How can you be sure that your Virtual Assistant rates are set correctly?
What you will charge your clients depends largely on the type of tasks you do for them.
Your level of expertise or experience can also affect the rate you charge (though not always!)
It is very important to determine a starting rate that makes sense for your service offerings – one that values your ability and expertise, and that your clients will be able to pay you.
Here are some rate estimates for a variety of different levels of Virtual Assistants.
Beginner
Like any job, when you start out, you might earn less as you try to gain experience. Then as you get better at what you offer your clients, you can give yourself a pay increase. But being a beginner VA doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to start at the bottom of the VA pay ladder. If you have lots of corporate experience in a job, that counts as VA experience as well. You need to base your starting rate on your skill level. Many VAs start out at around the $20-$25 per hour rate.
Generalist
Some people think that a generalist should earn less money than someone who specializes in more technical or strategic tasks. But a generalist is really one of the many specialized areas that a VA can choose to provide support for their clients. The very word ‘general’ suggests that this is not a specialized area, but it is. There are amazing receptionists, admin assistants, customer service representatives, marketing implementers, and more – all of whom are considered general admins. Generalists typically charge in the area of $25-$40 per hour.
Executive Assistant
Working with higher level C-Suite executives has usually been the place for the Executive Assistant – and this is no different in the virtual world. When you are working at this level, you are highly skilled, flexible, perhaps even accredited. This position is generally the highest paid admin position in a corporate situation, and the same holds true for the VA industry. You are a higher level admin and probably are going to charge your clients somewhere between $40 and $50 per hour (although you might charge a flat monthly rate instead of billing hourly).
Experienced VA
No matter what services you provide, as I mentioned above, the more experience you have, the higher your VA rate will be. Why would this matter if you were still offering general services? Because the more you work as a VA, the more experienced you get at efficiency, time management, productivity, and perhaps have put processes in place that allow you to take less time to do things than you used to (or that other VAs take). An experienced VA usually clocks in between $30 and $40 per hour.
Specialist
As you focus in on specific services – perhaps some tech services like graphics design, website creation, specialized marketing, project management or even as an OBM, you will enter the higher level of the pay scale for VAs. The better you are at something, the more you charge – like any business. Specialist rates generally start at $50 per hour and go over $100 in some cases – or again, can be charged out at flat project rates that reflect these billable amounts.
These estimates are not cast in stone, but will give you an idea based on your level of experience what you should be looking to charge your clients.
Are you charging the right VA rates?
To figure out what you need to charge your clients, you begin with determining how much you need to earn each month (be sure to include all estimated expenses), and divide that by how many billable hours you are available to work during that month.
What you will charge your clients should fall in line with the detailed level estimates above. If not, consider your numbers and do the math again.
For help with your calculations, download my Rate Calculation package and figure it out using your own numbers. You can get the package here.