences for Founders
“Just hire a freelancer” sounds like the obvious, cheaper answer until a founder actually tries to scale operational support around one. Post a job for “admin help,” and forty applications come in within a day, most with polished profiles and glowing reviews you have no way to verify. The real decision between managed and freelance isn’t about price alone. It’s about what happens after you’ve made the hire. Here are seven concrete differences worth understanding before choosing either path. 1. How Much Vetting Actually Happened Before You Met Them On a freelance marketplace, you’re doing the vetting yourself, reading profiles, running interviews, checking references, usually without much visibility into whether a candidate’s past work was actually good or just well-reviewed by clients who never checked either. A five-star rating tells you someone was polite and hit a deadline once. It doesn’t tell you whether they can handle an irate customer email at 11 PM without escalating it further. Managed services front-load this work. A premium provider might accept a small fraction of applicants who apply, running them through structured interviews, skills tests, and reference checks before a single candidate ever reaches you. The vetting happened weeks earlier. You’re just inheriting the result of it. 2. Dedicated Support vs. Piecing Together Contractors This is the distinction most founders underestimate until they’re living it. Imagine six months into freelance hiring: one contractor for social posts, another for email support, a third who disappeared after two projects and was replaced by someone new who’s still learning your product. None of them know why your refund policy has an exception for a specific customer segment, because nobody stayed long enough to absorb that context. A managed service typically places one dedicated person who works consistently within your business and builds that kind of institutional knowledge over months, not weeks. The difference shows up exactly in moments like that, an edge case nobody explicitly documented, handled correctly because the person handling it has actually been there before. 3. Who Builds the Onboarding With a freelancer, you’re usually building training materials from scratch: a Loom video here, a half-finished Notion doc there, and a lot of “just ask me if you’re not sure” that turns into you fielding the same three questions every week for a month. There’s no existing onboarding infrastructure behind the hire, because the freelancer’s last client had a completely different workflow. A managed service typically has that structure built in already, meaning the person starting with you is being onboarded into a known process, with someone else’s job specifically being to make sure the ramp-up actually happens, rather than you improvising one alone at 9 PM after a full day of work. 4. What Happens If It Doesn’t Work Out Picture this: six weeks into a freelance engagement, replies get slower, quality dips, and then one Monday, silence. No notice, no handoff, just an unanswered message thread and a half-finished project. Now you’re re-posting the job, re-interviewing, re-explaining everything from the start, while the work that was supposed to be off your plate sits there waiting. Managed services generally include some form of replacement guarantee and a management layer that catches performance issues before they reach that point. This is one of the clearest practical differences between the two models, and it’s the one most founders don’t think about until they’re the one staring at an unanswered thread. 5. Cost Isn’t Just “Cheaper vs. More Expensive” Freelance hourly rates look attractive on a spreadsheet, until the real cost gets counted: the hours spent managing, training, and starting over when someone disappears. Managed services price differently, often a flat monthly rate that includes oversight, but “managed” isn’t one price point. Some premium services build their entire model around a single dedicated executive assistant working full-time, exclusively for one founder, often running several thousand dollars a month with a year-long commitment attached, and sometimes a steep fee if you ever want to hire that person away directly. Other managed models are built with a much lower point of entry and more flexibility built in. Neither structure is universally right. What matters is knowing which “managed” you’re actually comparing against a freelance rate, because the range inside that one word is enormous. 6. How Support Scales as You Grow A freelance relationship rarely expands cleanly. Need bookkeeping help six months after hiring a social media freelancer? That’s an entirely new search, a new set of interviews, a new person learning your business from zero, with no connection to the person already working with you. A managed service is typically built to add specialized roles within the same relationship, since the onboarding infrastructure, documentation, and oversight already exist and simply extend to cover the new function, often without the founder personally running a fresh hiring process from scratch. 7. Who’s Actually Managing the Relationship This is the difference underneath all the others. With a freelancer, the founder is the manager: checking in, catching quality slips, handling awkward conversations about missed deadlines personally. That’s an entire job layered on top of everything else a founder is already doing. With a managed service, that oversight layer sits between the founder and the day-to-day work. For a founder whose actual bottleneck is management bandwidth, not task volume, that’s often the entire reason to choose managed support in the first place, not because the work itself is different, but because someone else is now the one having the awkward conversation. Which One Actually Fits Freelance marketplaces make real sense for narrow, well-defined, one-off projects, a logo redesign, a single translated document, something with a clear finish line and no ongoing relationship required. Managed support makes more sense for recurring, evolving work where the relationship needs to grow alongside the business, and where the founder’s actual constraint is bandwidth to manage, not just tasks to complete. Most founders who eventually move from freelance to managed support do so for the same reason: the freelance model worked fine right up until
