Virtual Assistant Blog

ZipBooks

Posted by Mica Harvey / Bookkeeping Services

ZipBooks is an online bookkeeping and tax reporting service aimed at helping individuals and small to medium-sized businesses manage their financial accounts.

The company has been operating since 2015 but didn’t fully release their platform until 2017. They are based in Utah, US.

About ZipBooks

The company was founded by Tim Chaves with the aim of providing a cost-effective and easy-to-use bookkeeping system for individuals and small business owners.

When you sign up with ZipBooks you are given access to their accounting software hosted on the cloud. Within their software you have everything you need to maintain all your business’s financial data.

If you sign up for their Services plan you’ll also have access to your own personal bookkeeper (they call them ZipBooks Scholars), who will:

reconcile your accounts
prepare your financial reports
give you tips and advice to save you money where applicable.

If storing all of your business’s accounts and financial data online makes you feel uneasy, ZipBooks have a strict security protocol in place to give you peace of mind.

They backup all of their data in multiple locations, have several layers of firewalls, their data centers have on-site security guards, and they use third-party companies to audit their processes.

Services

With ZipBooks you can track and record all of your business’ transactions, invoices, expenses as any accounting firm would do for you.

This means you or a member of your team can keep your financial records up-to-date and be ready to submit your taxes at year-end without paying an accounting firm or for your own bespoke accounting software.

They have a detailed reporting section, so you can run reports at a touch of a button to check your balance sheet, outstanding debtors, and so on, so it’s a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of your business’s finances.

They also have some AI powered intelligence features that might help give you some insight into how your business is performing.

You can run intelligence-based reports to produce Business Health Scores, Invoice Quality Scores, and they will give you recommendations to help increase your potential revenue and reduce late payments.

If you pay for their Services plan you’ll also have access to a personal bookkeeping assistant to work with.

Plans and Pricing

ZipBooks currently have 4 plans to choose from. Their Starter plan is free to give you a feel for their software but has limited features. Their highest plan costs $125 per month and gives you access to your own dedicated bookkeeper.

It’s important to note the lower tier plans are software-only — no personal bookkeeping help.

Their complete list of plans at the time of publishing are as follows:

Starter – Free – This plan includes the ability to have unlimited invoicing, vendors and customers, bookkeeping services, and one bank account.
Smarter – $15 per month – This plan includes everything in the Starter plan, plus some additional features.
Sophisticated – $35 per month – This plan includes everything in the Smarter plan, plus some advanced reporting and intelligence features.
Services – $125 per month – This plan includes everything in the Sophisticated plan, plus access to your own personal bookkeeper (called a ZipBooks Scholar) and some more advanced features.

If you want to try their services before committing to a plan you can test their Starter plan which is free. Or, if this plan doesn’t offer the features you want to try you have the option to take a free trial for their Smarter and Sophisticated plans.

ZipBooks Alternatives

Freshbooks and QuickBooks are two of the most well-known online bookkeeping software providers, but neither (as far as I know) has in-house personal bookkeeper option. On the software side, they have similar pricing, but for human bookkeeping, Zipbooks is more affordable than other online bookkeeping services like Bench.

Your Turn

Have you worked with ZipBooks? If so, please leave a brief review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Truelancer

Posted by Mica Harvey / Freelance Virtual Assistants

Truelancer is an online marketplace connecting clients with freelancer workers all over the globe. Their platform is quick, safe, and you have the flexibility to submit single jobs or build up an ongoing working relationship with a freelancer.

If you want to find someone to carry out some tasks quickly you’ll find them on Truelancer. From IT and programming, to sales, mobile app building, and SEO, they have a huge database of freelancers (500,000 at press time) waiting to pick up your job.

About Truelancer

Their headquarters are located in India, with all of the freelancers using the platform being based remotely around the globe.

The company has been in operation since September 2014, and is headed up by Dipesh Garg.

You can use Truelancer to either sell you own services, or buy services from a freelancer best suited to handle your tasks.

There are 3 different options when finding a freelancer or assistant.

First, you can browse freelancers’ pre-defined gigs under the “Buy Services” tab:

Next, they have a contest-based crowdsourcing option for logo design, web design, mobile app design, and more. This service is similar to platforms like DesignCrowd or 99designs.

