The math seems simple at first: You pay someone a salary, they handle your tasks, and you get more time. However, this transactional view misses the deeper reality of what personal assistants actually do.
Real value isn’t found in the hourly rate or annual salary you negotiate. Value lies in their ability to become the single point of contact that keeps your world moving forward.
Personal assistants don’t just take items off your to-do list. Skilled assistants prevent new items from landing there in the first place. Professional support means fielding endless questions that would otherwise interrupt your focus.
Executive assistants handle the communication loops that consume hours of a busy leader’s day!
TL;DR – How Much Does a Personal Assistant Cost
You have two main options for personal assistant support:
- Option 1: Roll the cost into your existing executive assistant. Have them serve as your personal assistant alongside their business duties.
- Option 2: Hire a separate personal assistant working at your home on-site. This could be anything from a nanny up to an estate manager:
- College Student in the Summer: Basic personal assistant tasks.
- Professional Personal Assistant: $12 – $29 per hour for experienced support, although in our opinion, this amount seems low.
- Estate Manager: This person manages all of your properties and travels ahead of you to each property before you arrive to make sure everything is in order. This can cost north of $250,000 a year.
But what matters more is if you’re spending even one hour per week on tasks your assistant could handle. That time has a real dollar cost. For most executives, that hour is worth far more than what they’d pay for quality support.
The smartest approach is thinking fractionally. Most people don’t need a full-time personal assistant. They need the right level of support that matches their actual needs, not their ego.
If you’re looking for that middle ground between basic virtual assistance and full-time support, ProAssistants bring all the skills and experience of an elite executive assistant with only 50-80% of the cost of hiring in-house.
Our ProAssistants can handle both business and personal tasks, giving you back time to focus on what matters most. Learn more about our fractional support model to see if it’s right for you.
Why Cost Is the Wrong Question to Ask About Personal Assistants
When you ask, “How much does a personal assistant cost?” you’re approaching the decision backward.
It’s like asking how much a car costs without knowing whether you need to commute five miles or cross the country.
Your Time Has Real Value
Your time has a specific value. Let’s do some simple math:
- Take your annual income and divide it by 2,080 hours (40 hours per week times 52 weeks)
- If you make $350,000 annually, your time is worth roughly $168 per hour
Now think about the tasks that eat up your week:
- Booking personal travel
- Researching service providers
- Managing household logistics
- Fielding questions from contractors, gardeners, or housekeepers
Every hour you spend on these $50-per-hour tasks instead of focusing on $200-per-hour strategic work costs you real money.
The Real Cost of Not Having Support
The question isn’t whether you can afford a personal assistant. The question is whether you can afford not to have one.
Most people get stuck on the sticker price. They see hourly rates ranging from $35 to $150 and start calculating monthly costs immediately.
That’s missing the forest for the trees, especially when considering a private personal assistant who can handle complex personal and business coordination.
The right personal assistant doesn’t just complete tasks.
They:
- Give you back your mental bandwidth
- Reduce stress levels significantly
- Create space for you to focus on what only you can do
What Most People Overlook When Hiring a Personal Assistant
Most people make their first mistake when hiring a personal assistant by assuming they need a full-time personal assistant.
The reality is different.
Many successful executives and entrepreneurs don’t need 40 hours per week of personal support.
They need high-quality support that matches their actual requirements. Think of this like a 5-star hotel concierge who knows everything about you, can act on your behalf, and resides in the cloud.
The Full-Time Trap
Consider your actual needs:
- Some weeks, you might need two hours of help
- Other weeks, when planning major events or dealing with property management, you might need 20 hours
- A full-time employee gets paid regardless of your fluctuating needs
- A fractional model gives you flexibility to scale up or down
Common Hiring Mistakes
Most people make the same errors when hiring personal assistants.
Here are the big ones to avoid:
Mistake #1 – Treating the Role as a Stepping Stone
Too many people hire someone, thinking they’ll eventually promote them into business roles. That’s backward thinking.
Great personal assistants are specialists. They’ve chosen this career because they excel at making high achievers more effective.
