Belay pricing

Belay pricing: the Belay virtual assistant cost per month Belay actually publishes, and the four numbers it does not.

We sell a competing product, so read this with that in mind and check the arithmetic. Everything below was read from Belay's own websites on September 3, 2026, with every page served to a United States address, because pricing pages geo-detect. Where Belay prints a figure we quote it and show the division. Where it prints nothing we say so, rather than repeating an estimate from a rival agency's blog, which is where almost every number you will find for Belay actually comes from.

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In short

Last updated September 2026

Belay publishes exactly one price on belaysolutions.com: $2,070 a month for 45 to 60 hours of assistant work, with a second tier at $4,500 a month for 60 to 100 hours. Both sit on the social media assistant page, and belaysolutions.com/pricing returns a 404. Divided out, that is $34.50 to $46.00 an hour on the first tier and $45.00 to $75.00 on the second. Belay does not publish a rate for its executive, operations, sales or bookkeeping roles, nor a minimum term, notice period or setup fee. Every figure here was read from Belay's own sites on September 3, 2026, served to a United States address.

Only rate on belaysolutions.com: $2,070 a month
Hours that rate covers: 45 to 60 a month
Effective hourly rate: $34.50 to $46.00
Pricing pages in its 459 URL sitemap: Zero

Calculator

Belay pricing calculator

Set the hours you actually need each month and see which published Belay tier you land in, what an hour really costs you inside that band, and what happens when you cross 60 hours.

Support you need

Hours per month

About hours a week.

Published Belay tier you land in

Over twelve months

Belay
WorkAgent: $1,788.00

What the published rate comes to

Belay, published starting at rate

WorkAgent, flat

$149.00

Not metered in hours, so the number does not move with the slider and there is no band to land in. It covers the recurring, rule shaped half of the work rather than the judgement, which is the split worth making before you buy either.

Both figures are the published starting at rates read from belaysolutions.com on September 3, 2026. Belay publishes nothing below 45 hours and nothing above 100, so anything outside those bands is quoted on a call. Setup fees and minimum terms are not published and are therefore excluded.

What it handles

What you would hand over on day one

The recurring admin most people hand to an assistant first, and what a flat rate agent covers while you wait on a Belay quote.

Inbox triage and reply drafting

Sorts what matters from what does not, drafts the replies you would have written and leaves them for you to send.

Calendar and meeting prep

Schedules, reschedules and confirms, then puts a short brief in front of you before each call.

Follow up and chasing

Tracks who owes you a reply and chases the quote that has not arrived, without you holding the thread.

Research and list building

Builds the prospect list, the competitor scan or the supplier shortlist, with sources attached so you can check it.

Recurring reporting

Assembles the weekly or monthly report from the same sources every time, on schedule and in the same format.

Data entry and CRM hygiene

Keeps records current, deduplicates and fills the gaps so the CRM does not decay between quarters.

Why it works

Four things that move the Belay bill more than the headline rate

The band you land in decides your hourly rate, not the headline

Belay prices in wide hour bands rather than per hour. The published tier covers 45 to 60 hours for the same $2,070, so an hour costs $46.00 if you use 45 of them and $34.50 if you use all 60. That is a 33 percent swing in what you actually pay for an hour, and it is decided entirely by how much work you feed the assistant, not by anything on the price card.

There is a cliff at 60 hours and it is the steepest number on this page

The first tier stops at 60 hours and the next published package starts at $4,500. Going from 60 hours to 61 does not add a proportional amount to the bill. On the published rates it adds $2,430 a month, a 117 percent increase for about 2 percent more work. If your real demand sits anywhere near 60 hours a month, that boundary is worth more attention than the rate itself.

Starting at is a floor, not a price

Both Belay tiers say starting at, and the page adds that a fit call confirms your exact range and timeline. So $2,070 is the least the published tier can cost, not what it will cost. Treat it as the opening number in a negotiation rather than a quote, and ask what moves it up.

Belay publishes a price range and then tells you it does not apply to Belay

Belay's own FAQ says most US based virtual assistants cost $1,200 to $3,000 a month at $30 to $75 an hour, then closes with the line that services like BELAY may cost more up front. So the range Belay publishes is the market's, not its own, and Belay says so. Its actual published rates start at $34.50 an hour, which is already above the midpoint of the range it quotes.

Compare

Belay pricing compared, using published rates only

Belay read from its own site on September 3, 2026. Effective hourly rates and annual totals are our arithmetic on the published figures. Twelve month totals assume the starting at rate does not move.