9 Things to Know About Philippines-Based STR VAs
Most STR founders comparing virtual assistant options eventually land on the same question: is a Philippines-based VA actually a good fit for a business that runs on guest communication and constant availability? The short answer is usually yes, but the useful answer requires understanding a few specifics most comparisons skip over. Here are nine things worth knowing before you commit. 1. English Proficiency Here Isn’t a Marketing Claim The Philippines consistently ranks near the top of Asia on English proficiency indexes, and this isn’t incidental. English has been part of the formal education system for generations, and it shows up directly in how VAs handle nuanced guest communication, not just basic scripted replies, but reading tone, de-escalating a frustrated message, and writing naturally rather than translating internally first. 2. The Talent Pool Is Large and the Industry Is Mature This isn’t a small, novel labor market. The Philippines has well over a million people working in BPO and virtual assistant roles, supported by an industry that’s operated for more than two decades and represents a meaningful share of the country’s economy. That maturity matters practically: established training pipelines, experienced recruiters, and a labor market that already understands what US and Australian clients expect. 3. The Time Zone Is an Advantage, Not a Drawback The Philippines sits roughly 12-13 hours ahead of US time zones, which means a VA working their normal daytime hours is covering your overnight. For STR operations specifically, this directly solves one of the most common pain points founders face: a guest messaging at 2 AM your time gets a prompt, professional reply instead of a message sitting unanswered until morning. 4. Cost Isn’t One Number Rates vary meaningfully depending on specialization, experience, and hiring model, not just a flat “Philippines is cheap” assumption. A generalist administrative VA costs meaningfully less than someone experienced specifically in STR guest communication, dispute handling, or dynamic pricing tools. Anchoring to the lowest number you find online, rather than the rate for the specific skill set your operation needs, is one of the more common mistakes founders make when comparing options. 5. Legitimate Providers Bundle in Statutory Benefits Properly structured agency arrangements in the Philippines include statutory benefits as part of the cost, government-mandated social security, health insurance, and a 13th month payment, among others. This matters for two practical reasons: it affects what a genuinely fair rate actually looks like, and it’s a real signal of legitimacy. A rate that seems unusually low relative to everything else on the market is sometimes a sign these obligations aren’t being met, which tends to show up later as unexpected turnover. 6. There Isn’t Just One Hiring Model Philippines-based VA support generally comes through a few different structures: a managed agency that recruits, vets, trains, and continues overseeing the relationship; an agency that places a candidate and then hands off ongoing management to you directly; large BPO seat-based outsourcing built for bigger teams; or self-serve platforms where you handle recruiting and management entirely yourself. Which model fits best depends heavily on how much oversight capacity you actually have, not just on price. 7. “Filipino VA” Doesn’t Automatically Mean “STR-Trained VA” Strong English and general VA experience are genuinely common. Specific fluency in Airbnb’s resolution center process, dynamic pricing tools, PMS platforms, and STR-specific guest communication is not automatic, and it’s a mistake to assume otherwise. This is the same distinction that matters across the entire VA hiring process regardless of geography: a talented generalist still needs real STR-specific onboarding before they’re actually productive on day one. 8. Region Within the Philippines Affects the Talent Pool Metro Manila tends to have deeper access to VAs with prior corporate or larger-scale BPO experience, often at a modest premium over provincial rates from cities like Cebu or Davao. Neither is inherently better for STR work specifically, but it’s worth knowing this variation exists rather than assuming all Philippines-based talent comes from the same pool with the same background. 9. Management Structure Matters More Than Country of Origin The single biggest factor in whether a Philippines-based VA relationship actually works isn’t really about the Philippines at all. It’s whether there’s real onboarding, clear documentation, and ongoing oversight built into the arrangement. A well-managed Philippines-based placement with proper training consistently outperforms a poorly managed one anywhere else in the world, and the reverse is just as true. Putting This Together None of these nine points suggest Philippines-based staffing is automatically the right or wrong choice. They’re the specific factors that actually separate a strong fit from a mismatch: real STR-specific training, a fair rate that reflects the actual skill involved, a hiring model that matches your oversight capacity, and management structure that doesn’t leave the relationship to chance. Comparing this directly against US-based support is worth doing before deciding either way, since the right answer usually depends more on your portfolio size and guest volume than on geography alone. Explore Delegate Delegate places dedicated Philippines-based STR virtual assistants, pre-trained on guest communication, listing management, and the PMS tools that run day-to-day operations, with the onboarding and oversight structure built in from day one. Book a strategy call to see how that placement process actually works. Explore More Resources Schedule A Call
How to Vet VA Agencies That Manage Onboarding
