Can I Afford a Virtual Assistant? Let’s Talk About the Numbers

One of the biggest things that stops small business owners from outsourcing is cost.

“I’d love some help, but I’m not sure I can afford it.”

I completely understand that.

When you run a small business, every outgoing matters. Taking on support can feel like a big commitment – particularly when you’ve spent years doing everything yourself.

But I think there’s another question worth asking too:

What is it costing you to keep doing everything yourself?

How much does a virtual assistant cost?

Let’s start with our rates, because I’d much rather be upfront about them.

At The PA Portal, our current rates are:

• £37 per hour for retained support, with a minimum of five hours per month (£185).
• £39 per hour for ad-hoc support, where you need help with a particular task or project rather than regular monthly support.

There are no salaries, National Insurance, pensions, holiday pay or employee benefits to factor in. You pay for the support you need.

And you don’t necessarily need as many hours as you think.

What can you actually get done in five hours?

Five hours might not sound like a lot.

But think about five uninterrupted hours focused entirely on the things that have been sitting on your list.

That could mean getting your inbox under control, managing appointments, updating your CRM, scheduling content, preparing a newsletter, chasing outstanding information or finally sorting out a process that hasn’t been working properly.

It could also be a mixture of all of those things.

When you’re doing these jobs yourself, they tend to be squeezed between client work, meetings, phone calls and everything else demanding your attention.

Five focused hours of support can achieve a surprising amount.

And importantly, those are five hours you get back.

Your time has a value too

This is the part that’s easy to overlook.

Let’s say you spend five hours a month doing admin that somebody else could do for £185.

What could you do with those five hours instead?

If your own work generates more than £37 an hour, spending that time on client work or business development could mean the support effectively pays for itself.

But I don’t think the calculation always has to be purely financial.

Maybe those five hours mean you finish work on time.

Maybe you stop doing your invoices on a Sunday.

Maybe you finally have time to think about where your business is going instead of constantly dealing with what’s directly in front of you.

That has value too.

You don’t need a full-time PA

I think there’s still a misconception that getting administrative support means employing somebody or committing to a huge number of hours.

It doesn’t.

That’s one of the reasons The PA Portal works with a team of trusted associates.

Different businesses need different things, and those needs change.

You might need five hours of regular support each month. You might need more. Or you might simply need somebody to come in, sort out a particular project and hand it back to you in a much better place.

You don’t need to create a job for somebody.

You simply buy the support your business actually needs.

What are you paying for?

You’re not just paying someone to complete a list of tasks.

You’re paying for experience.

A good VA should be able to come into your business, understand how you work and spot ways of making things easier.

Sometimes that means taking a task off your hands.

Sometimes it means creating a better process so the task takes less time in future.

And sometimes it’s saying, “There’s actually a much easier way to do this.”

At The PA Portal, our team supports clients across admin, diary and inbox management, email marketing, websites, social media, systems, processes, research and more.

It also means we can match the right person in our team to the type of support you need, rather than expecting one person to be an expert in absolutely everything.

When is the right time to outsource?

You don’t need to wait until you’re completely overwhelmed.

In fact, I’d rather you didn’t.

If you’re regularly spending your evenings catching up on admin, putting off important projects because you don’t have time, or turning down work because you’re already at capacity, it’s worth looking at what you’re doing yourself.

Start by tracking those little jobs for a week.

How much time are they really taking?

Then ask yourself the question I come back to again and again:

Does this actually need me?

If the answer is no, outsourcing might be more affordable than you think.

Start small

You don’t need to hand over everything.

Our minimum monthly retainer is five hours, which is often a really good place to start.

We can look at what’s taking up your time, what makes sense to delegate and which member of our team is best suited to support you.

And if regular support isn’t what you need, we also offer ad-hoc and project-based support at £39 per hour.

No enormous commitment. No handing over the keys to your entire business.

Just the right support, where you need it.

If you’d like to find out what five hours of support could look like in your business, book a discovery call and let’s have a chat.