Virtual assistant cost per hour and per month, from the US services that actually publish a rate.
We sell a competing product, so read this with that in mind. Every rate below was read from Prialto, Belay and Athena directly on September 2, 2026, with each page served to a United States address, because pricing pages geo-detect. Where a company publishes a figure we quote it and show the division. Where it publishes nothing, we say so instead of repeating a range from a roundup.
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In short
Last updated September 2026
A US virtual assistant costs roughly $27 to $75 an hour once you divide a published monthly retainer by the hours it includes, and the three best known managed services in the United States sit at very different points. Prialto publishes $1,500 to $1,600 a month for a 55 hour unit, which is $27.27 to $29.09 an hour. Belay publishes a single rate anywhere on its site, $2,070 a month for 45 to 60 hours, which is $34.50 to $46.00 an hour. Athena publishes $3,000 a month for one dedicated full time executive assistant, and because that covers a full month it is about $18.75 an hour, the cheapest per hour and the most expensive per month. All three figures were read from each company's own site on September 2, 2026 from a United States address.
- Prialto, per 55 hour unit
- $1,500 to $1,600
- Belay, only published rate
- $2,070 a month
- Athena, full time EA
- $3,000 a month
- Cheapest published per hour
- $18.75, Athena
Calculator
Virtual assistant cost calculator
Set the hours you actually need each month and see what each published rate comes to, including the hours you would be paying for and not using.
Support you need
About hours a week. A full time month is roughly 160.
Cheapest published option
,
By monthly cost at these hours, from published rates only.
Over twelve months
- Prialto
- Belay
- Athena
- $36,000.00
- WorkAgent
- $1,788.00
Hours you pay for and do not use
a month
Prialto bills whole 55 hour units, so hours costs the same as . That is of unused capacity a month.
What each published rate comes to
Prialto, $1,600 per 55 hour unit
You need hours, so you buy ( hours). That is hours you pay for and do not use, so your real rate is an hour rather than $29.09. Your hours land exactly on a unit boundary, so you pay the full $29.09 an hour and waste nothing.
Belay, $2,070 for 45 to 60 hours
Within its one published tier, so an hour at hours. Belay does not publish a smaller block, so fewer hours does not mean a smaller bill. Above the only tier Belay publishes. Its next published package is $4,500 for 60 to 100 hours, and anything beyond that is quoted on a call.
Athena, $3,000 full time
$3,000.00
A fixed monthly price for one dedicated full time assistant, so at hours you are paying an hour. At close to a full month this is the cheapest hour on the page. Full time is the only shape Athena sells, so light use is expensive here.
WorkAgent, flat
$149.00
Not metered in hours, so the number does not move with the slider. It covers the recurring, rule shaped part of the work rather than the judgement, and it is the reason to split the two before you buy either.
Rates are the published figures from each company on September 2, 2026. Prialto is billed in whole 55 hour units, so the calculator rounds up, which is what makes the effective rate move. Belay's band reflects that its page says 45 to 60 hours for the same price. Athena is a fixed monthly price for a full time assistant regardless of hours used. Setup fees and minimum terms are 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 decide.
Inbox triage and reply drafting
Reads the inbox, 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 so you are not reading the thread in the lobby.
Research and list building
Pulls together the prospect list, the competitor scan or the supplier shortlist, with the sources attached so you can check the work.
Follow up and chasing
Tracks who owes you a reply, chases the quote that has not arrived and keeps threads moving without you holding them.
Recurring reporting
Builds the weekly or monthly report from the same sources every time, on schedule, in the same format.
Data entry and CRM hygiene
Keeps records current, deduplicates, fills the gaps and stops the CRM decaying between quarters.
Why it works
Four things that change the number more than the headline rate
The unit you compare on decides the winner
Ranked by monthly retainer, Prialto is cheapest and Athena is most expensive. Ranked by effective hourly rate, that order reverses completely: Athena is about $18.75 an hour and Belay's published rate reaches $46.00. Same three companies, same three prices, opposite conclusions. Decide which unit matches how you actually work before you compare anything.
Minimums and unit sizes cost real money
Prialto sells in 55 hour units with a 90 day minimum per unit. If you need 60 hours a month you cannot buy 60, you buy 110 and pay for 50 hours you will not use. That is not a criticism of Prialto, it is how retainers work, but it belongs in the comparison because it can move your true hourly cost by more than the headline rate does.