And finally, you can browse freelancer profiles by skillsets, or post a job and sort through the applicants.

If you’re looking to work with a freelancer or have a task that you feel needs a deep level of understanding then don’t be afraid to open up a dialogue with prospective freelancers.

Truelancer encourages employers to communicate with their freelancers before committing. You can request samples of work, and even give them a small test project to see how well they understand your directions.

Still, I found the site confusing and not super easy to use. It’s filled with language written by non-native English speakers like “People’s trust knowing your physical presence.” What?

Services

If your job can be carried out remotely online, you’ll find a freelancer to carry out the work on Truelancer.

To give you a starting point, they group some of their services into the following categories:

IT and Programming
Writing and Translation
Admin and Data Entry
Social Media
SEO and Blogging
Music and Audio
Finance and Accounting
Multimedia and Graphic Design

Here’s a search I did for “virtual assistant”:

$1 an hour? That’s crazy cheap, even for India.

How Truelancer Works

Plans and Pricing

Truelancer charges the workers, not the employers. Though there is an 8-10% service fee charged on every project, which theoretically could be passed on to you, the employer, in the form of higher bids.

On the freelancer side, they have 5 membership plans offering the following benefits:

Free – $0/month – With this plan you are subject to a 10% project/service fee, have a $75 bidding limit, and have a low cap on the number of skills, portfolio slots, and service listings
Intro – $1/month – This plan increases the number of skills, portfolio slots, and service listings you can post over the Free plan.
Basic – $5/month – This plan increases the number of skills, portfolio slots, and service listings you can post over the Intro plan.
Pro – $10/month – With this plan the project/service fees drop to 8%, along with some upgraded privileges.
Plus – $48/month – This is their highest plan and enables maximum listings, skills, portfolio slots, and proposals.

There are also some additional fees per transaction:

Project Fees – Depending on your membership type there is a 3-10% project fee per transaction.
Employer Payment Processing Fee – There are processing fees taken depending on the form of payment.

Truelancer Alternatives

If you’re considering hiring on Truelancer, I’d take a look at Upwork as well. The platform is much larger and well-established.

They offer a very similar model and you increase your options by checking out some profiles across other platforms to find a good fit for your tasks.

	FreeeUp	Upwork	Fiverr	OnlineJobs
Established	2015	1999	2010	2008
Location	Worldwide, w/ concentration in USA and Philippines	Worldwide	Worldwide	Philippines
Customer Rating
Size of Talent Pool	Thousands	12 million	830,000	250,000
Hourly Rate	$5-75+	$3-100+	$3-100+	$3-20+
Platform Fee	15%	5-20%	20% + processing fee	$69 a month
Worker Tracking				(optional)
Pre-Screened Freelancers			(w/ Fiverr Pro)
Best For	Quick hires, e-commerce	One-off projects	Smaller jobs	Affordable full-time help
	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More

Since both are free from the employer standpoint, it might make sense to post your job on both to see what comes back.

The way you can browse services on Truelancer is also similar to PeoplePerHour and Fiverr. If you don’t want to go through the process of posting a job and fielding applications I’d give these sites a try.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Truelancer? If so, please leave a review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

BPO American

Posted by Mica Harvey / Virtual Receptionist Services

BPO American is a virtual telecommunications company offering a variety of telephone answering and web chat services for busy professionals who need assistance with their customer service.

The US-based company has been operating since 2001.

About BPO American

The company was founded in 2001 after the founder started an internal call center for a regional staffing firm setting appointments for sales reps.

This venture proved successful and as more clients started asking about their services he decided to sell this company and start BPO American as an independent company offering a wider range of call center services.

BPO American’s company mission statement is “To provide–at every contact point–a full suite of customer communication services.” And that in a nutshell is what they do.

It’s a cost-effective way to ensure your business always has a friendly and professional voice on the end of the line.

Their team is based in South Carolina.

Services

BPO American have a team of operators ready to handle all of your telecommunication needs. To give you an idea of the task they can handle they group their services into 4 categories:

Call Answering Services – Their operators will answer your calls quickly, professionally, and cover the times that work best for you and your business.
Inbound Calls – They can set up an inbound call center to handle your customer or technical support, sales, lead generation, and more.
Outbound Calls – Their operators can make outbound calls on behalf of your business to follow up leads, make sales, and more.
Chat and Email – Their operators can man live web chats and handle your emails 24/7 to ensure your customers are never left waiting.

