A good virtual assistant can take hours of routine work off your plate every week: inbox triage, calendar juggling, travel bookings, research, data entry, invoice chasing. A poor match, or a good assistant set up carelessly, can cost you time, money and in the worst case control of your accounts. This guide walks through the decisions that matter most when you hire one: which kind of service to use, what to hand over first, how the pricing models differ, how to test a candidate, how to give access without giving away the keys, and what to put in writing.

Managed service or freelance marketplace?

There are two broad ways to hire a virtual assistant, and they suit different buyers.

Managed services recruit, screen and match an assistant for you, then stay involved after the match. Time etc, for example, says on its pricing page that it matches you with a dedicated, experienced assistant based in the US, and that you can switch plans or cancel at any time with no notice period. Wing Assistants describes itself as "managed execution" rather than a talent marketplace, with dedicated assistants who are supervised by Wing, and its site states that it holds ISO 27001 and SOC 2 credentials. The appeal of this model is that someone else does the sourcing, and someone else is accountable if the match does not work out.

Freelance marketplaces such as Upwork and Fiverr let you browse and hire independent freelancers directly. You choose the person, agree the scope and manage the work yourself. That usually means more choice and more control over who you hire, but it also means you do the vetting, the onboarding and the replacing if things go wrong.

A simple rule of thumb: if you want to delegate a continuing role and would rather not manage the hiring process, a managed service is usually the smoother start. If you have a well-defined project, want to pick from a wide pool of specialists, or already know how to brief and manage freelancers, a marketplace can be the more flexible option.

What to delegate first

The fastest way to make a new assistant useful is to start with work that is frequent, repeatable and low risk. Good first tasks tend to share three traits: you can describe them in writing, you can check the result quickly, and a mistake is easy to fix.

  • Calendar and scheduling: booking meetings, sending reminders, rescheduling conflicts.
  • Inbox triage: sorting, labelling, drafting replies for you to approve, unsubscribing from noise.
  • Research and summaries: supplier comparisons, travel options, background reading on a topic.
  • Data entry and tidying: updating a CRM, cleaning a spreadsheet, logging receipts.
  • Follow-ups: chasing replies, sending polite reminders on overdue invoices.

Hold back on anything that moves money, signs you up to obligations, or touches sensitive personal data until you have seen consistent, careful work. When you do hand those over, write down the process, including what the assistant should do when something looks wrong, and agree who approves what.

How pricing works

Pricing models vary more than headline rates suggest, so compare the structure before the number.

Monthly plans with a bundle of hours

Managed services commonly sell a monthly block of hours. Time etc's pricing page, at the time of writing, lists monthly plans by number of hours, with a lower effective hourly rate on larger plans, and says unused hours roll over to the next month on its larger plans. Check how rollover works, whether there is a minimum term or setup fee, and what happens if you consistently use more or fewer hours than you bought.

Hourly or fixed-price freelance contracts

On a marketplace you typically agree an hourly rate or a fixed price per project with the freelancer, and the platform adds its own charges. Upwork's help centre, for instance, explains that clients pay a Client Marketplace Fee on payments they make to freelancers, covering hourly and fixed-price contracts, bonuses and other charges, and that eligible US clients who pay by bank account get a reduced rate of 3%. It also notes the fee is not refundable even if a payment is reversed. Always read the platform's current fee page before you budget, because fees can change and are added on top of the freelancer's rate.

What actually drives the cost

  • The hours you genuinely need each month, not the hours you hope to delegate.
  • Specialist skills such as bookkeeping or design, which usually cost more than general admin.
  • Time zone and availability requirements, for example cover during your own business hours.
  • Platform or service fees layered on top of the assistant's time.

Vetting and trial tasks

Whichever route you choose, do not skip the test. A short, paid trial tells you far more than a polished profile.

  1. Write a clear brief. Describe the task, the expected output, the deadline and how you will judge it.
  2. Use a realistic but harmless task. Use dummy or non-sensitive data, for example researching three suppliers and summarising them in a table, or tidying a sample spreadsheet.
  3. Judge communication as much as output. Did they ask sensible questions? Did they flag assumptions? Did they hit the deadline or warn you early if they could not?
  4. Check references or reviews. On a marketplace, read the detailed feedback, not only the star rating. With a managed service, ask how assistants are screened and what happens if the match does not work.
  5. Agree a review point. Set a date, a few weeks in, to decide whether to continue, adjust the scope or change assistant.

Giving access safely

This is where most of the real risk sits. An assistant needs access to do the job, but the goal is to give exactly what the job needs and nothing more. Security professionals call this least privilege: the US National Institute of Standards and Technology defines it as restricting the access privileges of users "to the minimum necessary to accomplish assigned tasks."

  • Never share your main login. Where a service supports delegation, use it. Gmail, for example, lets you add a delegate who can read, send and delete email in your account from their own Google account, without you sharing your password, and Google states that a delegate cannot change your password.
  • Use separate accounts and roles. Many business tools let you add a team member with a limited role. Give view-only access where viewing is all that is needed.
  • Use a password manager for anything that must be shared. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre recommends password managers because they create strong, unique passwords for each account and will only autofill a password on the correct website, which helps protect against phishing.
  • Keep two-step verification on your own accounts and do not route its codes to your assistant for your most important logins, such as email, banking and domain registrar.
  • Keep a list of what you granted so you can revoke it all in minutes if the arrangement ends.

If your assistant will handle personal data about your customers or staff, data protection law may also apply. The UK Information Commissioner's Office explains that when a controller uses a processor, there must be a written contract covering, among other things, that the processor acts only on documented instructions, that people handling the data are bound by confidentiality, appropriate security, and the return or deletion of data at the end of the contract.

Contracts and confidentiality

Whether you go through a service or hire directly, have a written agreement that covers scope, hours or deliverables, rates and payment terms, confidentiality, who owns the work produced, how either side can end the arrangement, and what happens to your data and access when it ends. Managed services and marketplaces have their own terms; read them so you know which parts they cover and which are left to you.

A short checklist before you sign

  • Have you written down the first three to five tasks you will hand over?
  • Do you understand the full cost, including platform or service fees and any minimum term?
  • Have you run a paid trial task with non-sensitive data?
  • Can you give access through delegation, roles or a password manager, without sharing your main login?
  • Do you have a written agreement covering confidentiality, data and how the arrangement ends?

Compare your options

Once you know whether you want a managed service or a marketplace, and roughly how many hours you need, compare the services side by side on our ranking of the best virtual assistant services, which covers Wing Assistants, Time etc, Upwork and Fiverr, to see which model fits the way you work.