Setup fees and commitments are separate from the rate
Prialto charges a $250 initial setup fee in the first month, waived with a one year agreement. Athena prices monthly after an initial 90 day commitment. Neither shows up in a per hour comparison, and both are real cash in your first quarter.
Most of the market publishes nothing at all
Belay has 459 URLs in its sitemap and not one of them is a pricing page: belaysolutions.com/pricing returns a 404. Every rate you find in a roundup for the services that stay quiet is somebody's estimate. Ours are quoted only where the company prints them itself.
Compare
Virtual assistant cost compared, using only published rates
Every figure read from each company's own website on September 2, 2026, served to a United States address, because pricing pages geo-detect. Effective hourly rates are our arithmetic on their numbers.
| Prialto | Belay | Athena | WorkAgent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Published monthly price | $1,500 to $1,600 | $2,070 | $3,000 | $149 |
| Hours included | 55 per unit | 45 to 60 | Full time | Not metered in hours |
| Effective hourly rate | $27.27 to $29.09 | $34.50 to $46.00 | About $18.75 | Not applicable |
| Pricing page loads | Yes | No, 404 | Yes | Yes |
| Rate shown for an EA role | Yes | No | Yes | Not applicable |
| Setup fee | $250, waived on annual | Not published | Not published | None |
| Minimum commitment | 90 days per unit | Not published | 90 days | None |
| Buy less than the unit | No | Not published | No | Not applicable |
The tools
What each US virtual assistant service actually publishes
Read from each company's own site on September 2, 2026, every page served to a United States address.
Prialto
$1,500 to $1,600 a month per unitA managed assistant service built around a "unit" of 55 hours of support a month, with an engagement manager and a team of backups who know your processes. Full Time Dedicated Assistant is 3 or more units and 165 or more hours a month, starting at $3,600. Custom Enterprise is 10 or more units and 550 or more hours.
- Best for:
- Executives and teams who want documented processes and coverage when one person is out, and who can use a full 55 hours a month.
- Strength:
- The only one of the three that publishes a full tier ladder with hours attached, so you can model it yourself.
- Weakness:
- Its own pricing page shows both $1,500 and $1,600 for the same 55 hour unit. There is also a $250 setup fee and a 90 day minimum per unit.
Belay
$2,070 a month, on one page onlyA US based staffing service placing executive, marketing, operations, sales and social media assistants, plus bookkeeping and fractional finance roles. The single published rate is "Operator Support", 45 to 60 hours a month, starting at $2,070, and it appears only on the social media assistant page.
- Best for:
- Buyers who want a US based assistant and are prepared to go through a fit call to get a quote for their specific role.
- Strength:
- Deep US bench across assistant and finance roles, and a long track record.
- Weakness:
- belaysolutions.com/pricing is a 404. We checked all 459 URLs in its sitemap and all 17 service pages: the executive, personal, operations, sales and marketing assistant pages carry no dollar figure at all.
Athena
$3,000 a monthOne dedicated full time executive assistant, vetted, trained, device equipped and employed by Athena, with algorithmic matching, tailored onboarding and performance management. Priced monthly after an initial 90 day commitment.
- Best for:
- Founders and executives who want one full time person embedded in how they work, rather than a block of hours.
- Strength:
- Simplest price on the market: one number, one page, one thing you are buying. Athena says it receives 30,000 to 60,000 applications a month and accepts about 1 percent.
- Weakness:
- The highest monthly commitment of the three, and full time is the only shape you can buy. If you need 20 hours a month you are still paying $3,000.
WorkAgent
$149 a monthAn AI agent that runs the same recurring admin: inbox triage, research, list building, follow up, recurring reports and CRM upkeep. Flat monthly price, no hours to buy, 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 predictable line item.
- Strength:
- One published price that does not move with volume, and no unit rounding to work around.
- Weakness:
- It is software. It does not take phone calls, sit in a meeting on your behalf, or exercise judgement about your relationships. For that you want a person, and the three above are where to look.
How much does a virtual assistant cost?
A managed US virtual assistant costs between about $1,500 and $3,000 a month, which works out at roughly $18 to $46 an hour depending on how many hours the retainer includes. Those are not estimates: Prialto publishes $1,500 to $1,600 for a 55 hour unit, Belay publishes $2,070 for 45 to 60 hours, and Athena publishes $3,000 for a full time assistant. Independent freelance assistants sit across a much wider band, and offshore rates run lower still, but the three managed services above are the ones most US buyers actually shortlist, and they are the ones that print a number you can check.