Plans and Pricing

BPO American has six different pricing plans based on the number of minutes you need each month.

For inbound, outbound, and web chat services you need to schedule a consultation for a tailored quote.

Their plans start at $29 for 25 minutes per month, which works out at $1.16 per minute. The largest plan is 425 minutes a month at $369 ($0.86 per minute).

Their complete list of plans are:

Basic – $29 per month for 25 minutes.
Tier 1 – $89 per month for 75 minutes.
Tier 2 – $109 per month for 100 minutes.
Tier 3 – $139 per month for 125 minutes.
Professional – $229 per month for 250 minutes.
Professional Plus – $369 per month for 425 minutes.

All of their plans include text message delivery, email delivery, transfers, and 24/7 chat customer service. Keep an eye on how many minutes you’re using, since there is a higher rate when you go over.

They also offer a free trial, so you can try their services before committing to a plan.

BPO American Alternatives

1-888-Go-Answer and Gabbyville are two well-known companies in this space, but neither offers the level of outbound support BPO does.

Both offer free trials too, so you can try different services and see which is the best fit for your business.

Your Turn

Have you worked with BPO American? If so, please leave a brief review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Zen WP

Posted by Mica Harvey / Task-Based Virtual Assistants, Technical Assistants

Zen WP is a company offering WordPress support. The company is based in the US, with developers working remotely across the US and in India.

The company has been in business for around 2 years now and work with clients all over the world in need of any form of support for their WordPress websites.

About Zen WP

The company’s management team are located in Southern California. They have developers and account managers working remotely across the US, and some specialist team members working out of Bangladesh and India.

Their target customers are businesses and entrepreneurs with WordPress sites, but not the time, resources, or expertise to manage the site efficiently. Currently, around 80% of their customers are in the California, Las Vegas and Arizona areas local to their business. This is because a lot of their customers make contact after seeing local advertisements or being referred by existing customers.

Offering online support, ZenWP.co is able to offer support to customers all over the globe. So regardless of your location if you need WordPress support you should make contact to discuss your requirements.

Zen WP Review

Services

Zen WP offer support for just about any task related to WordPress you will come across. This includes minor CSS work, changes to the design of the site, bug fixes, and support for maintaining and updating your site.

Since downtime on your website can be costly to your business, Zen WP recognizes this and aims to fulfill all requests within 24 hours to minimize disruption. Some of their packages include site maintenance, so a lot of bugs and potential security risks can be identified and resolved before they become a problem.

Zen WP Co-Founder Interview

I sat down with Zen WP co-founder, Phillip Koo to discuss what Zen WP is all about.

VAA Exclusive: Use coupon code VAATENOFF for 10% off any support plan for life!

Plans and Pricing

Zen WP offer three different monthly packages, and all of these plans are valid for only one website.

Basic – $79 per month – This package includes detailed reports for jobs completed, 24/7 uptime monitoring, 24/7 email support, and a secure backup of your site monthly.

Standard – $129 per month – This package includes all the services in the Basic package, along with automatic updates for your WordPress site, automatic plugin updates, and a security plan.

Pro – $269 per month – This package includes all the services in the Standard package, along with a security guarantee, unlimited consulting, and 5 hours of development work per month.

Zen WP also offer single job service costing $69 per job. They guarantee the job will be completed in 24 hours, and if for any reason they can’t fulfill your request you get your money back.

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All of the Zen WP’s monthly packages or one-off payments have no contracts or setup fees attached. You can cancel at any time.

Zen WP Alternatives

A lot of virtual assistant companies offer WordPress support, two most notable are Work Hero and Access WP. When asked what sets Zen WP apart from other virtual assistant providers they said, “our willingness to accommodate customers in ways that our competitors don’t.”

Another service to check out if you need WordPress help — but feel like the ongoing maintenance might be overkill — is Codeable.io.

Zen WP specializes in WordPress support, any company that specializes in a specific niche often offer a more detailed level of support so it’s worth making contact to discuss you needs and see how they stack up against other virtual assistant providers.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Zen WP? If so please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

UR Tasker

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, India Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

UR Tasker is a virtual assistant company specializing in assisting e-commerce sellers — Amazon, eBay and Shopify businesses — in growing their business and increasing sales.

