How to hire a virtual assistant (2026): Philippines and Latin America costs, platforms and setup

To hire a virtual assistant, write down the repeat work you want off your plate, pick one sourcing route (a direct job board, a freelance marketplace or an agency), shortlist three to five people, pay each finalist for a short trial task, then hire the best one on a written contract with their own logins and only the access the job needs. The trial task does most of the work of picking the right person.

This guide is for solo founders, agency owners and ecom sellers hiring a first VA in the Philippines or Latin America. It covers platform prices (checked on 26 October 2026 on each company's own page), official wage benchmarks, contractor versus employee, paying overseas and a safe account setup. If you're hiring a full team member rather than an assistant, read how to hire remote employees in other countries for the employer of record (EOR) options.

What to delegate first

Delegate work that's repetitive, already documented and low-risk if it goes slightly wrong. You also find out whether you can brief and review well before anything touches money or customer trust.

Good first tasks by business type:

• Solo founders: inbox triage, calendar booking, CRM updates after sales calls, research lists, formatting documents and scheduling social posts.
• Agency owners: client onboarding checklists, meeting notes, reports built from a template, invoice reminders and keeping the project tool tidy.
• Ecom sellers: customer service replies from saved responses, order and returns tracking, product listing updates, supplier follow-ups and review monitoring.

Hold back payment authority, bank access and any decision you haven't written down. Before you hire, record yourself doing each task once and turn it into a short checklist. If you can't explain a task on one page, it isn't ready to hand over.

Some of this work may suit software instead. How solo founders use AI agents covers where agents do the job and where they break, and a VA who runs those tools and checks their output is a good middle path.

Where to find a virtual assistant

You can find a VA through a direct job board, a freelance marketplace or an agency (including staffing firms that handle payroll). The route decides how much screening you do yourself, how you pay the person and what happens if the hire doesn't work out.

Direct job boards

A direct job board charges you to post jobs and contact applicants, then you hire and pay the person yourself, with no markup on their pay.

• OnlineJobs.ph (Philippines): the free plan lets you post up to 3 jobs and view applications, but you can't see contact details or message anyone until you upgrade. Pro is US$69 a month (or US$299 a year) with 3 job posts a month and contact with 75 workers a month. Premium is US$99 a month (or US$349 a year) with 10 job posts, contact with 500 workers a month and unlimited background data checks. The page says there are no extra fees or salary markups, that you can cancel anytime, and it advertises a money-back guarantee if you don't find someone. Its how it works page says you negotiate pay, hours and expectations with the worker, then pay them through its EasyPay tool after they've worked a week. Neither page lists an EasyPay fee.
• Get on Board (Latin America): calls itself the biggest tech and startup jobs community in Latin America, and its categories include customer support and operations or admin roles. Pay as you go costs US$150 per job with no recurring or success fees. Subscriptions start at US$460 a month billed monthly, or US$250 a month on a yearly plan (US$3,000 a year), and prices exclude sales tax. It suits a technical, support or operations assistant better than general admin.

The trade-off: this is the cheapest route per hire, but you do all the screening, contracting and paying yourself.

Freelance marketplaces

A marketplace holds profiles, proposals, contracts and payments in one place, and takes its cut through fees. Upwork is the obvious general marketplace for VA work. Its pricing pages didn't load when we checked, so confirm its current client fees on its own site before you budget, and remember that a freelancer's quoted rate may already allow for the platform's cut.

The trade-off: you see past clients' reviews and can try someone on a small job quickly, but you pay platform fees that a direct hire avoids.

Agencies and staffing firms

An agency recruits and screens the assistant for you, and a staffing firm also employs or pays them, in return for a fee or a monthly rate that includes the person's pay. You pay more, and you get someone pre-screened and usually a replacement if they leave.

• Near (Latin America): doesn't publish its fees and quotes them on a discovery call. It offers a direct hire model with a one-time placement fee, and a staffing model where Near handles payroll, contracts and compliance and sends one monthly invoice per hire covering salary and its fee. The page lists a 180-day free replacement guarantee and, for the staffing model, replacement for the duration of the engagement. It's free to interview, and you only pay if you hire.

Most VA agencies don't publish rates, so this guide uses only prices platforms publish themselves.

What a virtual assistant costs in 2026

A VA costs their pay, plus a platform or agency fee, plus payment costs. Pay is by far the biggest number, and it's set by negotiation, skills and hours, not by any platform.