Every virtual assistant outsourcing agency will tell you they have a great onboarding process. That’s not information, it’s a marketing copy. The actual job of vetting isn’t asking whether they are onboard well. It’s verifying it, before you’ve signed anything and before your first assistant is already three weeks into a placement that isn’t working. Most failed outsourcing relationships trace back to the same root cause: undocumented processes and an onboarding period that never actually happened in any structured way. That’s not a reason to avoid outsourcing. It’s a reason to verify the onboarding claims an agency makes before you’re the one dealing with the fallout. Here’s a three-phase process for doing that verification properly. Phase 1: Before You Ever Get on a Call Most of the useful signals are available before you talk to anyone. Check whether the agency publishes anything concrete about their own onboarding process, a documented framework, a sample timeline, case studies that mention specific onboarding steps rather than vague “we support our clients” language. An agency that treats onboarding as a real differentiator usually talks about it specifically, not just in a bullet point buried in a features list. Check reviews specifically for onboarding-related complaints. A pattern of “great assistant, but I had to train everything myself” across multiple reviews is a stronger signal than any single glowing testimonial. Phase 2: What to Actually Ask on the Discovery Call The questions matter less than what counts as a real answer. Here’s the difference in practice. Ask: “Walk me through exactly what happens in the first week after a match.” A weak answer sounds like: “We make sure the transition is smooth and provide ongoing support.” Nothing here is checkable. It’s a sentence that could describe any agency in the industry. A strong answer sounds like: “Day one, the assistant gets system access and a recorded overview of your workflows. Days two through four, we shadow-review their first tasks and flag anything off. By day five, we do a check-in call with you specifically to confirm expectations are aligned before week two starts.” This has specific, verifiable steps you could hold them to. Ask: “If we don’t have documented SOPs yet, what happens?” A weak answer: “That’s fine, we can figure it out together.” This means you’re building the onboarding process yourself, with their assistant as an unpaid guinea pig. A strong answer: “We’ll document your workflows during onboarding as part of the engagement, and you’ll have a written SOP library within the first month even if you started with nothing.“ This is the actual differentiator worth paying for, an agency that builds the documentation rather than requiring you to have it already. Ask: “What happens if the assistant isn’t the right fit after 30 days?” A weak answer talks about contract terms and cancellation fees. A strong answer talks about a replacement process, what triggers it, how fast it happens, and whether onboarding effectively restarts from zero or picks up from documented context that’s now retained regardless of who’s actually doing the work. Phase 3: Verification Before You Sign Anyone can describe a good process on a call. This phase is about confirming it’s real. Ask for a redacted sample SOP or onboarding document. An agency that actually builds these should be able to show you one, with client-specific details removed. If they can’t produce anything concrete, the process you were told about on the call likely doesn’t exist in a repeatable form. Ask to speak with a current client, specifically about onboarding, not general satisfaction. Most agencies will offer a reference. Fewer will offer one when you specifically ask them to speak to how onboarding actually went, which is exactly why asking for that specificity matters. Ask about a time onboarding didn’t go well and how they handled it. Every agency has had a placement go sideways. The ones worth working with can describe what happened and what changed afterward. The ones that claim it’s never happened are either new enough to not have data, or not being straight with you. Red Flags That Should End the Conversation A few signals are serious enough to warrant walking away rather than probing further. An agency that can’t describe its onboarding process without reaching for a generic phrase like “smooth transition” or “seamless support” likely doesn’t have a real one. An agency that positions all documentation and training as your responsibility from day one is selling you a resume, not a partnership. And an agency that can’t produce a single reference willing to discuss onboarding specifically, after multiple requests, is asking you to take their entire pitch on faith. None of these are dealbreakers in isolation. Two or more together is a real pattern. The Two-Question Shortcut If you only have time for a short version of this whole process, these two questions do most of the work: what specifically happens in week one, and can I see a real onboarding document. An agency with a genuine system answers both immediately and specifically. An agency without one talks around both, and that gap is usually all the information you need. Explore Delegate Delegate builds documented onboarding into every placement from day one, including SOP development for clients who start with nothing written down. Book a strategy call and ask us the questions above. We’ll answer them specifically. Explore More Resources Schedule A Call
How to Choose a VA Agency With SOPs in 2026
