TaskDesk

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

UPDATE: It appears TaskDesk 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.

TaskDesk is a virtual assistant company with their headquarters based in Houston, TX, and all of their assistants working out of the Philippines.

The company started operations in February 2019. They have an interesting monthly subscription model, meaning you pay a flat monthly fee and can submit “unlimited” requests to their team of assistants.

About TaskDesk

taskdesk reviewTaskDesk are one of the newer companies to join the competitive virtual assistant service space, but their monthly subscription-based model separates them from a lot of the other virtual assistant providers.

Instead of paying an hourly rate for an assistant, you pay a low monthly fee to have a virtual assistant available to handle as many tasks as you can send them.

This model should appeal to people who can keep an assistant busy with constant work!

We’ve come across the term “unlimited” before with virtual assistant providers. What this really means is that you can queue up tasks and the assistant will complete them one after the other.

Although their headquarters is based in the US, TaskDesk uses VAs based in the Philippines. This allows them to offer a very competitive rate of $350 per month while sourcing skilled workers fluent in English.

How TaskDesk Works

  1. Sign up for an account with your name and email.
  2. Select the role of the assistant you want to work with. So, general VA, graphic designer, and so on as explained in more detail in the services section below.
  3. Enter your payment details and you’ll receive an email detailing what to do next.

Services

TaskDesk’s virtual assistants are ready and willing to handle a wide range of tasks as you’d expect from any VA.

To give you a better idea of what they do best, they group their assistants into the following roles:

  • General Assistants – You can hand over any of those day-to-day tasks that can easily be communicated by email and completed remotely.
  • Graphic Designers – Flyers, logos, blog headers and images, social media graphics, and more.
  • Blog Writers – Being as their VAs are based in the Philippines, I asked TaskDesk the obvious questions about the quality of their content. I was told “Most of the time you can’t tell they are from another country.” Still, it’s probably best to request a sample during the 14-day risk free trial.
  • Video Editors – They only accept video editing tasks within 3-5 minutes’ worth of film, so this service is ideal for short YouTube, blog, and promotional content.
  • Social Media Assistants – You supply the images and their social media assistants schedule, post, write captions, and promote your stuff across all social media platforms.
  • Research and Data Entry Assistants – Hand over those time-consuming data crunching and research tasks.

It’s worth noting that they don’t take on any marketing or legal tasks, which makes sense as you’d want a specialist in these areas.

Their assistants aren’t available by phone 24/7 either, so they don’t handle any customer service or receptionist roles.

Plans and Pricing

There is a flat monthly fee of $350 for unlimited task requests.

TaskDesk Pricing

For this, you can send tasks to any of their dedicated VAs as many times as you like. The caveat here is that most tasks are going to take 24 hours or less to turn around.

They do offer what they call a 14-day risk free trial. Which means that after you sign up and start using their service if you’re not happy for any reason within the first 14 days you can request a full refund.

TaskDesk Alternatives

There is no shortage of virtual assistant companies utilizing staff in the Philippines to provide cost-effective outsourcing solutions.

If you want a little more control over the hiring process, OnlineJobs.ph might be worth a look. It’s the largest virtual job board in the country.

If you like the monthly subscription model but don’t feel like you’ll keep your assistant busy all month, check out OkayRelax. They operate on a pay-per-task model, starting at $29.95 a month.

Your Turn

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

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Fin

Posted by Mica Harvey / Artificial Intelligence Assistants, SMS Virtual Assistants

UPDATE: It appears Fin 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.

Fin is a 24/7 personal assistance service available when you need it on the other end of your phone. “You use it like Siri, Echo, or Google Now… except it actually works,” their developers said.

Fin uses a combination of machine and human intelligence to find answers, send messages, handle bookings, and take care of anything you’d expect from a personal assistant.

The company has been in business since 2015 and their staff are based in San Francisco, California.

About Fin

The company was founded by Andrew Kortina and Sam Lessin, and to-date they operate with less than 50 employees.

Their target customers are professional or regular people who can benefit from an assistant to help them manage some of their workload.

The benefit of using Fin over hiring a personal assistant is that you have assistance on-hand 24/7. All you need is an Internet connection and a smartphone, two things most people are never without.

How Fin Assistant Works

Fin uses a combination of humans and AI, and as a result they say their app is, “more accurate, powerful, and better able to handle real nuance and complexity,” than the other AI assistants such as Google Now, Siri, and Echo.

They also say their smart technology improves as it gets to know you better over time. Giving you a personal experience, customized experience, not a general AI experience.

You can delegate to your Fin assistant via email, SMS, iOS, or the web.

Services

Fin specializes in providing 24/7 assistance through their smartphone app. All you need is an Internet connection and you have a combination of artificial and human support on hand.

The services are only really limited by your imagination and needs. You can ask Fin to call, email, text, schedule, book, and make purchases for you.

You can use Fin to transcribe documents, perform online research, or just find answers for those questions you need answering there and then.

