Gun.io

Posted by Mica Harvey / Freelance Virtual Assistants, Technical Assistants

Gun.io is a platform connecting freelance software developers with business owners and entrepreneurs in need of professional software development services. (Think “hired gun.”)

The company is privately held and was founded in 2011, and their headquarters is located in Nashville, Tennessee. They say that over 80% of their community are based in the US, primarily across cities such as San Francisco, Boston, and New York.

About Gun.io

The company was founded by Rich Jones and current CEO Teja Yenamandra. Hiring a freelancer always comes with an element of risk, but Gun.io are keen to emphasize, “We believe that remote work isn’t an excuse to be flaky. Gun.io attracts skilled professionals who thrive on autonomy and use that freedom to best provide value to clients worldwide.”

They work with US-based team leaders and developers, so if you’re hiring from the US you shouldn’t struggle with language barriers or time zone differences.

There is a premium to pay for US-based freelancers (see below) in comparison to overseas workers, but there is some extra security knowing you’re working with someone closer to home.

Services

Some of the services Gun.io lists as within the skillsets of their freelancers include:

  • Web applications
  • SAAS products
  • iOS apps
  • Android apps
  • MVP development
  • Project management
  • Desktop programs
  • UX strategy
  • Scripting

How it Works

There is a simple 3-step process when signing up with Gun.io and submitting your task:

  • Discovery – You explain what you want done and your budget for your project with one of their team leaders.
  • Planning – Gun.io create a plan of attack and handpick the team members from their pool of more than 25,000 freelancers best suited to complete your task.
  • Execution – With your say, work starts and your dedicated team leader keeps in contact with you as to the progress.

They list their areas of specialization as, iOS, Andriod, LAMP, .NET, Java, C#, Swift, Scala, Ruby on Rails, Ruby, C++, PHP, Python, Django, Javascript, Objective-C, Node.JS, and project management.

At press time, the company has facilitated close to 1000 projects and paid out over $16 million to developers.

Plans and Pricing

Gun.io are not for those looking for a small one-off quick job. The minimum job size they take on is $15,000 over a two month period.

For ongoing tasks their rates range from $150 to $250 per hour depending on the level of experience required for your project.

To get started, Gun.io requires a retainer fee of $2,000 which is credited against your final invoice. You can get a custom quote for your task by contacting a member of their team and discussing your project.

Gun.io Alternatives

The closest competitor to Gun.io that comes to mind is TopTal, a similar service that curates “top talent” in technical fields. Alternatively, you might check out the smaller Crew.co or a much larger freelance marketplace like Upwork.

In the case of Upwork, you will need to sort through applications yourself however and therefore there is a larger risk involved, but you’re likely to find someone at a lower cost.

Your Turn

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

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Upwork

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, Freelance Virtual Assistants, Project-Based Virtual Assistants, US Virtual Assistants

Upwork (formerly oDesk) is a community that brings together contract workers and employers. The company has been in business since 2003, and now serves hundreds of thousands of clients all around the world.

They boast more than 12 million freelancers ready to bid on your job.

About Upwork

odesk reviewIn late 2013, Elance and oDesk actually merged into one company, but continued to operate separate freelance marketplaces. Then, in 2015, they rebranded oDesk to Upwork.

I’m not sure why they made the change since 0Desk was a well-established brand with a solid reputation in the industry, but their official press documents said it was to help businesses connect with great talent faster than ever before, collaborate in larger teams, and fuel growing companies.

Why they couldn’t have done that under the old name, I have no idea.

Services

upwork review

While Upwork / oDesk was primarily known as a place to find programmers, it is also a great place to find a virtual assistant, and administrative support is one of their fastest growing categories.

I found over 5000 matches for a recent Upwork search for “virtual assistant”.

Plans and Pricing

Upwork has no sign-up fees to access their network of freelance virtual assistant service providers. In fact, you can create an account, post your requirements, and have workers bidding for the job within a few minutes.

The company makes money by taking a fee from the contract price of the work. That means if you agree to pay an Upwork virtual assistant $500 for 100 hours worth of work (not an uncommon price!), they are really collecting slightly less than that.

Upwork Review

The Upwork system offers the benefits you’d expect from this type of marketplace, including feedback mechanisms and dispute resolution.

One thing that sets Upwork apart is their monitoring software. (Note: Elance has since implemented similar “Workview” software.) Some say it’s a little Big Brother-ish, but others swear by it because it makes sure the work that is paid for is the work that gets done.