Mistake #2 – Geographic Limitations
People assume they need someone local for personal tasks.
While some functions require physical presence, many personal assistant duties work perfectly well remotely:
- Coordinate with your housekeeper
- Research contractors
- Book travel and manage schedules
- Handle on-site coordination through local service providers
What to Look For Instead
Look for assistants who see their role as a partnership, not a placeholder.
The best ones understand that your personal life and business success are interconnected:
- When your home runs smoothly, you perform better at work
- When family logistics are handled, you can focus entirely during business hours
How to Evaluate the Real ROI of a Personal Assistant
Return on investment for personal assistance isn’t just about money saved. It’s about life improved.
But let’s start with the dollars since that’s what most people want to understand.
Track your time for one week.
Write down every task that could reasonably be handled by someone else:
- Booking restaurants
- Coordinating home repairs
- Managing family schedules
- Researching purchases
- Following up on service issues
Now do the math. Add up those hours and multiply by your hourly rate. That’s your weekly opportunity cost.
Multiply by 52 weeks. That number usually shocks people.
Here’s a real example:
- Say you make $200,000 annually. That’s roughly $96 per hour.
- If you spend just five hours per week on tasks an assistant could handle, you’re looking at $480 in opportunity cost weekly.
- Over a year, that’s nearly $25,000 in lost productivity.
Suddenly, paying $60,000 for quality personal assistant support doesn’t seem expensive!
But the real ROI goes deeper than simple math.
Stress reduction has measurable value:
- Better Performance: Your professional performance improves when you’re not juggling contractor calls during important meetings.
- Better Consciousness: When family logistics run smoothly, you’re more present during personal time.
Consider the compounding effects, too.
A great personal assistant doesn’t just handle today’s tasks. They create systems that prevent future problems.
They build relationships with service providers that save time on every interaction. They learn your preferences so decision-making becomes automatic.
The hidden ROI shows up in unexpected places:
- Better sleep because you’re not lying awake remembering tasks
- Improved relationships because you’re fully present instead of mentally managing your to-do list
- Increased business opportunities because you have the bandwidth to pursue them
- Better decision-making because mental clutter is cleared
How to Match the Right Assistant with Your Work Style
Not all assistants work the same way. The executive assistant vs. personal assistant decision matters, and not all clients need the same approach. The key is being honest about your actual needs and communication style.
Some executives want detailed updates on everything. Others prefer to set expectations and check in weekly.
Some need assistance with complex project management. Others just want someone to handle the basics so they can focus elsewhere.
- Start by Cataloging What You Actually Need Help With: Don’t focus on what you think you should delegate. Focus on what consistently frustrates you or takes time away from higher-value activities.
- Consider Your Communication Preferences: Do you prefer email, text, or quick phone calls? Do you want daily check-ins or weekly summaries? Are you comfortable giving broad direction, or do you prefer step-by-step guidance?
- Think About the Level of Judgment You Want Your Assistant to Exercise: Some people want every decision run past them. Others are comfortable letting their assistant make calls within defined parameters. There’s no right answer, but clarity upfront prevents frustration later.
- Industry Experience Matters Less Than You Might Think: A great personal assistant is adaptable. The role is industry agnostic. They focus on understanding you and your family’s needs rather than bringing preconceived notions about how things should work.
The most important factor is trust. You’re potentially giving this person access to your home, your family’s schedule, and personal information.
They need to represent you well to service providers, handle confidential matters appropriately, and make decisions that align with your values.
How ProAssisting’s Fractional Model Offers High-Impact Support
The traditional model forces you to choose between expensive full-time help or cheap virtual assistants who juggle dozens of clients.
ProAssisting created a third option: fractional executive assistants who provide high-level support without full-time overhead.
Why Our Model Works
Quality over quantity approach:
- Proper Compensation: We compensate assistants appropriately—75% of your monthly retainer goes directly to your ProAssistant.
- High-End Talent: We attract executive assistants who could command six-figure salaries in major metropolitan areas.
