Supahands

Posted by Mica Harvey / Virtual Assistant Companies

UPDATE: Supahands no longer provides virtual assistant service. Instead they specialize in content moderation for companies in the property, media & e-commerce industries. The information below pertains to their old business model. Please consider one of these alternatives or see below.

Supahands is an outsourcing platform that works with entrepreneurs and business owners looking to outsource tasks of all sizes.

You can outsource individual tasks on an ad-hoc basis, or work with a dedicated assistant for all your tasks.

About Supahands

supahands reviewThe company has been in operation for two years. In this time they have worked with clients all over the globe and now have workers based in Australia, Singapore, the US, and their headquarters is based in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia.

The company is headed up by John Simpson. Their target customers are entrepreneurs, as well as small and large businesses.

When I spoke with Supahands they said, “What makes Supahands stand out as a leading outsourcing center are the skill sets that they can acquire to put in place for their clients.”

Services

You can submit any ad-hoc tasks to the Supahands team. As mentioned above, if the task is not within their skill set they will recommend a company that can help. The company group their services into four areas:

  • Database Maintenance
  • Sales Support
  • Customer Support
  • General Tasks

They specialize in Data Entry, Lead Generation, Database Cleaning, Inbound and Outbound Customer Care, Data Deduplication, Online Research, Appointment Booking and Scheduling, Data Mining.

There are some areas that Supahands assistants do not specialize in however. If you are looking to outsource specialized tasks, such as SEO, site design, video editing, press releases, or writing, their staff cannot help. The company will however recommend another outsourcing company they have worked with before and are confident will be able to help.

Supahands Intro Video

[leadplayer_vid id=”572A129F40EE2″]

Plans and Pricing

The currency/credits Supahands virtual assistants use is called “Hands.” You purchase Hands and then use them for services.

Their packages are:

Starter Hands – This package buys you 6 Hands for $21.

Growth Hands – This package buys you 12 Hands for $36.

Pro Hands – This package buys you 30 Hands for $75.

supahands pricing

One hand buys you 20 minutes of virtual assistant time or a specific task. For example, asking Supahands to find you a contractor or a dog groomer will cost you one hand. For this cost a member of staff will do all the work for you, vetting contractors, making the calls and arranging the appointment.

If you utilize all 12 hands in the Growth package at 20 minutes a pop, you’d be looking at an equivalent hourly rate of $9 an hour.

Supahands also has a Premium package; 45 tasks for $225 a month, and perhaps most importantly, your requests are routed to your dedicated assistant each time.

If you run out of Hands on any plan, you can “top off” your account at any time.

You currently receive two free Hands when signing up, so now is the perfect time to give Supahands a try and see how well they fit with your requirements.

Supahands Alternatives

OkayRelax and Fancy Hands are the two companies that come to mind with the most similar package offerings. With OkayRelax, you can get a dedicated assistant at a lower price point than Supahands, and with Fancy Hands, their whole team is US-based.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Supahands? If so, I hope you’ll take a moment to leave a review below to help others with their virtual assistant decision.

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TimelyPA

Posted by Mica Harvey / UK/Europe Virtual Assistants

UPDATE: It appears TimelyPA is out of business. Please consider one of these alternatives or see below. If you own this listing or this information is incorrect, contact me here.

TimelyPA is a UK based virtual assistant company that provides virtual assistant support to tech startups. Starting up a new business can feel overwhelming and daunting, handing a lot of the work over to a team specializing in startups can make a big difference to the speed and growth of the new company.

The company has been in operation since 2013. All of their staff are based in the UK, and they aim to provide the highest quality native English speaking staff at a competitive price.

About TimelyPA

timelypa reviewThe company is run by Patrick Collins who is the founder. The team has their own page on the TimelyPA website outlining their roles, which is a nice touch. There is Edi, co-founder and social media manager. Aura, data research specialist. Chris, social media and graphic design, and Josh, SEO and blog writing.

When I spoke with TimelyPA they explained that they “Work only with tech startups, and so have great experience in the startup environment in what processes, skills and software are the best to apply to the startup that we are working with.” They are not a general virtual assistant company, but specializing in startups allows them to channel their skillset into what they do best – helping startups grow.

Starting up a new business can be incredibly time consuming. Outsourcing a lot of the tasks in the early days of a business can free up your time to work on being creative and concentrating on the areas of the business you enjoy more.