Virtual assistant cost per hour, worked out from the published rates
None of the three advertises an hourly rate, so you have to divide. Prialto at $1,600 for 55 hours is $29.09 an hour, and at the $1,500 figure the same page also shows, $27.27. Belay at $2,070 is $46.00 an hour if you get 45 hours and $34.50 if you get 60, and the page says 45 to 60 without committing. Athena at $3,000 for a full time assistant is about $18.75 an hour if you count a 160 hour month. That last number is the one that surprises people, because Athena has the highest monthly price on the list and the lowest cost per hour on it.
The cheapest per hour is the most expensive per month
This is the single most useful thing to understand before you compare quotes. Sorted by what leaves your bank account each month the order is Prialto, then Belay, then Athena. Sorted by what an hour of help actually costs you the order flips to Athena, then Prialto, then Belay. Both orderings are correct. Which one is relevant depends entirely on whether you have enough work to fill the hours. If you genuinely have 40 hours a week of delegation, full time is the cheapest way to buy it. If you have six hours a week, buying full time to get a good hourly rate is the most expensive mistake in this market.
Unit sizes and minimums move the real number more than the rate does
Prialto sells 55 hour units and applies a 90 day minimum to each one. Say you need 60 hours a month. You cannot buy 60. You buy two units, 110 hours, and at $1,600 each that is $3,200 a month for 60 hours of work actually used, which is $53.33 an hour rather than $29.09. Nothing dishonest has happened, the published rate is exactly what it says, but your effective cost has nearly doubled because your demand did not land on a unit boundary. Ask any retainer service where its boundaries are before you compare its headline rate to anyone else's.
What Belay publishes, and where
Belay is the most interesting case, and it took a proper look to get right. We did not conclude anything from a single 404. We pulled the sitemap, which holds 459 URLs, and searched it for anything matching pricing, price, cost or plans. There are none. belaysolutions.com/pricing and belaysolutions.com/pricing/ both return a 404 titled "Page not found". So we loaded all 17 service pages instead and scanned each for a dollar figure. Fifteen have none, including the executive assistant page, the personal assistant page, and the operations, sales and marketing assistant pages. Exactly one page on the entire site quotes a rate: the social media assistant page. It offers "Operator Support" at 45 to 60 hours a month, starting at $2,070, described as inbox triage, calendar scheduling, meeting prep, follow ups, task tracking and vendor coordination. That is executive assistant work, and the only place Belay prices it is the social media page. A second tier on the same page, "Social + Content Engine", is marked most popular at 60 to 100 hours and starting at $4,500.
Prialto quotes two different prices for the same unit
On the same pricing page, on the same day, Prialto shows $1,500 a month for a 55 hour unit in one block and $1,600 a month for a 55 hour unit in another, and the FAQ underneath says "flat, monthly pricing starts at $1,500 per month with a 90 day minimum per unit plus a $250 initial set-up fee in the first month". The plan cards say $1,600 per unit. One block also says "based on 14+ years of experience" while another says 15+, which suggests one of them was not updated. We are not treating either figure as wrong, we are telling you both are on the page so that you quote the right one back during a sales call. If you are being asked for $1,600, the $1,500 in the FAQ is a fair thing to raise.
What you are actually choosing between
The real decision is not which of these is cheapest. It is whether the work you want off your plate needs a person at all. Judgement, relationships, phone calls, anything where being wrong is expensive and context is unwritten: that is what you hire an assistant for, and $2,000 to $3,000 a month is a fair price for it. Recurring, rule shaped work that follows the same path every time, inbox sorting, list building, follow up sequences, the same report every Monday: that is what software does at a flat rate without a minimum. Most businesses have both kinds of work and end up wanting both, which is fine. What wastes money is paying an assistant hourly rate for the second kind, month after month, because nobody separated the two.
Offshore rates and why they are in every roundup
Search this topic and you will find hourly rates of $3 to $15 quoted for assistants based in the Philippines, Latin America or South Africa. Those numbers are real and they are why the published US managed rates look high by comparison. What they leave out is that the managed services above are not selling you an hour of labour, they are selling recruitment, vetting, training, replacement cover and a manager, and that is most of what the gap pays for. Athena is explicit that it takes about 1 percent of the 30,000 to 60,000 applications it receives each month. If you hire direct you keep the difference and you also keep the recruiting, the onboarding and the risk of a Tuesday when nobody logs on.
FAQ
Questions buyers ask about virtual assistant cost
How much does a virtual assistant cost?