	Belay tier 1	Belay tier 2	Prialto	Athena	WorkAgent
Published monthly price	$2,070	$4,500	$1,500 to $1,600	$3,000	$149
Hours covered	45 to 60	60 to 100	55 per unit	Full time	Not metered in hours
Effective hourly rate	$34.50 to $46.00	$45.00 to $75.00	$27.27 to $29.09	About $18.75	Not applicable
Twelve months at that rate	$24,840	$54,000	$18,000 to $19,200	$36,000	$1,788
Priced for an EA role	No, social media page	No, social media page	Yes	Yes	Not applicable
Pricing page loads	No, 404	No, 404	Yes	Yes	Yes
Setup fee	Not published	Not published	$250, waived on annual	Not published	None
Minimum term	Not published	Not published	90 days per unit	90 days	None

The tools

What Belay and its closest alternatives actually publish

Belay figures read from belaysolutions.com on September 3, 2026. Prialto and Athena re-verified the previous day. Every page served to a United States address.

Belay

$2,070 a month, on one page only

A US based staffing service that places executive, marketing, operations, sales and social media assistants, plus bookkeeping, accounting clerk, controller and fractional CFO roles. The only published rate is Operator Support at 45 to 60 hours a month starting at $2,070, with a second tier, Social + Content Engine, at 60 to 100 hours starting at $4,500. Both appear on the social media assistant page and nowhere else.

Best for:: Buyers who want a US based assistant with a real bench behind them and are willing to go through a fit call to get a number for their own role.
Strength:: Deep US bench across assistant and finance roles, a long operating history, and the page says assistants come from the top 3 percent of vetted talent. Belay states that 25,000 or more leaders have used its assistants.
Weakness:: belaysolutions.com/pricing is a 404 and its 459 URL sitemap contains no pricing page. Fifteen of its 17 service pages carry no dollar figure at all, including the executive assistant page, so the role most people want is the one you cannot price.

Prialto

$1,500 to $1,600 a month per unit

A managed assistant service built around a unit of 55 hours a month, with an engagement manager and trained backups. Full time is 3 or more units and 165 or more hours, starting at $3,600 a month.

Best for:: Teams that want documented processes and cover when one person is out, and can genuinely use a full 55 hours a month.
Strength:: The only one of the three that publishes a full tier ladder with the hours attached, so you can model it before you speak to anyone.
Weakness:: Its own pricing page shows both $1,500 and $1,600 for the same 55 hour unit. There is a $250 setup fee and a 90 day minimum per unit, and units do not split.

Athena

$3,000 a month

One dedicated full time executive assistant, vetted, trained, equipped and employed by Athena, priced monthly after an initial 90 day commitment.

Best for:: Founders who want one full time person embedded in how they work rather than a block of hours.
Strength:: The simplest price in the category: one number, on one page, for one clearly defined thing. Roughly $18.75 an hour across a full month, the cheapest hour of the three.
Weakness:: The highest monthly commitment of the three, and full time is the only shape sold. At 20 hours a month of real work you are still paying $3,000.

WorkAgent

$149 a month

An AI agent that runs the recurring half of the same list: inbox triage, research, list building, follow up, recurring reports and CRM upkeep. Flat monthly price, no hours to buy, no band to land in, no minimum term and no setup fee.

Best for:: Teams whose handoff work is recurring and rule shaped rather than judgement heavy, and who want a line item that does not move.
Strength:: One published price that does not change with volume, and no boundary to cross at 60 hours.
Weakness:: It is software. It will not take a phone call, sit in a meeting for you, or exercise judgement about a relationship. For that you want a person, and the three above are where to look.

How much does Belay cost?

Belay costs $2,070 a month for 45 to 60 hours of assistant work, which is the only rate published anywhere on belaysolutions.com, and $4,500 a month for a 60 to 100 hour package. Both are marked starting at, and both sit on the social media assistant page. For every other role Belay sells, including the executive assistant that most buyers are actually shopping for, there is no published number and the price comes from a fit call. That is a legitimate way to sell a staffing service, but it means almost every Belay price you will find online is somebody else's estimate rather than Belay's figure.

The one rate Belay publishes, and how we found it

The method matters here, because the obvious answer is wrong. belaysolutions.com/pricing returns a 404 titled Page not found. Stopping there would produce the sentence most roundups run, that Belay publishes no pricing, and it would be inaccurate. So we pulled the sitemap instead. It holds 459 URLs and not one of them matches pricing, price, cost or plans. We then loaded all 17 service pages and scanned each for a dollar figure. Fifteen have none: the executive assistant page, the personal assistant page, and the operations, sales and marketing assistant pages describe the role at length and never mention money, and the financial pages covering bookkeeping, accounting clerk, controller and fractional CFO are the same. Exactly one page quotes a rate, and it is the social media assistant page. We repeated the whole scan on September 3, 2026 and the count was unchanged: 459 URLs, zero pricing pages, 17 service pages, one with a rate.