The company was formed in 2015. All of their assistants are based in Pakistan and their headquarters is in Commack, New York.

About UR Tasker

The company was founded by Touseef Choudhary. Touseef has experience as an Amazon FBA and eBay seller and decided to start the company when he found it difficult to find skilled virtual assistants for his own business.

He started building a team and training them himself and first started hiring his team out to friends and family. He started taking on clients and the company has been growing steadily since 2015.

URTasker’s target customers are individuals and businesses of all sizes that need assistance managing their Amazon, eBay, and Shopify accounts.

Their assistants cover a wide range of services from ungating categories, helping with product research, optimizing listings, to increasing sales and everything in between.

When you sign up you’re introduced to a dedicated assistant. This allows them to get to know you and your business over time and you build a working relationship.

Services

URTasker offers a wide variety of assistance and solutions for anyone running an e-commerce business on Amazon or eBay, running an online store using the Shopify platform, or selling items from Jet.com and Walmart.

To give you an idea of the areas they specialize in, UR Tasker categorize their services into the following 6 categories:

Amazon PPC Management – Audit existing campaigns, implementing strategies to boost sales, reduce ACOS ratio, campaign management, weekly campaign reporting.
Amazon Account Management – Product research, product listings, listing optimization, FBA reimbursement, 24/7 customer support.
Amazon Ungating Services – Documents review, submissions, category approval, sub-category approval, brand ungating.
eBay Account Management – Product listings, inventory management, order management, marketing, performance management.
Shopify Expert – Store audit, store development, product listings, product research, and marketing.
Jet.com and Walmart Expert – Walmart product listings, inventory management, fulfillment node setup, Jet.com API configuration, Jet.com product listings.

Plans and Pricing

Although UR Tasker does not have any set pricing plans all of their team are based in Pakistan so they are able to offer competitive rates.

To get a custom quote there is a form to fill out on their site.

Include as much detail as much as you can about your business and the services you’re interested in and a member of their team will contact you for a 15-minute call.

They do however offer a 5-day free trial so you can try their services before committing to a plan.

UR Tasker Alternatives

There are plenty of highly rated virtual assistant companies with a similar range of services as UR Tasker, but fewer specialize just in e-commerce.

The couple that come to mind are eLuminous Technologies (check out my video tour of their office), and FreeeUp, a freelance marketplace built by successful Amazon sellers.

Your Turn

Have you worked with UR Tasker? If so, please leave a short review below to help others with their decision.

Byron

Posted by Mica Harvey / US Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

Byron is a US-based virtual assistant company that started operations in 2016 under a closed beta and went live to the public in January 2017.

Their headquarters are located in New York City, and their assistants are home-based throughout the US.

About Byron

The company was started by Michael Benson in 2016 due to seeing a lack of accountability and low quality of work across the freelance marketplace. Byron’s current owner and CEO, Ujwal Velagapudi, continued Michael’s work by elevating Byron’s quality standards to be a strong contender in the VA services space.

Byron only hires US-based assistants and puts them through a rigorous vetting and testing process evaluating them across more than 100 skills. All Byron Assistants are college educated and have 5 or more years of experience as a Virtual Assistant (any kind), C Suite Executive Assistant, Remote Accountant/Bookkeeper, or Virtual Administrative Officer.

When you sign up for one of their plans you have the option to submit short or long-term tasks.

Short-term tasks are generally tasks that can be completed within 24 hours. Long-term tasks give you the opportunity to work with a dedicated assistant on an ongoing basis.

Byron’s target customers are startups, small businesses, and individuals looking to outsource some of their workload. Enterprise-level support is also available on a custom-plan basis.

They have a user-friendly platform, and it’s easy to add multiple users so all of your team can have access to your VA and send tasks to be completed.

Byron Virtual Assistant Services

Byron’s virtual assistants can handle a wide variety of tasks that can be completed remotely.

Click here to learn more about the tasks Byron Assistants handle and answers to their FAQs!