The software, which workers turn on when they begin a job, tracks keystroke volume, takes screenshots at certain time intervals, and even has an optional webcam feature. If you’re wary about hiring a remote virtual assistant, it can definitely help overcome some of the fear of not being able to manage their working hours effectively.

A Global Minimum Wage?

In 2014, Upwork introduced a $3/hour minimum wage. Yes, it’s still absurdly low by Western standards, but it does prevent even lower bids from new overseas workers in developing economies.

When searching for virtual assistants on Upwork, pay close attention to their account history. How long have they been working? What does their feedback say about their work?

Another thing to look for is to match the virtual assistant’s specific skill set to the tasks you need done. Everyone has certain specialties, so seek out those who have good ratings in the areas you need the most help with. Alternatively, you can post your own job requirements and have workers bid on them.

Upwork Alternatives

There are several other freelance platforms you might consider testing out, including specialized services for graphic design, content writing, and technical support.

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

My favorite other broad-focused freelance site is Fiverr, primarily because you can just select the freelancer you want to work with directly, without sifting through dozens of applications. But it’s definitely better for smaller jobs where there’s less money on the line.

Related: Upwork vs. Fiverr: Which Marketplace is Best to Find an Awesome Freelancer?

For ongoing employment, you might consider OnlineJobs.ph, the largest job board in the Philippines with a huge database of qualified workers.

Related: My in-depth comparison between Upwork and OnlineJobs.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Upwork? Please share your experience below.

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Answering Legal

Posted by Mica Harvey / Virtual Receptionist Services

Answering Legal is a virtual receptionist service provider specializing in handling calls for law firms, attorneys, and solo law practitioners across the US.

The company is based in Nesconset, New York. They have been in business since 2013, and already serve over 5,000 law firms nationwide.

About Answering Legal

The company is a family owned and operated business headed up by a husband and wife team of Robert and Brooke Shatles.

All of their operatives are based in their Long Island offices, and they provide a 24/7 live telephone answering service to more than 5,000 law firms across the US.

If you’re a solo law practitioner there are going to be times when you’re not available to answer calls. Or, as a larger organization you may want out-of-hours support or help with periods of large call volumes.

Using a virtual receptionist service like Answering Legal is a cost-effective way to deal with these issues. Their operatives specialize in law and are trained in-house, this means that you can rest assured the person on the end of the phone representing your business understand the industry jargon. This is important in any industry, but perhaps none more than law.

 

When you sign up you are assigned a group of operators to handle your calls, this allows their operators to become familiar with you and your business and integrate with you and your business better over time.

Services

Answering Legal provide a wide range of receptionist services, including and not limited to:

  • 24-hour call answering
  • Taking messages
  • Legal intake
  • Call forwarding services
  • Customer support
  • Text messaging and email communications

Reps are bilingual in English and Spanish, and specifically trained to handle legal clients and leads.

You can forward your own scripts and legal intakes for their operative to work from or simply leave it up to them to handle your calls in a professional manner.

How Answering Legal Works

Plans and Pricing

Answering Legal offer a free 10-day trial if you want to test their services before committing to a plan.
They currently have four different monthly pricing plans:

  • Small Firm – 100 minutes for $198 per month
  • Medium Firm – 200 minutes for $330 per month
  • Large Firm – 300 minutes for $465 per month
  • Enterprise Firm – Custom quotes only, call for details

All the plans come with live receptionist coverage 24/7, 365 days a year. Someone will be there to answer your incoming calls, take down customer information, forward urgent calls, set appointments, and deliver messages.

Every Answering Legal plan comes with a 10-day free trial.

Not sure where your practice falls on their scale? The Small Firm plan is ideal for attorneys with 20 or less active cases per month, Medium Firm is aimed at those 20-50 case range, Large Firm is 50-75, and Enterprise Firm is suited to handle any number above 75.

Answering Legal Alternatives

Other virtual receptionist companies worth checking out include GabbyVille or DaVinci Virtual Receptionists, though neither specialize in serving attorney clients.

Your Turn

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

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Great Assistant

Posted by Mica Harvey / US Virtual Assistants

Great Assistant finds, trains, and matches you up with a US-based virtual assistant to help handle some of your day-to-day business tasks.

The program was founded in December 2015, their head office is located in Alberta, Canada, while their assistants work remotely from North America and Canada.

About Great Assistant

The Great Assistant program is run by Tim Francis, founder of the Profit Factory. The Profit Factory have a range of services for full-time entrepreneurs who are seeking to work smarter in their businesses using tools like 80/20, Scrum, Systems, and Kobe.