What the $2,070 tier actually includes, in Belay's own words

This is the part worth reading twice. The tier is called Operator Support, it covers 45 to 60 hours a month, described as about 10 to 15 hours a week, and Belay lists what it does: inbox triage, calendar scheduling and meeting prep; follow ups, task tracking and reminders; coordination with vendors and internal stakeholders. That is executive assistant work, described in executive assistant language. The only place Belay puts a price on it is the page about social media. If you want a Belay EA and you want a number before you get on a call, that $2,070 tier is the closest published comparison in existence, and it is entirely fair to quote it back during the conversation.

Belay pricing per hour, worked out from the published rates

Belay does not advertise an hourly rate, so you have to divide, and the band makes the answer a range rather than a number. At $2,070 for 45 hours you are paying $46.00 an hour. At $2,070 for 60 hours you are paying $34.50. Same tier, same invoice, a third less per hour, decided purely by how much work you actually hand over. The second tier behaves the same way: $4,500 across 60 hours is $75.00 an hour and across 100 hours is $45.00. The practical consequence is that Belay rewards you for having enough work to fill the band and penalises you quietly if you do not, and nothing on the price card tells you that.

The 60 hour cliff, which is the sharpest number on this page

Look at what happens when your workload grows slightly. At 60 hours a month you are inside the published tier at $2,070. At 61 hours you are past it, and the next published package is $4,500. That is $2,430 more a month, an increase of about 117 percent, for roughly 2 percent more work. Annualised, crossing that single hour moves you from $24,840 to $54,000. In practice Belay will quote you something on a call rather than apply the jump mechanically, and the tiers are labelled starting at for exactly that reason. But those are the only two published points, and if your real demand sits near 60 hours a month you should walk into the call knowing the boundary is there and ask directly what happens when you cross it.

Belay publishes three different price ranges across three of its own websites

Belay runs content on three hosts, and each carries a different set of numbers. On belaysolutions.com you get Belay's own rates, $2,070 and $4,500. On resources.belaysolutions.com an FAQ answers how much it costs to hire a virtual assistant in the US with $1,200 to $3,000 a month, and $30 to $75 an hour. On blog.belaysolutions.com a post on executive assistant cost puts the US average at $64,200 a year and says an assistant can cost $2,000 to $5,500 a month. Only the first set is Belay's own price. The other two describe the market. That distinction is easy to lose, and it is worth keeping straight, because a figure lifted from a vendor's explainer is not that vendor's quote. Belay is unusually direct about this: the FAQ ends by saying that services like BELAY may cost more up front. So the company quotes a range and then tells you it may not apply to itself.

Belay's own published rates sit near the top of the range Belay calls typical

Put the two together and you get a check anyone can repeat. Belay's FAQ says US based virtual assistants average $30 to $75 an hour. Belay's own published rates work out at $34.50 to $46.00 on the first tier and $45.00 to $75.00 on the second, so the cheapest hour Belay publishes is above the bottom of the range it quotes, and the most expensive lands exactly on the top of it. That is not a criticism. Belay sells US based assistants from what it calls the top 3 percent of vetted talent, with recruiting, vetting and replacement cover included, and premium positioning is the entire proposition. It is simply useful to know, before a call, that the number you are heading toward is a premium one by the company's own benchmark.

The four things Belay does not publish, and why they matter more than the rate

A monthly rate is only part of a contract. Belay does not publish a minimum term, a notice period, a setup fee, or what happens if you end the engagement early. Its plan cards say only that plans are built around execution capacity and that a quick fit call confirms your exact range and timeline. Third party pages, mostly run by competing agencies, state confidently that Belay requires a twelve month agreement and charges a buyout to leave early. We could not verify any of that on Belay's own sites, so we are not going to repeat it as fact, and neither should you. What we would do is ask for all four in writing before signing: the minimum term, the notice period, any setup or onboarding fee, and the early termination terms. On a $24,840 a year commitment those clauses are worth more than a few dollars an hour either way.