The Five Performance Multipliers
Personal assistant work falls naturally under what we call the five performance multipliers.
Your assistant can serve as your:
- Business Partner – for personal projects requiring strategic thinking.
- Chief of Staff – coordinating between you and service providers.
- Project Manager – handling complex personal projects from start to finish.
- Assistant/Scheduler – managing calendars and coordination.
- Personal Assistant – providing true personal support across all life areas.
The Three-to-One Sweet Spot
We’ve found that a three-to-one ratio is optimal for meaningful support. That means we limit each assistant to supporting only three clients at a time.
This creates the feeling of dedicated support without the cost of a full-time employee
- More Clients Than That: Assistants become reactive instead of proactive.
- Fewer Clients: Economics don’t work for most people who don’t need full-time help.
Long-Term Partnership Approach
ProAssistants have a minimum of 5 years of experience as executive assistants, project managers, or equivalents at global brands.
The key difference from traditional virtual assistant services is the caliber of the assistant and the depth of the relationship:
- Our assistants form long-term partnerships
- They learn your preferences over time
- They build relationships with your regular service providers
- They develop systems that improve with every interaction
Plans start at $3,300 per month and include daily support from a highly skilled, US-based ProAssistant, who is available after hours when the unexpected happens.
We have a tier system—1/3, 1/2, or 2/3 of your ProAssistant’s full-time capacity—that can scale to meet your needs.
Schedule a free consultation to discuss your specific needs and see if ProAssisting is the right fit.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Let’s address the most common questions people have about personal assistant costs and services:
How Is a Fractional Assistant Different From a Part-time One?
Part-time assistants typically work on an hourly basis with fluctuating schedules:
- You might need them for two hours one month and 20 hours the next
- This makes it difficult to find someone reliable who’s available when you need them
Fractional assistants work on a retainer model:
- You’re paying for a portion of someone’s full-time bandwidth rather than specific hours
- They’re committed to your success and available when urgent needs arise
- You’re not paying for time you don’t use, but you have guaranteed access
The relationship dynamic is different, too.
Part-time workers often treat multiple clients as separate projects. Fractional assistants develop deeper partnerships because they have fewer clients and can invest more in understanding your specific needs.
Can a Personal Assistant Really Impact Business Growth?
Absolutely, though not in the way most people expect. Personal assistants don’t directly generate revenue but create conditions enabling growth.
Direct Business Impact:
- When your personal life runs smoothly, you can fully focus during business hours
- When you’re not mentally tracking family logistics during important meetings, your professional performance improves
- When you have the bandwidth to pursue new opportunities because routine tasks are handled, growth becomes possible
The impact is often indirect but measurable.
What Are the Hidden Costs of Hiring a Low-Cost VA?
The hidden costs are being promised the sun, the moon, and the stars, and almost certainly getting half the sun!
- Lack of Experience: The virtual assistant who’s actually partnering with you and doing the work has minimal experience.
- High Turnover: They will leave soon. After partnering with them, you’ll constantly have to re-onboard with a new virtual assistant company because they’re not being compensated appropriately, and they’ll jump at the first sign of a better offer, even if that offer is minimal.
- Divided Attention: They have to support a high number (sometimes 15-20) of clients, where you don’t get the turnaround time on communication and the focus that you’re supposedly paying for.
- Task-Only Focus: A low-cost VA is more focused on tasks than on projects, responsibilities, and continuous support.
There are a lot of different things that go into the hidden costs beyond these main issues.
Conclusion
Most people approach personal assistant hiring backward—they start with budget instead of value. The real question isn’t cost, it’s what your time is worth and how much you’re losing to tasks someone else could handle better.
ProAssisting was created to make top-tier executive support attainable without full-time overhead. Our ProAssistants bring 5+ years of experience from companies like Oracle, NBC Sports, Walmart, BCG, and Airbnb.
They’re selected through a rigorous process—we admit less than 5% of applicants. You get dedicated support that builds legacy knowledge of your business.
Ready to stop trading hours for tasks? Get started with a free consultation and discover what focused time feels like!