TimelyPA Intro Video

Services

There are three core areas to TimelyPA’s services.

Leads for Startups

You can outsource all of your data research, CRM set up, data cleaning and email and call validation.

Social Media Management

Incredibly important for startups looking to promote their new brand and spread the word. TimelyPA will set up profiles on all major social media platforms, increase the amount of followers to your social media accounts, as well as manage the day-to-day running of your social media.

Customer Support

The team at TimelyPA will deal with all incoming inquiries (well, enquiries, being a UK company) and help secure new customers. As well as manage the live chat function on your website and carry out any customer orientated tasks as directed by you.

Plans and Pricing

There are three different pricing plans depending on how many hours of virtual assistant time you are buying. Their entry plan is an hourly rate of $25 per/hr. The minimum amount of time you have to purchase at this price is 5 hours, and the maximum per month is 80 hours.

Their other plans are $500 for 20 hours, or $2000 for 80 hours. These work out at $25 per hour and come with the same minimum and maximum thresholds.

TimelyPA Alternatives

TimelyPA have crafted themselves a niche with their focus being only on tech startups. There are other virtual assistant providers in the UK that offer similar services within their virtual assistant skillsets however. Time ETC is one of the larger companies in this space, they are worth checking out along with Virtalent.

Have you worked with TimelyPA? Have they helped you with your own startup? If so please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

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VirtuNeeds

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

UPDATE: It appears VirtuNeeds is out of business. Please consider one of these alternatives or see below. If you own this listing or this information is incorrect, contact me here.

VirtuNeeds is a US-based virtual assistant company that provides virtual assistants to customers all over the globe.

The company has been in operation since 2014, however, they were operating on referrals only until they came out of private beta in early 2016.

About VirtuNeeds

virtuneeds reviewThe company is run by Bridgett Smith, a former Senior Account Executive for Clear Channel Radio. Bridgett has an extensive background working with entrepreneurs, small business owners, medium sized business owners, and multi-media ad agencies. Bridgett decided to start VirtuNeeds to help other business owners find virtual assistants.

The company headquarters is located in Las Vegas, US. Their virtual assistants work remotely all over the US from locations like Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Their target customers are any businesses or entrepreneurs in need of a helping hand. They have a wide scope of clients, and their virtual assistants are capable of handling just about any day-to-day business tasks.

Services

VirtuNeeds virtual assistants are willing to take on all tasks, no matter how big or small. If you need support in any of the following areas, their team is ready to help:

  • General administration
  • Making travel arrangements
  • Writing, formatting and typing
  • Marketing
  • Social Media
  • Customer support
  • Ad-hoc tasks
  • And more

The company provides their own task portal where you can submit tasks and communicate directly with your assistant.

Bridgett explained that VirtuNeeds also has entertainment experience for those who require event planning, artist booking, etc., and that they can help put together promotional and marketing campaigns for those clients.

Depending on the clients needs they are either assigned a dedicated VA (works on a set schedule example 12-3pm directly with client) or if they just want to submit sporadic tasks they use the task portal and anyone can complete those jobs based on availability.

The account manager’s role is especially important for clients with dedicated VAs. They make sure that everything is going well, if any tweaks need to be made to satisfy a customer, and they control the pairing between which VA would best suit a specific clients needs.

Plans and Pricing

VirtuNeeds has three different monthly packages on offer. Rates range from around $17-$20 an hour depending on the package. They also offer some flexibility for custom projects if you contact them for a quote.

virtuneeds pricing

Their packages are priced per hours purchased, and are broken down as follows:

  • Twenty hours – $399 for 20 hours = $19.95 per hour
  • Thirty hours – $549 for 30 hours = $18.30 per hour
  • Forty hours – $699 for 40 hours = $17.48 per hour

None of these plans require an ongoing contract and all include time tracking for your VA and a daily action report to summarize what they got done. Compared with other American virtual assistant companies, the rates are quite competitive.

VirtuNeeds also offers a handful of other custom packages that may be a fit depending on your needs.

  • Retainer Package: This package is for clients that will need an assistant sporadically throughout the month. You will pay a retainer fee and use your hours for any task whenever you wish.
  • Fixed Bid Package: This package is for those that are looking for assistance with a project assignment that has a definite finish date.
  • Hourly Package: You can purchase a block of hours with this package.