Who Belay is genuinely the right answer for

If what you need is a US based person who can hold a relationship, take a call, sit in a meeting and exercise judgement where the context is unwritten, Belay is a serious option and the price is defensible. Recruiting, vetting, onboarding and cover when your assistant is unavailable are real costs, and paying an agency to carry them is often cheaper than doing it yourself badly. Belay also sells further up the finance stack than most assistant services, through bookkeeping, controller and fractional CFO roles, so a business that wants one supplier for admin and finance has a genuine reason to look there. None of that is undercut by the fact that its pricing is hard to find.

Where a flat rate agent fits instead, and where it does not

The decision that actually saves money is not which agency to pick, it is which half of the work needs a person at all. Judgement, relationships, phone calls, anything where being wrong is expensive: that is what $2,070 a month buys and it is worth it. Recurring, rule shaped work that follows the same path every time, inbox sorting, list building, follow up sequences, the same report every Monday, CRM updates after every call: that follows a fixed procedure, and paying an assistant rate for it month after month is the most common way to overspend in this category. We charge $149 a month flat for that second half, with no hours to buy and no band to land in, and the AI executive assistant page covers exactly what it does and does not take on. Plenty of businesses end up wanting both, which is a perfectly good outcome. What wastes money is buying 60 hours of a person and spending 30 of them on work that never needed one.

FAQ

Questions buyers ask about Belay pricing

How much does Belay virtual assistant cost?

Belay publishes one rate on its website: $2,070 a month for 45 to 60 hours of assistant work, with a second tier at $4,500 a month for 60 to 100 hours. Both appear only on its social media assistant page and both say starting at. Every other Belay role, including the executive assistant, is quoted on a fit call.

How much is a Belay executive assistant?

Belay does not publish a rate for its executive assistant. Its executive assistant page carries no dollar figure at all. The closest published comparison is the $2,070 a month Operator Support tier, which Belay describes as inbox triage, calendar scheduling, meeting prep, follow ups and vendor coordination, and which is executive assistant work priced on the social media page.

What is Belay's hourly rate?

Belay does not advertise an hourly rate, but its published tiers divide out to $34.50 to $46.00 an hour on the $2,070 tier covering 45 to 60 hours, and $45.00 to $75.00 an hour on the $4,500 tier covering 60 to 100 hours. Where you land inside each band depends on how many hours you actually use.

Does Belay publish its pricing?

Almost none of it. belaysolutions.com/pricing returns a 404, and its sitemap of 459 URLs contains no pricing page. We loaded all 17 service pages on September 3, 2026 and exactly one, the social media assistant page, quotes a rate. The other 15, including every assistant and every finance role, carry no dollar figure.

Is Belay legit?

Yes. Belay is an established US staffing company that places assistants and finance professionals with American businesses, and it states that more than 25,000 leaders have used its assistants. The criticism in this piece is narrow and is about price transparency, not legitimacy. Not publishing rates is a common and lawful commercial choice in staffing.

Does Belay require a contract or charge a setup fee?

Belay does not publish a minimum term, notice period, setup fee or early termination terms anywhere we could find. Several competing agencies claim Belay requires a twelve month agreement with a buyout, but we could not verify that on Belay's own sites and do not repeat it as fact. Ask for all four in writing before you sign.

What is the cheapest Belay plan?

The cheapest published Belay plan is Operator Support at $2,070 a month for 45 to 60 hours. Belay publishes nothing smaller, so there is no advertised part time or hourly block beneath it. If you only need 20 hours a month, the published rate does not shrink to match, which works out at about $103.50 for each hour you actually use.

Is Belay worth it for a small business?

It depends on whether the work needs judgement. If you are handing over relationships, phone calls and decisions where the context is unwritten, a vetted US assistant at $2,070 a month is a fair price and software is not a substitute. If the work is recurring and rule shaped, you are paying an assistant rate for something that follows a fixed procedure every time.

How does Belay pricing compare to Prialto and Athena?

On published rates Prialto is cheapest per month at $1,500 to $1,600 for a 55 hour unit, Belay is $2,070 for 45 to 60 hours, and Athena is $3,000 for a full time assistant, all compared side by side on our [virtual assistant cost](/virtual-assistant-cost) page. Per hour the order reverses: Athena is about $18.75, Prialto is $27.27 to $29.09 and Belay is $34.50 to $46.00.

Why do virtual assistant companies hide their pricing?

Because the right number depends on the role and the hours, and because a quote lets them qualify the buyer first. That is a legitimate choice, but it has a cost for you: comparisons get built from rival agencies' guesses rather than published rates. If a service will not give you a figure before a call, ask for its rate card by email so you can compare like for like.

Put it to work

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