Byron’s Plans and Pricing

Their complete list of standard plans is as follows::

Pilot – $390 per month for 10 hours.
Regular – $740 per month for 20 hours.
Plus – $1390 per month for 40 hours.
Pro – $2750 per month for 80 hours.

For requirements beyond 80 hours per month, Byron also offers custom plans.

All of their plans include access to a pool of senior level US based Virtual Assistants, excellent follow through and project management from the Byron operations team, and a platform with advanced technological features that makes delegating work easy and convenient.

You can rollover unused hours as long as you have an active subscription. Enjoy wide tasking ability and flexibility.

To get your free trial, book your free discovery call.

Byron Alternatives

Byron is a relative newcomer into the growing US-based VA space, and is more affordably priced than companies like BELAY and Worldwide 101.

Time ETC and Zirtual seem to be a closer match, with a similar tech-focus but still slightly higher rates.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Byron? If so, please leave a short review below to help others with their decision.

Penbrothers

Posted by Mica Harvey / Philippines Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

Penbrothers is a company specializing in providing offshore recruitment, flexible office spaces, legal services, and payroll assistance to startups and small businesses.

The company is based in the Philippines, and they have been operating since December 2014.

About Penbrothers

The company is run by Nicolas Bivero, Gui Faria, and Gabrielle Pratte. Nicolas and Gui have a wealth of experience and knowledge in global business practices and oversee the day-to-day operations.

Gabrielle is the local managing partner specializing in Filipino management and oversees all the cross-cultural experiences. It’s on her to make sure the communication between the workers in the Philippines and their international clients is running smoothly.

Their target customers are international startups and small businesses looking to cut costs by building a team based in the Philippines.

Penbrothers have several locations across Manila in the Philippines. They can help with recruiting a team, providing fully-equipped office spaces, and managing the HR and payroll for your team.

The aim is to essentially bridge that gap that international clients have when managing a team in the Philippines from afar.

Services

Penbrothers services are broken down into three main areas as follows:

Recruitment – Penbrothers can handle the whole recruitment process for you and build a team of any size.
Letting Office Space – They have several locations in Manila and have let office spaces to more than 45 companies to date.
They are open 24/7, can provide parking at an additional cost, and have additional meeting rooms available via an online booking system.
HR and Payroll – They have a team available to handle the HR and payroll for your team using their office space. This is particularly useful for international clients as there are different taxes and processes involved when paying Filipino workers.

Alternatively, you can use any of their services individually. For example, if you need a new location for an existing team you can hire the space.

Or, maybe you now want to offshore your payroll so make some additional savings. Whatever your needs are, you can work out a plan specific to your requirements by talking to a member of their team.

Plans and Pricing

Penbrothers do not have any fixed plans as all of their services are bespoke and will be tailored you to exact needs.

You can hire as many virtual assistants as you need and pay a flat hourly rate.

To discuss which of their services you want and to get a quote you need to contact a member of their team.

Penbrothers Alternatives

For similar services targeting larger companies (and larger budgets), check out CloudStaff or TayStone BPO.

If your business is still growing and you don’t yet have the need for your own office space and dedicated team check out companies like TaskVirtual or TaskBullet.

As an all-in-one package however, Penbrothers offer a suite of services that make recruiting and managing a team in the Philippines a lot easier than outsourcing and managing the different elements through different companies.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Penbrothers? If so, please leave a review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Task Venturers

Posted by Mica Harvey / India Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

Task Venturers is a virtual assistant company based Kolkata, India. The company started operations in November 2017, and they offer a wide range of services to entrepreneurs and small to medium-sized business.

About Task Venturers

The company was founded by Abhishek Basu and his partner, Tanumoy Banerjee. They used to work as freelancers and decided to start Task Venturers to expand their client base and offer a wider range of services.

When I spoke with the CEO Tanumoy, he told me their goal was, “To make services affordable and the platform easy and user-friendly.” Being a newish company at the time of writing this they are mostly working with small to medium-sized businesses, but say they have the capacity to work with larger businesses too.

They have a team of VAs and work with clients all over the world. Even though they are based in India, time zones are not an issue as they offer 24/7 support.

When you sign up with Taskventurers, you are assigned a dedicated virtual assistant and have direct contact with them to communicate your requirements.

Services

Their virtual assistants can handle any tasks you are looking to outsource that can be completed remotely.