For each of these you will need to contact them with your requirements for a quote.

VirtuNeeds Alternatives

Worldwide 101 and Time Etc are two of their main competitors with home-based American virtual assistants. Both have been in business a little longer, but VirtuNeeds’ rates are slightly lower.

Your Turn

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

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Vortex 360

Posted by Mica Harvey / UK/Europe Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

UPDATE: It appears Vortex 360 is out of business. Please consider one of these alternatives or see below. If you own this listing or this information is incorrect, contact me here.

Vortex 360 is an international virtual assistant company with offices in London, Dublin, Boston, Accra, Nairobi, and Abu Dhabi. The company was founded by Sean Murphy in 2015 and aims to provide a professional resource service to busy professionals who are ready to start outsourcing some of their workload.

About Vortex 360

vortex 360 reviewThe company’s main offices are in the UK and Ireland. Vortex 360 also have offices in Kenya, Ghana, UAE, and the US, allowing them to work with clients all over the world and utilize assistants in offices that enable them to work to the client’s local timezone.

Vortex 360 employs assistants native to the UK, Ireland and the US. You will be assigned a dedicated assistant that is best suited to your individual needs when you purchase one of their packages.

Their business directive is to provide support to busy professionals and business owners. Allowing you to free up more of your time to focus on other areas of your business. Although the company has only been in business around a year they have a presence all over the world and offer a wide range of services.

Services

Some of the more common tasks Vortex 360’s virtual assistants handle include:

  • Administration support
  • Customer support
  • Personal assistant duties
  • Social media services
  • Data Entry
  • Online research
  • Article writing
  • And more

Plans and Pricing

Vortex 360 has two sets of plans. The first are their pre-paid packages, ideal if you’re working to a budget and want to purchase a bundle of hours to use as and when you need assistance. They also have some retainer packages, ideal if you have ongoing work and want some added security. The outline of their packages are as follows:

Pre-payment packages

  • Zero Hour Package – 3 hours – £78 per month ($34 per/hr)
  • Starter Package – 10 hours – £250 per month ($32 per/hr)
  • Lucent Package – 20 hours – £480 per month ($31 per/hr)

Is it a little ironic the “Zero Hour Package” comes with 3 hours?

vortex 360 package pricing

All these packages secure you a dedicated assistant from the UK, you can send unlimited tasks until your hours have been used, and can expect the tasks to be completed promptly.

Retainer packages

  • Lustrous Package – 40 hours – £880 per month ($29 per/hr)
  • Trophy Package – 60 hours – £1260 per month ($27 per/hr)
  • Virtuoso Package – 240 hours – £4800 per month ($26 per/hr)

vortex 360 retainer pricing

Again, with these packages you have a dedicated UK assistant and can send over unlimited tasks. Unused hours roll over for two weeks.

Vortex 360 offers a free trial. No credit card details or contracts to sign, just fill out the form on their website and have your first task completed for free to the value of £25. Free trials are the best way to sample a virtual assistant company before committing to a plan and are generally a good indication of what you can expect from an ongoing relationship going forward.

Vortex 360 Alternatives

If you’re looking for UK or European-based virtual assistant services, check out Time Etc and Boldly, two of the highest rated companies on this site. Another company worth checking out is Taystone BPO.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Vortex 360? If so, please take a moment to share a review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

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WP Soar

Posted by Mica Harvey / Technical Assistants

UPDATE: It appears WP Soar is out of business. Please consider one of these alternatives or see below. If you own this listing or this information is incorrect, contact me here.

WP Soar is your outsourced IT department for WordPress sites. The company was founded in 2016 and has quickly grown to dozens of paying customers because of the easy value-driven service to their clients: unlimited 30-minute WordPress fixes and proactive maintenance for $79/month.

Their team is US-based, speak perfect English and are all proficient in WordPress. The Denver team started with Artem Nikulkov and Yury Vilk after realizing the need for their existing web clients.

wp-soar-review

Fun fact: They even have a WordPress course to teach you how to build a site from scratch, step by step with free video lessons.

The target customer is a small business owner, blogger or authority site owner who:

  • Has issues with their website, but doesn’t have the time, experience or patience to fix them.
  • Doesn’t want to work with dozens of different contractors.
  • Has a limited budget, but still needs high-quality, on demand support

What WP Soar is not good for:

  • Building a new site from scratch.
  • Large scale web development/design projects.