Some examples of common requests Fin is used to handling are:

  • Fin, can you take care of this hospital bill for me? Use my Amex.
  • Please remember Cotogna as a place I can get dinner after 10pm.
  • I am going to New York next week. Can you lookup the people I said I wanted to spend more time with?
  • Can you unsubscribe me from these mailings (see pic attached)?

As you can see from the above, Fin is best used for tasks that save you time or make sure you don’t forget important appointments, just like a PA would.

Fin can also handle recurring requests with their Recurring Request Dashboard and sends users a consolidated daily executive summary of all work completed and requests in progress.

The Human Touch

Fin has added inbound call answering by having customers forward their work number to have a Fin assistant pick up (instead of voicemail) and using this as a reception desk for their businesses.

They also offer weekly live phone calls to let you braindump and delegate everything you need help with for the week. Your assistant will also proactively look at your calendar and suggest things they can take off your plate.

And if you spend most of your day in Slack, you can send requests to Fin via Slack as well.

Plans and Pricing

Fin currently has two pricing plans. You can get started and try the service for just $20 per month, or for $270 per month you can have access to all their services. (Though when I signed up, the $20 disappeared and let me register for free.)

Since the service is on-demand, presumably the only advantage of signing up for the higher level plans is the bonus credit that’s included.

It’s unclear whether or not your unused credit rolls over to the next month.

Each plan includes:

  • 24/7 human-backed assistance
  • Chat with Fin via iOS
  • Friends can email your Fin assistant too
  • Voice and image transcription
  • Integration with Google calendar
  • Handle booking, meal, and travel plans
  • Carry out research
  • Make purchases
  • Draft emails and documents

Different requests will burn through different amounts of credit, though the company gives the guideline that most requests are in the $8-30 range.

They list some specific examples of what certain requests might cost, based on the complexity and human time involvement required:

Your first request (up to $30) is free, and you can cancel anytime by simply telling Fin you wish to cancel.

Fin Alternatives

It feels like this kind of personal assistant service is starting to gain some momentum and I expect more companies to enter the space.

As for right now, Magic is their main competitor and worth taking a look at. You can do a lot of the same tasks with Magic, though Magic also only interacts via text message. Please.Do might be worth a look as well.

Another alternative to consider are task-based services like Fancy Hands (team-based) or OkayRelax (dedicated).

Your Turn

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

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HiretheWorld

Posted by Mica Harvey / Graphic and Web Design Services, Project-Based Virtual Assistants

UPDATE: It appears HiretheWorld 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.

HiretheWorld is a crowdsourced design marketplace. The company was founded in 2009 in Vancouver BC, and has hosted more than 75,000 design contests.

I think the crowdsourcing model is particularly useful for graphic design projects. You can tap into a wide network of visions and ideas, rather than being tied down to one designer or freelancer.

Services

hiretheworld reviewHiretheWorld specializes in logo designs, website designs, and book covers, but can run a contest for anything graphic design-related.

The way it works is you fill in a brief questionnaire about what you’re looking for in your design, and then you start to collect submissions from all over the world. HiretheWorld boasts a truly global network of designers, with active representatives from more than 130 countries.

That broad range of perspectives can help yield unique and thoughtful designs. The average HiretheWorld design contest attracts over 100 entries.

After you’ve reviewed all the entries, you get to pick the winner and the designer gets paid. If you don’t like any of them, you don’t have to pay; the company has a risk-free money back guarantee.

HiretheWorld Intro Video

Plans and Pricing

Logo contests start at $265, which is a little less than market-leader 99designs. In general, the more you pay, the more entries you’ll get and the higher caliber of designers you’ll attract. And if I was a betting man, I would wager that many of the designers active on 99designs and similar sites are also active here.

One alternative for cheap logo design is Logo Garden.

Web design contests start at $665. For me, I might look at some premium WordPress themes before plunking down that kind of cash. Plus, that’s just for the design, not any of the html or functional coding.

Authors can get a professional book cover designed from $365. Again, and maybe this is me being cheap, but I’m pretty happy with the book cover I had made on Fiverr.

Before you sign up, take a look through the HiretheWorld design gallery to get a feel for the kind of work their designers are producing.

Your Turn

Have you tried HiretheWorld for graphic design work? If so, please share a quick review below to help others with their decision.

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DesignPac

Posted by Mica Harvey / Graphic and Web Design Services, Virtual Assistant Companies

UPDATE: DesignPac is now Xpertspool. Please see their review here. 

DesignPac is an outsourcing agency specializing in graphic and web design, development, and digital marketing. They offer affordable monthly plans in these areas and have been in business since 2016.

The company is based in Louisville, KY, and the team of workers are in Kathmandu, Nepal.

About DesignPac

designpac reviewUnlike a lot of the graphic design companies that operate on a crowdsourcing platform, Design Pac operates on a monthly membership model.

If you want to work with the same designer on an ongoing basis for larger design jobs like branding or graphics for your blog posts you’ll likely get better value from the monthly model.

With 24-48 hour turnaround on most of their plans Design Pac offers quick, affordable solutions to your graphic design needs.