Some of the more common tasks they do for clients include:.

Website development
Graphic design
SEO
Administrative tasks
Social media
Personal task
Customer support
Google Adwords, analytics, Webmasters management
Keyword research

When I asked what their areas of specialization are Tanumoy told me, “Web development, and graphic and web design.”

Plans and Pricing

Taskventurers currently have 6 different pricing plans to choose from, as well as the option to build your own custom plan if none of their set hours meets what you’re looking for.

Their rates start at $10 per hour for their lowest tier plan, and go as low as $5.50 per hour.

A complete list of their plans is as follows (accurate at press time):

Minimalist – 8 hours for $80 per month. ($10/hour)
Enthusiastic – 15 hours for $135 per month. ($9/hour)
Passionate – 25 hours for $200 per month. ($8/hour)
Eureka – 50 hours for $350 per month. ($7/hour)
Colossal – 100 hours for $600 per month. ($6/hour)
Mammoth – 200 hours for $1,100 per month. ($5.50/hour)

Those plans are quite affordable, but if you don’t want to be tied down to a monthly subscription, you might consider the “Cosmic” plan.

This plan lets you buy blocks of time at $11-12/hour and the hours don’t expire at the end of the month.

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All of their plans come with 24/7 support, and you must use the hours within 30 days.

They offer a 2-day free trial on all their plans.

Task Venturers Alternatives

If you’re looking to work with a virtual assistant company in India there are several highly rated companies worth checking out.

Ask Sunday, My Tasker, and VA Talks are the three main players. Taskventurers undercut them on price though, and this may be one of the factors that set them apart from their competitors.

Still, they were quick to say that they don’t compromise on quality. If you’re on a budget, my suggestion is to take advantage of their free trial and see how it goes.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Taskventurers? If so, please leave a short review below to help others with their decision.

Please.Do

Posted by Mica Harvey / SMS Virtual Assistants, Task-Based Virtual Assistants

Please.Do is a mobile app that acts as an on-demand personal assistant service. Behind the scenes, a team of real “Doers” tackles your tasks quickly wherever you need them.

Since everyone already has a smartphone in their pocket, it’s a compelling service model for busy entrepreneurs and business owners. With no contracts or fixed fees, Please.Do is a convenient way to get tasks done on the move.

About Please.Do

The company have been operating since 2016 and their headquarters is based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Please Do have a team of real people waiting to receive tasks sent via their app. They call their staff “Please Doers,” and at a touch of a button you can have them doing research and answering your questions.

Their target customers are busy individuals who have the need for a personal assistant, but don’t quite need a monthly service or a dedicated VA.

By using Please Do you have a personal assistant available 24/7, but only pay for the minutes you use and can choose when you use them.

Services

Please.Do can fulfill just about any task that can be completed remotely and returned to you via your mobile. All they ask from you is a picture or video and some instructions.

For example, you can send an image of a document to be transcribed, ask for some research on a topic, a list of restaurants, car dealers, or pricing up some travel.

To get started you need to download their app, set up an account, and load up some funds.

When you’re ready to outsource some tasks this is how it works:

Take a picture or a video on your mobile if applicable.
Send the picture with some instructions on what you want via the app (either type or use voice memo).
Agree to the estimated time if applicable or wait for your completed task.

To give you an idea of the kind of tasks Please Do handle, here are some examples from their instructions page when you download the app include sending a photo of:

an item you want to buy and asking a Please Doer to find the item for you.
your dog and asking for a list of local dog walking services near you.
a broken air-conditioning unit and asking a Please Doer to find you a local AC repairman.

Plans and Pricing

Please Do costs $0.25 per minute for what they call “Simple tasks.” Simple tasks are any tasks that can be completed in 30 minutes or less. (Maximum charge of $7.50.)

For longer tasks, a Please Doer will contact you with a time estimate and custom quote. However, if they still manage to complete the task within the 30 minutes you’ll pay the lower rate.

A nice feature is the ability to set a minute threshold for pre-confirming. For example, you can set the app to always ask you for confirmation if a task is going to take 10 minutes or longer.

Also, it’s worth noting that all first-time users receive their first 10 minutes free.

One medium red flag for me was this note on the Please.do website:

“For tasks that require extra security, mark them as ‘Confidential.’ Confidential tasks will be confined within our pool of in-house Doers.”