In 2015, Tim started Great Assistant to help match up entrepreneurs with dedicated US-based virtual assistants. He identified three ‘‘major pitfalls’’ entrepreneurs often fall into when hiring and working with virtual assistants:

  1. hiring the wrong assistants
  2. poor or non-existent on-board training
  3. poor or non-existent delegation

Great Assistant aims to address those issues head on.

For example, the company has a vigilant vetting process for both clients and assistants to ensure they are making the best match based on an informed decision.

They know finding a great hire isn’t as simple as typing your requirements into a web form. To find the best matched assistant they ask clients to complete 4 hours or so of work, as well as taking part in 4 hours of meetings.

Services

There is a one-off Match fee (currently $3500) payable when you first sign up for an assistant. This fee covers all the costs incurred in finding and vetting your assistant, namely:

  • Advertising
  • Screening
  • Work-testing
  • Kolbe-matching
  • Interviewing
  • Basic training

Once they have found you an assistant and you start your working relationship there is a monthly fee which covers:

  • Ongoing training
  • Access to ongoing tutorials and new tools
  • Private mastermind access

You can chat with Tim twice a week too as part of the membership fee.

The interview process is your chance to highlight all the skills, tools, apps, and areas you need your assistant to be proficient in.

Plans and Pricing

There is a one-time match fee of $3,500. This covers all the fees included in finding and preparing a virtual assistant as covered above.

The hourly rate of their assistants is $15-20/hour, but this is to be confirmed on an individual basis. After you make the hire, you’ll pay your assistant directly.

There is also an ongoing $95/month membership fee to cover the ongoing costs of training your assistant. This fee also allows you access to all the training materials, the support team at Profit Factory, and gives you some one-on-one time with Tim.

You can cancel the membership fee at any time if you feel although you’re not getting enough value from the training and services it unlocks.

Their assistants come with a 90-day guarantee. If you’re unhappy after 90 days and don’t think the working relationship is working out, Great Assistant will find you a new assistant.

Great Assistant Alternatives

For a dedicated US-based assistant without the multi-thousand dollar upfront recruiting fee, you might consider Time Etc or Boldly. The hourly rates are slightly higher than Great Assistant’s, but they also promise a similarly rigorous recruiting process.

Your Turn

Have you hired an assistant from Great Assistant? If so, please leave a short review below to help others with their decision.

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Weratoon

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

Weratoon is a virtual assistant company based in Chennai, India. The company was formed in November 2016 by a group of individuals working as freelancers across various industries. The company currently work primarily with clients in the US, however they provide virtual assistant services all over the globe.

Their company philosophy is interesting, the word “Ratoon” means a new shoot or sprout springing from the base of a crop plant. This is how they see their team at Weratoon, as a “collective sprout of talents.”

About Weratoon

I spoke with Karthikeyan Velan, Weratoon’s a co-founder and the Head of Operations. He has a Masters in Business Administration and has worked for large companies in the US and Australia, as well as working as a freelancer.

The company is based in Chennai, India, and all of their employees work from their corporate offices located in Tiruvallur near Chennai. Karthik explained their areas of specialization as presentations, spreadsheet management, Internet research, web design, and social media management.

Services

Signing up with Weratoon is straightforward, you can either request a quote for a custom task or buy some hours to use with their virtual assistants throughout the month.

As you would expect from a virtual assistant company, their assistants can handle a wide range of tasks. They group their services into three core areas:

  • Personal Service – Researching home services, product research, appointment management, calendar management, and other personal assistant-type services.
  • Business Service – Data entry, document management, presentations, online research, and other business related services.
  • Digital Marketing – Website design, blog maintenance, social media management, article writing, and other digital services.

When you sign up to work with their assistants you are assigned two assistants. This ensures you have continued support around the clock.

https://www.facebook.com/WeratoonVA/videos/202085133603586/

Plans and Pricing

Weratoon currently have two different payment plans: a Pay Per Task (PPT) or customized plan, and a Your Own Assistant (YOA) plan.

Their PPT plan is $7 per/hr. If you have one-off or custom tasks, provide as much detail as possible and a member of their team will get back to you with a quote before going ahead with the task.

Their YOA plan is also $7 per/hr for the first 100 hours, with this rate reducing to $6 per/hr for any additional hours in a month. You buy hours in a variety of different packages up front and carry any unused hours over to the following month. The rollover hours concept is somewhat unique.