In response to customer demand, the company has added a full suite of digital marketing services all sold on an affordable retainer basis.

Services

DesignPac specializes in 3 primary services:

1. Design As a Service:

It aims to provide unlimited graphic designs on a monthly flat rate of $300. They will get a dedicated designer who will work on one task a day.

They can also handle multiple small tasks and deliver on the same day. There is no any hidden fees. Unlimited requests & unlimited revisions.

You are matched up with a dedicated designer. You are also given access to a dashboard to keep an eye on the progress of your tasks and have an open line of communication with the designer.

There are four simple steps from ordering your designs to receiving the finished work.

  1. Send details of your design brief. The more detailed and descriptive you are the more accurately their designers can work to your vision.
  2. Once a designer has been chosen you’ll have access to a dashboard to see how your job is progressing and talk with the designer.
  3. When your job is finished and you’ve been sent the work you can request revisions if you want to make any changes.
  4. When you’re happy with your designs you choose the file formats and are sent the completed designs.

2. Development As a Service

They can hire web & mobile app developers on a monthly or hourly basis. We have over 20 types of developers having at least 3 yrs experience.

Clients can simply visit website and hire the developer they need, be it front-end developer, php developer or android developer, they work seamlessly as a part of their team.

3. Marketing As a Service

We have three different teams of marketers.

A marketing team consists of a strategist, an SEO expert, a Content Writer, and a Graphic Designer. Clients literally get an agency of experts working for them and the price starts from just $800/mo.

Plans and Pricing

Design Pac has simplified to a fixed price model under just one $300 per month plan for graphic design services:

Your DesignPac membership includes 24-hour turnaround on all graphic design requests. The most common items current clients request are social media graphics, t-shirt designs, infographics, and email newsletters.

Design Pac also can help with package design, brochures and flyers, and even website design.

One cool feature is you can submit requests for multiple brands if you’re doing work for clients or have multiple projects going on yourself.

If you pre-pay for 6 months at a time, you can save 20% and drop your rate down to $240 a month.

Pricing for Marketing and Development Services

Marketing As a service has three prices $800, $1000 & $1300 according to their features.

Development As a Services starts from $600 a month. 

If you’re not happy, you can ask for a full refund within 7 days. DesignPac offers a 40% discount to registered non-profits & students in semiannual plans.

DesignPac Alternatives

If you like the monthly plan model and require ongoing design work, you might consider Delesign or Design Pickle, which seems to be the market leader in this space.

DesignPac is one of (if not) the most affordable “unlimited” design service, especially to be assigned a dedicated designer, and the portfolio looks pretty good to me.

For one-off design projects on a smaller budget, there’s always Fiverr — where I’ve had hit and miss results. And if you’re curious to test out the crowdsourcing model, 99Designs and DesignCrowd are worth a look, but you might end up paying more than DesignPac’s monthly fee for just one design.

Your Turn

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

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Virtually Here

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

UPDATE: It appears Virtually Here 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.

Virtually Here (VH) is an American virtual assistant company that bills itself as a one-stop-virtual-shop for administrative, social media, graphic design, web design, content creation, and business consulting needs.

Through originating as a classic virtual assistant company, VH expanded with its clients’ growing needs. This movement is reflected in the breadth of support services now available.

About Virtually Here

virtually here reviewThe company is a female owned business with all US-based staff.

VirtuallyHere.net was founded by Jacqueline Davis in 2012, who continues to run the business and serves as the main point of contact for clients. She organizes all projects, giving clients seamlessly coordinated support whether they are looking for solely classic administrative assistance or a mix of different services.

How it Works

Jacqueline and her team handle ‘time-sucking’ tasks to allow clients to focus on the business activities they do best and that directly correlate to their bottom line.

VH prides itself on offering clients a familial, small business experience combined with the highest level of professionalism, product, and customer service. There are no automated phone lines, wait times, or getting lost in the shuffle of hundreds of customers.

Virtually Here begins each client relationship with the goal of a long-term partnership, and develops a unique plan of support services to help that client make the most of their VA resources and reach their highest potential.

VH contractors have similarly close relationships with each other and the organization. Across all service areas VH contractors work together for the good of customer projects. The VH website displays the bios of the company’s lead contractors so clients can form an immediate familiarity as well.

Plans and Pricing

Clients can engage VH on retainer or project-based agreements.

Retainer agreements are the most common and generally range from 10 hour to 40 hours per month, beginning in price at $300 per month.

Clients will usually have at least two different retainer based service plans, one for each area of service they need (e.g. Administrative and a Business Development plan), and discounts are offered based on the size of the retainer agreement and the number of packages chosen.

For project-based work, the company will provide a custom quote based on the job you had in mind.

VH’s ultimate goal is to provide the best service possible. The company prides itself on remaining as flexible as its clients’ needs are diverse.

Virtually Here Alternatives

VirtuallyHere’s rates and services are competitive among their US-based VA company peers. If you’re looking to shop around, a similar set-up and business model can be found at Time Etc or Virtual Assist USA.

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

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