So what random people are doing the non-confidential tasks?

Please.Do Alternatives

There have been a few companies emerging in this market over the last couple of years, but they seem to be disappearing too. In fact, the Please.do app ratings and even the website itself seem like they haven’t been updated since 2016. (Although a new version of the iOS app was released in early 2018.)

Magic operates on a similar model. They are a bit more pricey but they’ve also been in business longer so might be worth checking out if this type of service appeals to you.

Please.Do has the advantage over the more expensive Fin service, which carries a $120 monthly fee AND costs $1 a minute after your first 2 hours of assistance.

It might be worth looking at virtual assistant companies if you’re going to have ongoing tasks. If you don’t want to go down the dedicated virtual assistant route I recommend checking out FancyHands or OkayRelax for affordable task-based support.

Your Turn

Have you used Please.Do? If so, please leave a brief review below to help others with their decision.

VAnetworking

Posted by Mica Harvey / Education, Virtual Assistant Resources

VAnetworking is one of the largest global networking platforms for virtual assistants to connect with each other and utilize resources to help them improve their businesses and find more opportunities.

On the client side, VAnetworking accepts job postings from businesses and allows their paid members to respond.

The company has been in business since 2003, and is based in British Columbia, Canada.

About VAnetworking

VAnetworking was founded by Tawnya Sutherland. As a virtual assistant herself in the early days of the industry, she couldn’t find a support network.

So as you might have guessed, she set out to build it that support network.

She started a forum for virtual assistants and as it gained momentum she started VAnetworking.

VAnetworking now has more than 30,000 members worldwide and has become one of the largest online resources for VAs to get their businesses up and running.

The company specializes in giving virtual assistants resources to help them find more work and improve their businesses.

They also work with clients looking for VAs helping them find the right assistants and offering resources to help them learn about working with VAs.

VAnetworking Services

VAnetworking is primarily focused on providing everything a VA needs to start and run their business. They have a system and a certification program VAs can work through — for what it’s worth — as well as various training resources, mentoring groups, and a forum where VAs can meet and talk with one another.

They offer a lot of free resources and a free membership that opens up access to their forums and some training materials.

Their paid memberships open up access to job boards, network groups, and more training tools.

But with such a broad network of VAs, it’s only natural that VAnetworking offer something for prospective clients too. If you’re looking to hire, you can post a job for free, and they’ll try and match you with the best suited VA.

Some of the skills listed include:

General Administrative
Web Design
Social Media Marketing
Real Estate

The company offers support and training for clients to ensure they are getting the most from their working relationships with VAs.

(Tawnya also sells a $97 ebook series on finding the ultimate VA for your business.)

VAnetworking Plans and Pricing

On the VA side, VAnetworking has 3 different membership options:

Free Membership – This gives you access to networking forums, video training courses, ebooks, checklists, and other resources.
VA Insiders Club – $333 per year. This gives you access to a job board, monthly group coaching, webinars, training tools, a brainstorming network, and some other resources.
VA Career – $997 per year. This gives you access to everything above, plus a startup system to help you get your business up and running in 30 days. Members also get access to online training tools, and website hosting.

For clients, your Request for Proposal is free to submit, and your job will be posted to VAnetworking’s VAinsider’s job board. Prospective VAs will reach out to you directly via email if they feel they’re a fit for your role.

Keep in mind that the company caters primarily to higher-end North American VAs. That means when budgeting for your job, think in the range of $25/hour and up.

But because the company is charging the VAs, you don’t pay any ongoing markup on your hire’s hours once they start working for you.

Since it’s free it doesn’t hurt to post your job and see what kind of responses you get.

VAnetworking Alternatives

For US-based freelance virtual assistants sourced in a similar vein, check out HireMyMom or Gina Horkey’s Virtual Assistant Finder service.

If your budget is a little lower, you might consider a service like FreeeUp, where you still have some vetting done by the platform but can reach a global (and potentially more affordable) talent pool.

And if you want someone else to really do the most of the hiring work for you — and the benefits of working through a VA company — there’s always well-rated options like Time Etc.

Your Turn

Have you worked with VAnetworking? If so, please take a moment to leave a review below to help others with their decision.

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