A virtual assistant costs anywhere from about $5 an hour for an offshore freelancer to well past $50 an hour for a US-based assistant. For a dedicated, full-time, managed offshore professional, what you pay depends mostly on how much management is actually included. At Neon Link a full-time Linker starts at $1,995 a month, month to month, which works out to $11.51 an hour with recruiting, day-to-day management, and replacement included. Admin and client success work is $2,295, and specialized or regulated work is $2,995. A 6-month plan lowers each rate. Every number is on our pricing page.
That is the short answer. The longer answer is that "virtual assistant" covers four very different products, and the price tag tells you which one you are actually buying.
The four ways to buy a VA, and what each really costs
| Hiring model | Typical cost | Who manages the work | What happens when it breaks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offshore freelancer (from a marketplace) | about $5 an hour and up | You | You start over, re-hire, re-train everything |
| US freelancer or boutique agency | about $25 an hour and up | Mostly you | You start the search again |
| Offshore placement agency | about $8 an hour and up | You | Maybe a replacement in a few weeks |
| Managed dedicated team | a flat monthly rate per person | The provider | Replacement happens without you lifting a finger |
The first three models sell you a person. The fourth sells you the whole arrangement: the Linker plus the recruiting, the management, the quality checks, and a replacement when someone leaves. That difference is where most of the price spread comes from, and it is also where most of the horror stories come from, when buyers think they bought model four and actually bought model one.
Why the same person can cost under $1,000 a month or several times that
Published full-time prices for offshore back-office professionals start just under $1,000 a month and climb to several thousand. Same region, same talent pool, same forty hours a week. Labor cost does not vary by that much.
What varies is how much of the work you are still doing after you sign.
At the bottom of that range the provider collects under $6 an hour. Out of that they have to pay the professional a wage worth staying for, recruit, train, manage, cover tools and overhead, and still make a profit. The math only closes if something gives: the pay, the management, or the word "dedicated." Ask anyone quoting under about $1,200 a month which one it is. You will learn more from that answer than from the rest of the sales call.
At the top of the range you are usually paying for a brand and a US-based account layer, not for more capability in the person.
We sit in the middle on purpose, and we publish our rates instead of quoting them on a third call. What the rate actually buys is the next section.
The costs that never show up on the pricing page
When buyers compare a cheap hourly freelancer against a managed Linker and call the freelancer cheaper, they are usually ignoring four line items:
Your management time. An unmanaged VA needs three to five hours of your week for task assignment, review, and feedback. At any reasonable value for your time, that is hundreds of dollars a month of invisible cost.
Churn. Freelance VA relationships fail often, and every failure costs you re-hiring time plus four to eight weeks of lost productivity while the replacement learns your business. With a managed Linker, replacement is the provider's job. At Neon Link, if the fit is wrong in the first 60 days, we swap them at no cost. If they leave later, we recruit the replacement at no charge.
Recruiting. Screening offshore candidates properly takes 20 or more hours per hire if you do it well, and one bad hire if you do not.
Setup fees. Some providers charge hundreds or thousands of dollars to start. We do not charge a setup fee. Your first invoice is your first month.
The comparison that actually matters: a VA vs a US hire
Most buyers are not choosing between two VA providers. They are choosing between a VA and a local hire, or a VA and continuing to do the work themselves at 9pm.
Take the Bureau of Labor Statistics median pay for a US office clerk and load it with payroll taxes, insurance and paid leave using the BLS employer cost series. That is about $5,200 a month, or $62,400 a year, for one person you still have to recruit, train, and manage yourself. We run that same math on every comparison we publish and we show the method.
A Neon Link Core Linker is $23,940 a year at $1,995 a month, with the recruiting and management done for you. Before you count a single hour of your own time you get back, the gap is most of the US salary.
Want your exact number? Run it through the cost calculator on our homepage. It takes about a minute.
What the monthly rate includes at Neon Link
- A dedicated, full-time professional you know by name, working your processes on your hours.
- Recruiting and screening done for you. You interview the finalist before anyone starts.
- Day-to-day management, coaching, and quality oversight by a Neon Link manager.
- If the fit is wrong in the first 60 days, we swap them at no cost. After that, if they leave, we recruit the replacement at no charge.
- Pay, equipment and a secure setup, all on one invoice. You never run offshore payroll.
- No setup fee. Month to month on every plan.
Core ($1,995) covers screening, data entry and processing work. Standard ($2,295) covers admin, client success and general back office work. Expert ($2,995) covers regulated and specialized lanes like medical billing, credentialing and bookkeeping. All of it is public on the pricing page, because hiding prices until the second sales call is a category habit we refuse to pick up.
FAQ
How much does a virtual assistant cost per hour? Offshore freelancers start around $5 an hour. US-based VAs start around $25 and often run well past $50. A Neon Link Core Linker works out to $11.51 an hour, billed as a flat $1,995 a month, or $10.93 an hour on a 6-month plan.
Why are some full-time VAs under $1,000 a month? Because something in the model is thin: the professional's pay, the management layer, or how dedicated your person really is. At under $6 an hour of revenue there is not enough left to fund all three.
Is a virtual assistant cheaper than an employee? For most back-office roles, yes. Against the loaded cost of a US office clerk the gap is tens of thousands of dollars a year, and the managed model takes the recruiting and supervision off you as well.
What tasks can I hand to a VA at this price? Admin, scheduling, inbox and calendar, data entry, CRM upkeep, client follow-up, bookkeeping support, and industry-specific work like insurance agency operations. Our industry pages show the rate for each lane.
What is included in a managed VA's monthly rate? At Neon Link the rate covers recruiting and screening, day-to-day management by a Neon Link manager, and replacement. If the fit is wrong in the first 60 days we swap them at no cost. There is no setup fee, and you interview the finalist before anyone starts.
Is there a contract or a minimum term? Month to month. A 6-month plan lowers each rate, so a Core Linker drops from $1,995 to $1,895 a month.
Where are Neon Link's virtual assistants based? In the Philippines, India and Pakistan. Our Virtual Assistant / Back Office Specialist posting shows exactly what we hire for and the bar a person has to clear.
Ready to see what a dedicated Linker would look like for your business? Book a call with a real human who will tell you if this is not a fit.