Virtual Assistant Assistant Exclusive: Select VirtualAssistantAssistant.com from the “where did you hear about us” section during your sign up for 10% cash back on your first month of service!

Weratoon Alternatives

If you’re looking for other virtual assistant companies in India I recommend checking out My Tasker or Ask Sunday. Both are long-established companies with some favorable feedback and similar business models.

And if you’re open to virtual assistants in the Philippines, Task Bullet operates on a similar “bucket” of hours system.

Your Turn

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

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UrBackOffices

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

UrBackOffices is a virtual assistant company based in Bangladesh, and the company was founded in 2014.

They don’t offer the usual wide range of virtual assistant services you’d expect from a virtual assistant company, instead specializing in providing virtual assistants to business in the real estate industry.

About UrBackOffices

urbackoffices reviewThe company is headed-up and run by Mohibul Bhuiyan, along with a small but growing team of experienced virtual assistants in Bangladesh. Their target customers are real estate professionals, attorneys, credit companies, insurance companies, and companies in need of data entry support.

They offer support updating ad postings and property details for real estate companies, loan modification and bankruptcy, and large data entry projects. As a relatively new company and in such a specialized area, most of their client’s come from referrals and repeat business at the moment.

I think it’s good to see a company offering experienced VAs in a particular niche. It makes the process of evaluating if the skillsets match up with your tasks a little easier.

urbackoffices team

Services

UrBackOffices group their services into the following areas:

  • Real estate law office management
  • Real estate ad posting
  • Customer Support
  • Administrative support
  • Personal assistants, and
  • Data entry

As you can see from the above their virtual assistants are skilled and experienced primarily in the real estate industry. UrBackOffices isn’t the kind of VA company that provides general virtual assistants for everyday tasks for a growing business.

This gives real estate companies that added peace of mind that they are in the hands of experienced assistants that will be familiar with the industry jargon and practices. It’s still always good practice to ask a lot of questions and be as thorough as possible when communicating your needs however. This will ensure you have the best possible understanding and working relationship with your virtual assistant.

Plans and Pricing

UrBackOffices has three different price plans.

They are Starter, Standard, and Professional. All of the plans offer all of the services as mentioned above, the difference being the amount of hours in each plan. The pricing structure is very straightforward, you pay a flat rate of $6 per hour to start, with price breaks depending on how many hours a month you commit to.

urbackoffices pricing

There is a free trial available so you can sample their services for two hours with no obligation. All you have to do is fill out your details on their website and someone will get back to you within 24 hours with further details.

UrBackOffices Alternatives

There are no shortage of virtual assistant companies operating out of South Asia, with My Tasker being among the top-rated. However, targeting their services at real estate professionals sets UrbackOffices apart from most of the other companies. Two others I know that serve a lot of real estate clients are Uassist.ME and My Outdesk.

Your Turn

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

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Simple Creative Marketing

Posted by Mica Harvey / Content Writing Services

Simple Creative Marketing is a content writing service aimed at website and business owners looking for a fixed-price monthly subscription plan for outsourced content.

The company has been in business since mid-2016. They are based in Australia and have writers located remotely across Australia, South Africa, and the UK.

About Simple Creative Marketing

The company was founded by content marketing specialist Anfernee Chansamooth. Their target customers are, in his own words, “B2B service providers, online entrepreneurs and professional services.” The ideal SCM client is typically generating $100k+ revenue, and is “too busy to create their own content consistently but too small to hire in-house writing team.”

New and constant content is important for any business; it helps with your SEO presence, as well as giving your audience new and relevant content to read. Simple Creative Marketing specializes in producing high-quality blog posts, articles, and client case studies that are fully optimized for search engines, social sharing, and reading, so you don’t have to do it yourself.

Services

Simple Creative Marketing’s services extend further than just the content fulfillment that a lot of content companies offer.

If you wish, their team can do the research for you, format the content, and even upload the content to your site so all you need to do is hit “Publish”.

When you sign up you are assigned a dedicated project manager as a point of contact. The project manager will communicate with you to get the best possible understanding of your business and content needs, and feed this information back to their writers.

They can also provide monthly Google Analytics reports tracking the performance of the content they have produced. This is an interesting feature not often offered by content writing services and adds a bit of confidence that they are doing good research and optimizing their articles well.

Plans and Pricing

Simple Creative Marketing currently have one pricing plan of $499/month. Included in the plan are the following:

  • Up to four 1200 word articles researched, written, and uploaded into WordPress.
  • Formatting and proofreading the content.
  • Optimizing the content for on-page SEO.
  • 2 tweetable quotes added into each article.
  • 1 custom blog image for each article.

