The marketplaces are full of virtual assistants at a few pounds an hour, and on paper that looks unbeatable. But hourly rate is the wrong number to optimise. What matters is the total cost of getting reliable work done — and on that measure, cheap VAs are usually the most expensive option you can pick.
The churn tax
Cheap VAs juggle many clients and leave the moment a better one appears. Every time yours leaves, you start over: finding, vetting, briefing, training. That re-briefing time is real cost, and it recurs.
The re-briefing loop
A shared VA who works on your account occasionally never builds context. So you explain the same things repeatedly, check their work more closely, and carry a management overhead that a dedicated person would erase within weeks.
The error cost
Rushed, low-paid, juggling clients — the conditions for mistakes. And errors in admin, finance or customer-facing work cost far more to fix than they ever saved on rate.
The capacity ceiling
Need someone for 40 hours a week, reliably? The cheap hourly model breaks down. You can't build a business on someone who might be there tomorrow.
The alternative
A dedicated full-time VA — one person, exclusively yours, fairly paid, who stays — costs more per month than a handful of cheap hours but far less per unit of reliable work done. From £950 a month all-inclusive, you get capacity you can actually build on.
See what a dedicated hire would cost you
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