Platform fees from each company's own page, checked 26 October 2026:

Pay benchmarks from official sources

Official minimum wages are the firmest public benchmark. They're a floor, not the market rate for a skilled assistant.

Philippines. The National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) lists Wage Order No. NCR-28 for Metro Manila (the National Capital Region), effective 26 September 2026: PHP 755 a day for non-agriculture work, up PHP 60 from the PHP 695 baseline under NCR-26. The same page also lists an earlier order, NCR-27 (effective 25 July 2026), with the same PHP 755 first tranche and a second tranche to PHP 780 from 20 January 2027, and notes that NCR-27 is subject to continuing litigation. So check the page again before you set pay for 2027. Other regions set their own rates.

The NWPC FAQ gives the monthly equivalent for monthly-paid employees as the daily rate times 365, divided by 12. On PHP 755 that's PHP 22,964.58 a month, or about US$359 at the Wise mid-market rate of PHP 63.91 to US$1 shown on 26 October 2026. Exchange rates move daily.

13th-month pay. Presidential Decree No. 851, dated 16 December 1975, requires employers to pay their employees a 13th-month pay no later than 24 December each year. In Central Azucarera de Tarlac v. Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union-NLU (G.R. No. 188949, 26 July 2010), the Supreme Court describes it as one-twelfth of the total basic salary earned in a calendar year, owed to all rank-and-file employees who worked at least one month in that year, and pro-rated for part years. In practice it adds about one month's basic pay a year.

Mexico. CONASAMI set the general minimum wage at 315.04 pesos a day from 1 January 2026, a 13% rise, and 440.87 pesos a day in the northern border free zone. Each Latin American country sets its own floor, so check the official labour ministry page for the country you're hiring in.

Latin American market pay. Near's pricing page lists typical pay for a mid-level VA or executive assistant in Latin America at US$1,800 to US$2,500 a month, before its own fee. That's a staffing firm's market figure for an experienced, full-time person, not an official rate.

Who the Philippine rules apply to

The wage orders and 13th-month rule are written for employers and their employees. The NWPC FAQ says wage orders "cover only private sector workers", and PD 851 puts the duty on employers to pay their employees. If you're a foreign business engaging a genuine independent contractor, you aren't their employer, so these rules don't frame that relationship, and none of the official pages we checked deals with overseas clients at all.

That isn't a reason to pay less. They're the clearest public signal of a fair floor. If you hire someone full time on a monthly rate, paying at least the monthly equivalent plus a December bonus of about a month's pay keeps you at or above what a local employer must pay.

Contractor or employee?

Most first VAs are engaged as independent contractors: they invoice you, you pay the invoice and they handle their own tax. That label only holds if the relationship really works that way. If your VA works full time for you alone, on your hours, using your tools and following your instructions on how to do the work, tax and labour authorities can treat them as an employee, whatever the contract says.

OnlineJobs.ph's employer page says "No taxes to pay. No 1099." Treat that as a platform's marketing line, not advice about your obligations where your business is based, and check with your accountant.

To keep it genuinely contracting, agree outcomes and rates rather than dictating every hour, let the VA use their own equipment and keep other clients, and have them invoice you. If you want someone full time and fully part of your team, an EOR is the cleaner route: our guide to hiring remote employees internationally compares EOR prices and the misclassification tests. If you're an agency owner adding a VA or subcontractor to deliver client work, freelancer to agency covers the contractor rules in the UK, Australia and the US and what a subcontractor agreement should include.

How to hire a virtual assistant, step by step

The steps below take you from a task list to a working VA, and the paid trial in step 5 is the one not to skip.

1. Write the task list. List the tasks, tools and rough weekly hours. This becomes the job post, the trial task and the first week's training.
2. Set the hours and overlap. Decide on part time or full time, and how many hours must overlap with your working day. Check the time difference between your city and the region you're hiring in, and pick the one whose working day lines up with when you need answers.
3. Write a specific job post. Name the tasks, tools, hours, overlap and pay range. Add one simple instruction, such as starting the application with a set word, to see who reads carefully.
4. Shortlist three to five people. Screen on written English (or Spanish), tool experience and whether they followed your instruction, then do a short video call.
5. Run a paid trial task. See the next section.
6. Check references and identity. Ask for two past clients and speak to at least one. OnlineJobs.ph Premium includes background data checks.
7. Sign a written contract. Cover scope, rate, hours, how you'll pay, confidentiality, data handling, ownership of work product, equipment, notice and how either side can end it.
8. Onboard with proper access. Set up their accounts before day one (see the security section).
9. Review at 30 days. Decide whether to keep going, change the scope or end it, and say so plainly.