There are no contracts or minimum subscription time, and you can cancel at any time.

Simple Creative Marketing Alternatives

SCM is priced at the premium end of the market relative to competitors like Copywriter Today, which also offers a monthly content writing subscription plan.

If you want to order single articles and not commit to a monthly subscription then HireWriters or Scripted might be worth a look.

What separates Simple Creative Marketing from other companies I’ve worked with is that they offer a complete package. From researching keywords and content, writing the articles, to providing reports on how well the content is performing.

Your Turn

Have you ordered content from Simple Creative Marketing? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

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Designhill

Posted by Mica Harvey / Graphic and Web Design Services

Designhill is an online crowdsourcing design platform. You can submit any graphic design tasks and choose the design(s) you like most from a pool of results.

Crowdsourcing marketplaces have grown in popularity in recent years, and it’s easy to understand why. Since graphic designs can be subjective, having a selection of different designs to choose from often works out better than working with one designer.

Designhill has more than 37,000 graphic designers ready to submit their designs based on your requirements. So there should be no shortage of ideas and designs to choose from.

About Designhill

The team behind Designhill are based in Delhi, India and their graphic designers are based all over the world and work remotely.

Their services are quite flexible depending on your budget. You can opt to receive between 20-80 designs from a group of 10-40 designers, giving you a wide selection of designs to work with.

They offer a 100% money back guarantee, and have 24/7 customer support on hand if you have any issues.

Services

You can use Designhill for logos, infographics, book covers, package designs, brochures, and even full websites or vehicle wraps. Basically anything that could use a professional graphic designer’s touch can be fulfilled through the site in a crowdsourcing contest.

The Designhill site is easy to use and with just a few clicks you submit your job. There is a simple 4-step process from start to finish:

  • Step 1 – Post a brief detailing exactly what you’re looking for. This is your chance to describe your brand, vision, and add any details that will help the designers bring your vision to life.
  • Step 2 – Wait a few days, then check all the designs that have been returned to see which you like the most.
  • Step 3 – You can give feedback to the designers and request unlimited revisions to tweak your finished design.
  • Step 4 – Choose the winning design, release payment to the designer, and get complete ownership and several different file types to work with.

This kind of platform is most suited to you if you know you’re going to want one-off jobs from time-to-time.

If you’re building a brand and want various graphics all in uniform it may be hard to find consistency when working with so many different designers, so that’s something to keep in mind.

Plans and Pricing

Designhill’s pricing system is broken down into four plans, Fast Track, Standard, Executive, and Premium. You can also choose your exact design task from a list of over 50 options, giving you an accurate price per plan for each task.

The different plans include the following services:

  • Fast Track – 10+ designers, 20+ designs, money back guarantee. Starting at $149.
  • Standard – 20+ designers, 40+ designs, professional designers, newsletter and social media promotion. Starting at $299.
  • Executive – 30+ designers, 60+ designs, hand-picked expert designers, newsletter, social media, and blog promotion. Starting at $599.
  • Premium – 40+ designers, 80+ designs, hand-picked exceptional designers, newsletter, social media, and blog promotion, highlighted contest upgrade, and one free paid invites. Starting at $999.

The larger packages give you a much deeper pool of designers and designs to choose from.

To give you an idea of the difference between the plans, a logo design task starts at $149 for the Fast Track plan, going up to $299 for Standard, $599 for Executive, and $999 for Premium.

Designhill Alternatives

It’s hard to mention a crowdsourced design marketplace without mentioning 99designs. 99designs are one of the largest companies in this space and although their starting prices are a little higher they have the reputation to justify it.

I turned to Designcrowd, which runs a similar business model, for my latest book cover.

For logo design, you might also consider 48 Hours Logo or Deluxe Logo Design. If you have ongoing design needs for your website or social media, a company like UnicornGO might be worth a look.

Your Turn

Have you had design work done on Designhill? If so, please leave a short review to help others with their decision.

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Vicky Virtual Receptionists

Posted by Mica Harvey / Virtual Receptionist Services

Vicky Virtual Receptionists is a virtual telephone answering service for small businesses. They have a team of receptionists available to handle your calls, help you schedule appointments, and help you to make sure you don’t miss any calls, which can result in losing sales.

The company has been operating since 2014, they are based in the US and use US-based receptionists.

