Surplus Hands is a virtual assistant company that employs exclusively US-based virtual assistants. Their offices are located in Philadelphia, and their assistants work remotely across the US.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider Surplus Hands if you’re not based in the US however. They have many clients in countries outside the US, such as Canada, Australia and all across Europe.
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About Surplus Hands
The company is run by founder Yassine Jouichate. Surplus Hands started operations towards the end of 2015 and have been “growing exponentially” in their short time in the virtual assistant space.
Surplus Hands have a team of virtual assistants ready to handle any business tasks you’re looking to outsource. They always guarantee you will have a backup assistant too, so should your assistant take time off for an emergency or book holiday time your service will be uninterrupted.
Their assistants are all US College Educated, and capable of handling administrative tasks, research, development of WordPress sites, marketing, and more. When I asked them who their target customers were they said, “small businesses, entrepreneurs and fortune 500 company employees who do not have the equipment or setting to hire an in-person employee.”
Services
With their company directive to become the “go-to-company” for your virtual assistant needs, their assistants cover a wide range of tasks. To get the most from their services I recommend contacting them with as much detail as possible about the work you want completed and see how well their assistants match up with your requirements.
Virtual assistant services are typically not limited to the type of business, but more so the types of tasks you’re outsourcing. You should contact Surplus Hands and provide as much detail as you can about the work you need completed and see how their assistants and skill-sets match up.
There is also a free trial available by filling out a form on their site. Using free trials is always the best way to sample a company’s services and see how well they treat you.
Plans and Pricing
Surplus Hands break down their pricing into 4 different plans.
You can also contact them to build a custom plan by discussing all your requirements and they will supply you with a quote. This is best used for large or one-off projects.
Their plans include:
- The $97 per month “Starter” plan, which gives you 5 hours of virtual assistant time ($19.40 an hour).
- The $229 per month “Economy” plan, which gives you 12 hours of time ($19.08 per hour).
- The $449 per month “Business” plan, which is good for 25 hours ($17.96 per hour).
- The $799 “Ultimate” plan, which is good for 45 hours per month ($17.75 per hour).
The rates seem almost suspiciously low, bordering on “too-good-to-be-true” territory. I mean, $18-20 an hour sounds great for US-based help, but can’t leave much margin to operate the business.
All of their plans come with a 1 hour trial period for free. Your dedicated assistant will be available between 9am – 6pm in your time zone, and on larger plans your unused hours roll over month to month.
Surplus Hands Alternatives
For US-based virtual assistants, I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find a company offering similar rates outside of freelancers on Upwork. If your budget allows, established and well-reviewed companies like Time Etc or Boldly may be worth a look.
Despite the name similarity, I wouldn’t consider Fancy Hands a direct competitor because they operate on a task-based model without a dedicated assistant.
Your Turn
Have you worked with Surplus Hands? Please leave a brief review of your experience below to help others with their decision.
The owner Yassine is great to work with! He was very responsive and helped with the different various aspects to my business. From the websites to the social media, it’s been a pleasure and will continue to circle back when needed.
Sharon has helped me so much. Now I do not need to process my orders anymore. They answer my emails too and now I focus on my packaging and sending my orders out, I’ve been always late.
Everything is great so far, looking forward to seeing how things go with our new VA as we get more busy. I’ve tried a VA before and did not have a pleasant experience so I’m hoping this time a round things go better.
I’m impressed and delighted with Surplus Hands! I’m happy to recommend their great service. They’ve consistently proven themselves to be helpful, intelligent and very easy to work with.
My wife and I run a consulting company from our home office in Salt Lake city and it’s been a pleasure working with Surplus Hands. Even though our VA is located in Vegas, they work thoroughly on creating content for our Blog and generating engagement through our social media pages. Their web design team has also updated our website for a very fair price so we are extremely happy!
I have been working with Danielle through Surplus Hands since June 2016. It has been a fantastic experience from start to finish, they did a great job matching me with my VA and things have been very proactive since the start. I essentially consider her a part of our team and I highly recommend for any business owner to get a VA.
I used Surplus Hands to make cold calls on my behalf for my company and it’s been going great! Highly recommended and they worked with me to develop a working script.
Surplus Hands has been great ! Initially, we were nervous with the cheaper prices compared to the bigger companies such as Worldwide101 and Zirtual but I did end up trying trying them out and they have been great so far ! It looks like they upgraded their prices however but the current prices i’d say are still worth it!