The paid trial task

Pay every finalist for a real task of two to four hours, at the rate you'd pay if you hired them. Unpaid tests put off strong candidates.

Use your real workflow with dummy or limited data:

• Clean and de-duplicate a 200-row lead list, then flag five problems you'd want to know about.
• Draft replies to ten real customer questions using your help pages.
• Book three meetings across time zones from a messy email thread.

Score each trial on accuracy, following the brief, the questions they asked, how clearly they reported back and the deadline.

Paying a virtual assistant overseas

Pay a contractor VA through the platform's own payment tool, a low-cost transfer service, or a payment account the VA already uses. Fees are listed on each provider's own page and vary by country and currency.

• OnlineJobs.ph EasyPay: the platform's own tool for paying workers you hire there. Its pages checked on 26 October 2026 don't list a fee.
• Wise Business (Australia): the Basic plan is free to open and Advanced costs AU$65 to set up. Transfers with currency conversion cost from 0.19%, same-currency cross-border transfers cost AU$8, and batch payments of up to 1,000 payments at once are included. The page doesn't list which currencies it covers, so check that your VA's currency is supported.
• Payoneer: sending from your Payoneer balance to a user in another country costs up to 1% plus up to US$4, and up to US$4 in the same country. Receiving from another Payoneer balance is free, withdrawals with currency conversion cost 1.2% to 4%, and there's a US$29.95 annual fee for accounts that receive less than US$6,000 in any 12 consecutive months. Payoneer says fees depend on locations, payment method and currencies, and a minimum fee of up to US$20 can apply in some countries.

Agree in the contract who absorbs the fees, and keep every invoice and proof of payment for your accountant. For a full side-by-side of the main accounts, see Wise vs Payoneer vs Revolut vs Airwallex.

Access and security

Give your VA their own logins, only the access each task needs, credentials shared through a password manager, two-step verification switched on, and a plan to remove it all the day they leave.

• Their own accounts. Create a user or staff seat for them in each tool, so you can see what they did and switch them off without changing your own passwords.
• A password manager for shared logins. Where a tool only allows one login, share it through a password manager instead of messages or email. Bitwarden Teams costs US$4 per user a month, billed annually, and includes secure credential sharing.
• Two-step verification everywhere. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre recommends passkeys for business-critical accounts where they're available, and says "Any type of 2SV is better than none."
• Least access. Start with view or editor rights, not admin. The NCSC advises reserving administrator access for when it's needed.
• Money stays with you. Don't share your main card or bank login.
• Offboarding. The NCSC warns that accounts often stay active after people leave and advises removing or disabling them, and reviewing who has access to important accounts every few months. Keep a list of every tool your VA can access so you can switch it all off in one sitting.

The first 30 days

The first month decides whether a VA works out. Check in briefly every day for the first week or two, then weekly. Ask your VA to turn each task they learn into a written checklist.

Give feedback within a day of a mistake, and say what good looks like. Add new tasks one at a time once the first ones run without you.

To compare notes with other founders who've hired VAs, join Remote Builders (it's free).

Sourcing routes compared

Use a direct job board when you want the lowest cost and can screen yourself, a marketplace for short or part-time work, and an agency when your time is worth more than the extra fee.

Common mistakes

• Hiring before writing the tasks down. Without a task list you can't write a good post, set a fair trial or judge the first month.
• Choosing on rate alone. A cheaper VA who needs everything explained twice costs you the time you were trying to buy back.
• A contractor in name only. A full-time VA on your hours, under your direction, may be an employee in law. Structure it properly or use an EOR.
• Paying below the local floor. In Metro Manila, PHP 22,964.58 a month is the monthly equivalent of the minimum wage for monthly-paid employees. Paying a full-time VA less than that is hard to call fair.
• Forgetting December. Local employers must pay 13th-month pay by 24 December. A VA who has worked for you all year will notice if you don't do something similar.
• Delegating money too early. Hand over payments and refunds only after the VA has shown they follow your written rules.