About Vicky Virtual Receptionists

The company was founded by Donald T. Spann in October, 2014. He decided to start Vicky Virtual when he realized he was losing sales through not having someone on hand to answer calls when he was busy.

When you sign up with Vicky Virtual a team of 4-6 receptionists are assigned to handle your calls. While this means you do not have the same voice on the end of every call, it does mean you have much better coverage at a fraction of the price it would cost to hire employees.

You can provide them with your own scripts to read from, or leave it down to their professional call handlers if you prefer.

Services

Vicky can handle any of your telecommunication needs. Their receptionists can handle your outbound calls as well as answering inbound calls (but don’t think of them as a sales organization or lead generation service).

They can make follow-up calls on your behalf, set appointment reminders, dinner reservations, finding and arranging gifts for you, just about anything you can think of.

They’ll answer calls from any numbers you forward to their receptionists. You can use the service to screen and transfer calls to limit the amount of calls you’re taking. Answer questions from an FAQ, provide information to your clients, and more.

Vicky Virtual does a lot of work with clients in the professional services industry like attorneys and also in the household service industry like cleaners.

Vicky Virtual Receptionists Intro Video

Plans and Pricing

Vicky Virtual has three different pricing plans based on the amount of minutes you require per month, as well as an option to make a custom plan if you think you’ll exceed 300 minutes.

Their plans start at $99 for 60 minutes, which means you’re paying just over $1.50 per minute when their receptionists are on the phone. Their larger plans work out to an even lower price per minute.

  • Starter – $99/month, 60 minutes.
  • Entrepreneur – $239/month, 180 minutes.
  • Executive – $349/month, 300 minutes.

All their plans are month-to-month and include online scheduling and a voicemail box.

They also come with a 7-day free trial. This is a great way to test out their service, and after the 7-days you can either cancel or you will be placed on the most appropriate plan based on your usage.

If you need more than 300 minutes a month someone at Vicky Virtual will contact you to discuss a custom plan. There is also a one-off $50 setup fee due after the 7-day free trial.

VAA exclusive: Check the Virtual Assistant Assistant box on the “where did you hear about us?” form at sign-up to waive the $50 setup fee.

Vicky Virtual Receptionists Alternatives

Ruby Receptionists is probably the most well-known company in the virtual receptionist space, but other options include DaVinci and Remsource, which might be a better fit depending on your call volume and level of business integration you’re looking for.

Your Turn

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

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2nd Office

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

2nd Office is a Philippines-based virtual assistant company. They have a team of virtual assistants, all based and managed in-house and they specialize in providing support to businesses of all sizes looking to outsource tasks.

The company was founded in August 2012, their headquarters is located in Antipolo, Philippines.

About 2nd Office

Their virtual assistants all work out of their offices in Antipolo. Unlike some companies that rely solely on assistants based from their homes, this enables 2nd Office to assign managers to oversee their assistants and provide an additional point of contact.

Carlo Silva is the CEO and founder of 2ndoffice.co. Carlo had an eCommerce business and started outsourcing tasks using companies in India, but was unhappy with the quality of the services he was using and decided to start his own virtual assistant company.

In his words, 2nd Office’s directive is to “help other businesses grow and to stand as a second office and a partner in reaching their clients’ potentials.”

Services

The virtual assistants at 2nd Office provide support across all aspects of running a business. Some of the key skills they list as areas of specialization include:

  • E-commerce
  • Web development
  • Data entry
  • Customer support
  • Creative writing
  • Social media
  • Graphic design
  • Marketing

There seems to be a focus on Amazon and eBay sellers, though interestingly you do not get a dedicated assistant to communicate with back and forth. Instead, you talk through your tasks and workload with one of their managers and the work is then assigned internally. It’s like they want a buffer layer between clients and the actual assistants.

Plans and Pricing

Frustratingly, 2nd Office does not have any pricing plans or subscription rate packages publicly available. You need to contact them directly to receive a quote for the work you want to outsource to one of their assistants.

To me, that’s a big hint that the company really isn’t aimed at individual operators or sole proprietors. I get the impression they’re looking for clients who need several full-time staff members and have the budget to pay for it.

2nd Office Alternatives

When hiring virtual assistants from the Philippines you have a number of options. If you prefer to screen and hire work-from-home virtual assistants yourself from a pool of applicants, consider the popular job board, OnlineJobs.ph.

If you want to work with assistants managed in-house like the 2nd Office model, VA Staffer might be worth a look.

Your Turn

Have you worked with 2nd Office? If so, please leave a short review below to help others with their decision.

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