Services

The company handles bug fixes, design tweaks, and WordPress backup and security for your website.

With WP Soar, you are essentially buying access to a dedicated on-demand help desk for your website. Once you submit your ticket, their support team responds and fixes the issue. They also notify you of any proactive maintenance that is done on the site.

Not only will they suggest fixes on the site, they’ll go ahead and do it if it doesn’t impede the functionality and display. They will offer proactive marketing advice and even some additional advice for themes, plugins and WordPress how-tos. This is how they help their customers, not just by doing, but by showing.

Plans & Pricing

WP Soar has 3 pricing tiers:

wp-soar-pricing

The WP Soar “Standard” plan is $79/month (billed annually, or $99/month billed monthly) for “unlimited” 30-minute WordPress website tasks for one domain.

It’s “unlimited” in quotes because it’s subject to the reasonable use policy, but most tasks get done. Tasks are guaranteed done in 8 hours or less.

The “Professional” plan includes support for e-commerce and membership sites and can include up to 2 sites for a rate of $299 a month, billed annually.

The “VIP” plan includes everything from all plans, including private phone support, up to 5 sites and a consulting service for $499 a month, billed annually.

Each plan’s response time differs by 2 hours with the VIP plan able to get something resolved within 4 hours.

Each plan comes with a free sign up bonus of a full website audit and review from our in house developers.

All plans come with a 30-day 100% money-back guarantee and there are no long term contracts or commitments. (Except for paying for the full year upfront to lock in the discounted rate.)

As you can imagine, if WP Soar can save you just a couple of development hours a month or make some minor improvements, the service pays for itself. This is with the knowledge that most agencies will easily charge over $200/hr for service.

WP Soar Alternatives

The best known competitor is probably Dan Norris’ WP Curve, and I’ve been testing out a similar service called Zen WP.

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

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WP Curve

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

UPDATE: WP Curve was acquired by Go Daddy and is no longer accepting new clients. Please consider one of these alternatives or see below. If you own this listing or this information is incorrect, contact me here.

WP Curve wants to be your outsourced IT department for WordPress sites. The company was founded in 2013 and has quickly grown to hundreds of paying customers because of the dead-simple service: unlimited 30-minute WordPress fixes for $79 a month.

Their team is a truly international operation, with the co-founders Dan Norris and Alex McClafferty split between Australia and California, and the development team in the Philippines and Central America. All are dedicated full-time to WP Curve.

Fun fact: As of September 2014, Dan and Alex have never met in person.

Is WP Curve Right For You?

wp curve review

The target customer is a small business owner who:

  • Has problems with their website but doesn’t have the time or know-how to fix them themselves.
  • Doesn’t want to contract out to a new developer for each little tweak they want to make.
  • Has a limited budget for IT maintenance but still needs a high-quality site presented to the world.

What WP Curve is NOT good for:

  • Building a new website from scratch.
  • Larger scale web development projects.
  • People looking for a full-time web developer.

Plans and Pricing

The WP Curve “Professional” plan is $79 per month (billed annually, or $99 billed monthly) for “unlimited” 30-minute WordPress website fixes for one domain. I say “unlimited” in quotes because everything is subject to a reasonable use policy. (Don’t be the guy who tries to abuse the system.)

The Professional plan includes detailed notes on your requests, 24-hour live chat and email support, and same-day turnaround in most cases.

The VIP plan is priced at $159 month (billed annually, or $199 monthly), and includes everything in the Professional plan plus some extra bonuses like faster turnaround times, quality control checks, and the ability to submit up to 3 requests at a time.

wp curve pricing

Each plan comes with a free sign-up bonus of a personalized 18-point site check and review by one of WP Curve’s developers.

Both plans come with a 30-day 100% satisfaction money-back guarantee, and there are no long-term contracts or commitments.

If you don’t imagine needing the ongoing support, you can also tap WP Curve for one-off support for $69 per request.

On-Demand Website Help

With WPCurve, you’re essentially buying access to an on-demand help-desk for your website. Name something you’d like fixes and they’re on it.

Now, to make sure their members get the most out of their subscription, they’ve even started making proactive suggestions for website improvements each week. It’s an interesting strategy for customer retention and they’re really trying to create a legion of raving fans to evangelize the service via word of mouth.