Hiring a virtual assistant has gotten easier. Choosing the right agency to hire one through hasn’t. Most agency websites promise the same things: experienced talent, quick matching, dedicated support, competitive rates. What they don’t all offer is the thing that actually determines whether the hire works out. That’s not the assistant’s resume. It’s what happens in the weeks after the match, when someone has to transfer institutional knowledge, define responsibilities, and build the structure the assistant needs to operate without constant hand-holding. When a virtual assistant relationship doesn’t work out, the assistant is rarely the actual problem. The business lacked the infrastructure to support successful delegation: undocumented processes, unclear responsibilities, inconsistent training, and performance expectations that shifted week to week. That’s an onboarding failure wearing a hiring failure’s clothes. This guide covers how to evaluate a VA agency based on operational readiness and SOP support, not just candidate matching. Why Talent Matching Alone Isn’t Enough Traditional staffing models focus almost entirely on matching a candidate to a job description, on the assumption that finding the right person solves the problem. It doesn’t, not by itself. A genuinely capable assistant dropped into a chaotic, undocumented environment produces mediocre results. A good assistant supported by clear systems produces far more than their resume would predict. That gap is what “operational readiness” refers to: documented workflows, training materials, communication standards, escalation procedures, and clear performance expectations surrounding the assistant, not just the assistant’s individual skill. The stronger those systems are, the faster a new hire reaches full productivity. This isn’t unique to virtual assistants. Structured onboarding improves retention by 82% according to a widely cited Brandon Hall Group study, and the same logic applies just as directly to a remote assistant relationship as it does to any other hire. What Good Onboarding Actually Looks Like Onboarding should extend well beyond login credentials and an introductory call. A quality onboarding framework transfers operational knowledge from the founder to the assistant in a structured way, and the best agencies help clients answer a specific set of questions before the assistant starts: What will the assistant own outright? Which tasks require approval first? How should recurring work get documented? What metrics actually define success in this role? Answering these questions before day one removes the ambiguity that causes most early-stage friction. Clear expectations reduce mistakes, speed up the learning curve, and build confidence on both sides faster than a vague “let’s figure it out as we go” approach ever does. Why SOPs Often Matter More Than Years of Experience Consider two assistants. The first has five years of experience but gets no documentation, no defined workflows, and no structured onboarding. The second has solid but less extensive experience and gets detailed SOPs, process maps, and clear expectations from day one. The second assistant will often outperform the first, not because experience doesn’t matter, but because consistency beats guesswork. SOPs create repeatability. They remove unnecessary decision-making from routine work. They reduce dependency on any one person’s memory, including the founder’s. And critically, they make performance measurable against a defined standard rather than a subjective feeling. Agencies that actively help clients build SOP libraries during onboarding, rather than leaving that entirely to the client, tend to produce faster-ramping, more consistent placements. Questions Worth Asking Before You Sign The quality of an agency’s onboarding process often reveals more than anything in their marketing materials. Worth asking directly: How do you onboard new assistants specifically? Do you help document workflows if we don’t have them yet? What happens in the first week after the match? How do you measure performance once someone’s placed? What support exists after onboarding wraps up? How do you handle a transition if the placement doesn’t work out? Agencies with genuinely strong operational frameworks tend to answer these confidently, because onboarding is built into their service model rather than treated as the client’s problem to solve alone. Vague or deflecting answers here are the clearest signal available before you’ve committed to anything. Managed vs. Unmanaged: The Distinction That Actually Matters In an unmanaged model, the agency provides talent and the client handles everything else: training, documentation, ongoing management, performance reviews, and problem resolution when something goes wrong. In a managed model, the agency provides additional oversight throughout the engagement, typically including onboarding assistance, workflow guidance, quality control, and backup support if the original assistant needs to be replaced. For fast-growing startups specifically, managed models tend to deliver better outcomes simply because founders already have enough competing for their attention. The less time spent managing the administrative details of the relationship itself, the more time goes toward the reasons the founder wanted support in the first place. Signals That an Agency Prioritizes Long-Term Success The agencies worth taking seriously share a few traits: they lead with questions about your operational bottlenecks before they lead with candidate profiles, they discuss workflows and documentation before discussing resumes, and they treat delegation as an ongoing process rather than a one-time transaction. If an entire sales conversation revolves around talent alone, with no questions about your existing processes or documentation gaps, that’s often a signal that implementation support past the hire itself is limited. An agency that spends real time understanding your operations before proposing a candidate is usually signaling a more mature onboarding model underneath the pitch. Why This Matters More as the Role Expands Most founders start by delegating inbox and calendar management. Over time, the role tends to expand into CRM management, project coordination, customer success, research, reporting, and process documentation. How far that expansion can go depends almost entirely on onboarding quality. Without documented systems, delegation hits a ceiling fairly quickly, because every new responsibility requires the founder to personally explain context that was never written down. With strong SOPs already in place, an assistant can take on meaningfully more responsibility without that ceiling appearing. What This Means for Choosing an Agency in 2026 As AI tools take over more of the purely administrative work, the