A managed US virtual assistant costs about $1,500 to $3,000 a month. Prialto publishes $1,500 to $1,600 a month for a 55 hour unit, Belay publishes $2,070 a month for 45 to 60 hours, and Athena publishes $3,000 a month for a dedicated full time assistant. All three figures were read from each company's own site on September 2, 2026 from a United States address.
How much does a virtual assistant cost per hour?
Dividing published retainers by the hours they include gives $18.75 to $46.00 an hour. Athena is about $18.75 an hour at $3,000 for a full time month, Prialto is $27.27 to $29.09 at $1,500 to $1,600 for 55 hours, and Belay is $34.50 to $46.00 at $2,070 for 45 to 60 hours. None of the three advertises an hourly rate, so these are our arithmetic on their numbers.
How much does a virtual assistant cost per month?
Between $1,500 and $3,000 a month for the three best known US managed services. Prialto starts at $1,500 to $1,600 per 55 hour unit and $3,600 for a full time assistant, Belay's only published rate is $2,070, and Athena is a flat $3,000. Freelance and offshore assistants can be considerably less, and neither figure includes a setup fee where one applies.
What is the cost of a virtual assistant compared to hiring in house?
A managed virtual assistant at $1,500 to $3,000 a month is $18,000 to $36,000 a year with no employer payroll taxes, benefits, equipment or paid leave attached, because the assistant is employed by the service rather than by you. An in house executive assistant is a salary plus employer costs on top, and it is the on-top part that most comparisons leave out. The tradeoff is availability and depth of context, not just money.
How much does Belay virtual assistant cost?
Belay publishes one rate on its entire website: $2,070 a month for "Operator Support" at 45 to 60 hours, and $4,500 a month for a 60 to 100 hour social and content package. Both appear only on its social media assistant page. belaysolutions.com/pricing returns a 404, and the executive, personal, operations, sales and marketing assistant pages carry no dollar figure at all, so any other role is quoted on a fit call.
How much does Athena virtual assistant cost?
Athena costs $3,000 a month for one dedicated full time executive assistant, priced monthly after an initial 90 day commitment. The price includes vetting, training, equipment, algorithmic matching, tailored onboarding and performance management, and the assistant is employed by Athena. It is the highest monthly price of the three main US services and the lowest cost per hour.
How much does Prialto virtual assistant cost?
Prialto costs $1,500 to $1,600 a month per unit, where a unit is 55 hours of support a month, plus a $250 initial setup fee that is waived with a one year agreement. Both figures appear on its own pricing page. A full time dedicated assistant is 3 or more units, 165 or more hours, starting at $3,600 a month, and there is a 90 day minimum per unit.
How much does a full time virtual assistant cost?
A full time managed assistant costs $3,000 to $3,600 a month from the services that publish a rate. Athena is $3,000 for one dedicated full time executive assistant. Prialto reaches full time at 3 or more units and 165 or more hours a month, starting at $3,600. At a 160 hour month those work out at roughly $18.75 and $21.82 an hour respectively.
Is a virtual assistant worth the cost?
It depends on whether the work needs judgement. If what you are handing over involves relationships, phone calls or decisions where context is unwritten, a person at $2,000 to $3,000 a month is usually worth it and software is not a substitute. If it is recurring and rule shaped, inbox sorting, list building, follow up, the same report every week, you are paying an assistant rate for work that software does at a flat fee.
Do virtual assistant services charge a setup fee?
Some do and they do not always show it next to the rate. Prialto charges a $250 initial setup fee in the first month, waived if you sign a one year agreement, and applies a 90 day minimum per unit. Athena prices monthly after an initial 90 day commitment. Belay does not publish either. Ask for setup fees, minimum terms and notice periods in writing before you compare monthly rates.
Why do virtual assistant companies hide their pricing?
Because the price depends on the role and the hours, and because a quote lets them qualify you first. That is a legitimate commercial choice, but it has a cost for buyers: of the three best known US services, only two publish anything, and Belay's single published rate sits on a page for a different role. If a service will not give you a number before a call, ask for its rate card by email so you can compare like for like rather than from memory.
What does a virtual assistant cost for real estate or bookkeeping work?
Specialist roles cost more than general admin, though few services publish the difference. Belay sells bookkeeping, accounting clerk, controller and fractional CFO services alongside assistants and publishes no rate for any of them. Prialto and Athena price by hours and by headcount rather than by specialism. Expect to pay above the general assistant rate for licensed or regulated work, and get the scope written down before the first invoice.
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