As you can imagine, if WP Curve can save you even just a couple hours a month, or make some tweak to improve your conversion rate, the service easily pays for itself.

WP Curve Alternatives

Because of the short nature of these types of micro web development jobs, it can be cost prohibitive to post them on some freelance platform. You’ll either spend more time posting and screening candidates than the job’s worth, and might not attract the best talent for a 20-minute job. In the freelancer’s mind, is it even worthwhile to bid on it?

The nearest competition is Zen WP, which I’ve been happy with in my trial so far. A friend of mine runs a similar service called Access WP, which has a special offer for VAA visitors.

For one-off fixes, check out WP Fix It.

The other alternative to consider would be Fiverr, and I’ve actually had some success in getting small WordPress fixes done there. But the downsides of course are there’s no long-term relationship, no proactive support, and limited feedback or recourse if something goes wrong. Every time I give someone on Fiverr my login information, I can’t help but think to myself this is either my best decision ever–or my worst.

Have you worked with WP Curve? If so, please be sure to leave a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

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Virtual Valley

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

UPDATE: It appears Virtual Valley is out of business. Please consider one of these alternatives or see below. If you own this listing or this information is incorrect, contact me here.

Virtual Valley is a UK-based virtual assistant company specializng in connecting entrepreneurs and small business owners with virtual assistants based in the Philippines.

The company is headed up by Tom Hunt, who started accepting new clients in 2016.

About Virtual Valley

virtual valley reviewVirtualValley.io is one of the newer virtual assistant companies to enter the marketplace, starting operations in January of this year. The company is founded and run by Tom Hunt, an entrepreneur who has appeared on Dragon’s Den, Location Independent Entrepreneur, and is a TEDx speaker.

Tom started the company to help connect business owners who are in the early growth phases of their business, with virtual assistants capable of taking on some of their workload. All of Virtual Valley’s virtual assistants are home-based in the Philippines to make them available at an affordable price. Allowing the business owner to use their time in more profitable ways.

Virtual Valley has a curated database of virtual assistants already vetted, and have designed their platform to be quick and easy to use. (Allowing clients to browse their database, post jobs, and hire a VA within minutes.

Services

Being a new company, Virtual Valley are currently just offering virtual assistants to fulfill general VA roles. So data entry, inbox management, research, etc. They have plans to expand and have more role-specific virtual assistant options in the future, such as web development, graphics, accounting, and more.

Their services have been designed to offer a quick, streamlined solution to hiring and managing a virtual assistant. Tom explained that with Virtual Valley, “You can hire a virtual assistant within 5 minutes and 7 clicks of creating a Virtual Valley account, as opposed to searching through pages and pages of VAs just relying on reviews/ratings for assessment.”

There are six steps to follow when filling out an application to find a virtual assistant:

  1. Title of the role you are submitting
  2. Select the hourly rate you want to pay the virtual assistant
  3. Select a start date
  4. Choose either a part time or full time VA
  5. Add a detailed description of the role
  6. Add any desirable skills required of the VA

The time your VA works is tracked using their proprietary time tracking software managed in-house. The software provides screen shots and data to your own dashboard so you can keep track of what tasks have been completed and how much time has been used.

Plans and Pricing

When hiring a virtual assistant you choose either a part-time assistant at 4 hours per day, or full-time assistant at 8 hours per day. Then you agree to their hourly rate which is typically between $3-6 an hour.

For example, this means if you were to hire a part-time virtual assistant at $3 an hour, you can expect to pay around $240 a month. Virtual Valley take a 20% fee which is included in the VA’s hourly rate.

When I filtered for part-time VAs, these are the results I found:

virtual valley virtual assistants

There is no upfront fee and payments are taken from PayPal at the end of the month.

Virtual Valley Alternatives

There are several companies vying for your Filipino VA recruiting attention. Zen Virtual Assistants Finder will perform a similar candidate search on your behalf for an upfront fee, and then set you loose to work with your virtual hire with no ongoing markup on their salary.

OnlineJobs.ph is for the do-it-yourselfer. For $49 a month you’ll have access to their massive resume database of virtual assistants, ability to post your job, and communicate with candidates.

But where Virtual Valley falls is somewhere in between; you won’t pay the upfront fee or have the recruiting headaches you might encounter with OnlineJobs or Upwork, and you also won’t pay anywhere close to the same markup you’d pay through a more traditional virtual assistant company. 

