If people keep telling you to hire a Filipino virtual assistant, maybe you should give it some thought. If they can tell how overwhelmed you are by your workload, maybe you do need to take it easier, and a remote assistant might be just what the doctor ordered.

To gain something, you need to pay something. And this is where things get a bit difficult because there isn’t a single correct answer for how much you should pay for a virtual assistant. First of all, it depends on where they live. Second of all, it depends on what you need them to do.

If you want to hire an Australian virtual assistant, you’ll have to pay around $50 AUD / hour ($37 USD) for packs with less than 100 hours of work per month. For full-time employment, you’ll have to pay at least $3,200 AUD / month ($2,370 USD). If you want to hire an American virtual assistant, you’ll have to pay around $47 AUD / hour ($35 USD) for packs with less of 50 hours per month. For full-time employment, you’d have to pay $4,540 AUD / month ($3,360 USD).

The Australian virtual assistants taking full-time positions cost less than the American ones because they’re under more stress to find clients willing to pay for their services, because so many Australian business owners decide to hire Philippine-based virtual assistants to do menial work, and local specialists for key positions.

Philippine-based virtual assistants cost just 20-30% of what a local Australian worker would cost. If you can get someone to do something that would otherwise waste your time, why not go for a cheap but reliable labour force? So, if an Australian Social Media Manager has a monthly salary of $4,860 AUD (excluding benefits), a Philippine-based one will need a salary of $972-$1,458 AUD / month, depending on experience (no benefits needed).

For a Philippine-based general virtual assistant, you can pay just $960 / month for full-time work.

Now, on the second layer of the issue. It also matters what you want the virtual assistant to do. Usually, the cost for specific VA positions is inversely proportional to the number of people that can perform that job. So, a Ruby on Rails developer will cost more than a Social Media Manager from the same country.

For some positions, the location doesn’t matter. If you want to hire a virtual assistant for a position for which there are only 50 people in the entire world who could fill it, the virtual assistant cost will be the ones asked by the specialist, no matter if their cost of living is lower than yours.