Your Turn

Have you worked with Virtual Valley? If so, please be sure to leave a review of your hiring and working experience below.

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Ezy VA

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

UPDATE: EZY VA has pivoted their business model and no longer offer the services listed below. They are no longer accepting new clients. Please consider one of these alternatives.

Headquarted in the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia, Ezy VA is the brainchild of Monty G. Hooke, an entrepreneur & business mentor. Beginning in 2012, Ezy VA offers a unique chance for clients to combine their permanent virtual employees, along with the flexibility of paying for on demand services.

Apart from Australia, Ezy VA runs its operations across Manila and Pampanga in the Philippines. All employees working with Ezy VA are permanent staff, as the company doesn’t work with any freelancers. This renders quality control and lessens the pain of working with freelancers as observed in some of the other VA companies.

About EZY VA

ezy va reviewIn a world where technology rules the roost, EZY VA banks on their smart system to handle tasks from all over the world catering to a slew of customers, small and large. EZY VA is essentially a powerful offering working with industry trained professionals who are much more than just freelancers under one roof.

(Bonus points if you can spot the ironic typo in the slogan underneath their logo!)

Ezy VA Intro Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuD95nPGPtY&t=15

How it Works

Ezy VA offers a couple of unique options for clients to choose from. You can either choose to “Build their Dream Team” or “Hire dedicated staff” depending on their business needs.

You can also approach Ezy VA business experts for free no-obligation strategy session to help you prioritize your needs and take action on what’s more beneficial to you.

Ezy VA has the plans arranged based on hours. After deciding on the plan, one is directed to the payments page, where one proceeds to setup his account.

This usually gets over in a day or two. Soon, you will receive a welcome mail with a couple of videos that shall help you gauge the process in a better manner. You can then begin assigning tasks to the  “Dream Team Leader,” who is also a part of the staff  team and helps you choose the right VA to accomplish your tasks.

Clients also receive ongoing support until the task gets completed.

Services

The Ezy VA “Dream Team” services include Web Design & Website Management, Graphic Design & Video, and Technical Support in addition to more traditional virtual assistant admin tasks.

Their “Dedicated Staff” team handles services like Virtual Assistance, Marketing & Social Media, Customer Support, and Bookkeeping & Document Handling along with a slew of other Specialist Services.

Plans and Pricing

As described above, the company has two levels of service: Dream Team on Demand, and Dedicated Staff.

With the Dream Team on Demand, plans start at $10.60 per hour when you buy a 40-hour block of time. If you have regular, ongoing needs, you can improve your hourly rate slightly by committing to 20 or 40 hours a week of outsourced work.

Each Dream Team plan comes with an additional $90 set-up fee.

ezy va pricing

For Dedicated Staff, rates start at $85 per week for 10 hours of service, plus $270 in one-time set-up and recruitment fees. Unlike other VA companies in the Philippines, Ezy VA is also requiring a minimum 3-month contract from new clients.

ezy va dedicated staff pricing

For a full-time, 40 hour per week dedicated assistant, you’d be looking at a rate of $1232 every 4 weeks. Definitely on the high side for Filipino VA companies.

Ezy VA Alternatives

The combination of a team-based approach plus the option to go full-dedicated makes Ezy VA a compelling entry in the market. My Tasker in India runs a similar model, as does VA Staffer in the Philippines.

If you’re comfortable going the do-it-yourself route, you can save a lot of money on an hourly and monthly basis by hiring direct through a site like OnlineJobs.ph, though that process is certainly not without pitfalls of its own.

Have you ever worked with Ezy VA? If so, please feel free to share a brief review of your experience to help others embrace the service.

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Writer.ly

Posted by Mica Harvey / Content Writing Services

UPDATE: It appears Writer.ly is out of business. Please consider one of these alternatives.

Writer.ly is a marketplace for writers to find the editors, book designers, and marketers they need to get their books in the hands of as many readers as possible. The Seattle-based company was founded in 2012, and is currently in beta.

I would describe the platform as similar to Elance, but just for writing-related professionals. Writers will post the jobs they need done, and qualified freelancers bid on them to win the work.

The writer / employer chooses the best fit based on price, portfolio, reviews, and experience.

writer.ly reviewWriter.ly Services

I originally thought Writer.ly was a content marketplace like HireWriters, but it’s actually aimed at the content-creators themselves.

After you painstakingly craft The Great American Novel (or a work of non-fiction, or whatever), you can turn to the freelancers at Writer.ly for proofreading, editing, formatting for Kindle and CreateSpace, cover design, and more.

There are even professionals to help get a website set up for your book launch, coordinate your social media and PR efforts, and execute a marketing campaign.

Plans and Pricing

The site is free to join and post your work, and pricing for individual projects is set by the freelancers bidding on the jobs.

Naturally, the rates will vary depending on the job and experience level of the freelancer. From what I could find, the site seems to have attracted a largely North American user base.

Similar to oDesk, Writer.ly takes a 10% cut for facilitating the transaction and providing the platform. When I post jobs on freelance sites, I tend to remove the outlier bids — both high and low and go with the candidate in the middle who impresses me the most.

About Writer.ly

Co-founders Kelsye Nelson and Abigail Carter explain that there is an entire ecosystem that needs to thrive in the publishing world for authors to get their work out there.

It would be almost impossible do write, edit, design, and market a new book all on your own; and that’s where Writer.ly comes in. It’s a virtual support group for authors.

Nelson explained, “Our ‘secret sauce’ is we give writers power and control. Almost 1500 writers have signed up for our beta, demanding for a one-stop resource to find the services they need and still retain control of their books. They want more choice than the bundled services offered by Lulu and Amazon’s CreateSpace. Many are frustrated by new alternative publishers that still control the revenue, the marketing and sometimes even the copyright.”

Writer.ly Alternatives

As an author, you will definitely cast a wider net in terms of finding talent if you go to a larger freelance platform. But along with that wider net may come more irrelevant or unqualified bids, which take time to sort through.

As they put it: It would be easier for Marlin to find Nemo in the aquarium than in the ocean.

Have you worked with Writer.ly? If so, please be sure to leave a quick review of your experience to help others with their decision.

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Rent A Smile

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

UPDATE: It appears Rent A Smile is out of business. Please consider one of these alternatives.

Rent A Smile is a virtual personal assistant and small business outsourcing company based in New York and with offshore facilities in India. The company is actually a division of Octagon, a global business process outsourcing firm that was founded in 1999.

Services

rent a smile reviewRent A Smile offers two levels of service: Personal and Business.

Personal Assistance

is incredibly economical, starting at just $39 a month. For that price, you can send up to 15 requests per month. Typical requests may include basic online research, restaurant reservations, appointment setting, travel plans, and other administrative tasks that would take up to 20 or 30 minutes.

For $59 a month, you can make up to 30 of these requests. If you have 30 twenty-minute tasks to unload, you could save over 10 hours a month (a full day of work!) – all for just $59. Now you have to start giving some serious thought to how much your time is worth.

Special Offer: Use Rent a Smile coupon code UIEDP for $9/month off either RAS personal plan for life!

Business Assistance

Business Assistance from Rent A Smile offers affordable dedicated virtual assistant service.

This option is better suited for entrepreneurs looking for help with content writing, social media management, and ongoing business-related tasks. With a dedicated resource, you have a familiar person to communicate with on a daily basis, and you can train them to do whatever remote tasks you need done.

Rent A Smile has Business plans ranging from 9 hours a month for $99 ($11/hr), all the way up to full-time 160 hours for $920 a month ($5.75/hr). All of these plans are very competitive for what is essentially a virtual employee of your company.

Special Offer: Use Rent a Smile coupon code UIEDP for $9/month off a Business Assistance plan for life!

There are no start-up fees or long-term contracts. If you’re ready to give Rent A Smile a try, check out their 3-day free trial.

Rent a Smile Review

The company strives to begin work on all requests within 4 hours, but obviously response times vary depending on how many tasks they have in queue.

Additional requests beyond your allotment are accepted, and charged at a rate of $2 per task. Rent A Smile offers a three-day free trial to help customers get a feel for how they might use the service.

Rent A Smile Alternatives

If you envision having more than 30 virtual assistant tasks a month, you might consider Efficise, a new kid on the block offering 50 tasks a month for just a small amount more.

Another alternative to look into would be My Tasker. They have similar pricing, positive feedback, and have been a bit more responsive than Rent a Smile lately.

Your Turn

If you have worked with Rent A Smile, please share your experience using the rating form below.

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