Surprisingly, one point that seems to have been missed here, and is often missed when talking about outsourcing, is how much does the entire job cost, both in dollars and my time.

I personally would rather pay say $50 per hour and get a job done in say two hits, with let's say 2 hours of effort, allowing for some revisions etc from me in the middle (so total cost $100 and say 10 minutes of my time and job done within a day), and job done inside a day; than pay $5 per hour and have the same job take 5 hours with say 2 hours of my time and the entire job taking a week (so total cost is $25 and 2 hours of my time and job taking a week).

We all know that time is money and that we should outsource low value non core jobs where possible, but it seems that the value of our time in supervising is often missed when comparing outsourced resources to local resources.  And a related question is whether you are going to pay for additional supervision within the outsource company as well as the actual labour charged?

As always it is important to compare apples with apples.

HI Nick,

I own a VA company called AdminWorthy and we are based in Australia. I don't outsource overseas for the reason you mentioned - quality gets compromised. I also like to employ mums to work from home.

You will notice a huge difference in price but in the long term, you will get a better result. VA's can cost anywhere from $35 an hour upwards, depending on what work is required. We charge $38 per hour upwards, but virtual assistant rates per hour vary depending on the work, as we offer a wide range of services.

I am finding that clients don't want their work to go offshore and prefer to pay the extra and keep it here with a reliable VA.

Hope this helps with your question.

Regards Sandra

Hi Nick

I agree wholeheartedly with Sandra and Sam. Over the years I've found that business owners who partner with a Virtual Assistant in Australia get so much more than just a job done. They are partnering with a fellow business owner who understands what it means to run their own business in Australia. They provide ideas and resources for their clients above just a single task. And that is one of the reasons why they are worth every cent. 

Generally, the hourly rate for a virtual assistant ranges between $35-$50 for administrative work, but some VAs have very high-level specialities and charge anything from $50 - $200 per hour for those. These can include mentoring, website development, bookkeeping and so on. 

Hope that helps!

Cheers

Rosie Shilo

Great question Nick, and great answer Sandra.

I agree with Sandra, Australian VAs will charge more than the Asian based VAs and outsourcing overseas is always a little more risky. Remember to consider - Timezone differences, Language barriers and being able to contact your VA in an emergency.

You also need to consider your reasoning for partnering with a VA. Generally speaking most business owners who are looking for a VA are looking for a long term business partnership. So when selecting a VA the business owner must be comfortable with the VAs ethics, work quality (as you mentioned Nick), time management and of course cost. But just being able to get along is always important.

Another thing to remember, is the Australian VA Industry is very collaborative and supportive. So if your current VA is unable to complete your latest work, she will know another VA within her network who can help you.

Best business success wishes,

Sam

Hey Nick, I hire on http://www.hiremymum.com.au/ starting at around $20/hour for a few different roles in my business (not just VAs but also bookkeeping, sales assistants, editorial assistants, marketing assistants).

I posted recently on a little trick I have for dealing with the "red tape" around hiring locally versus getting someone through oDesk or similar: http://www.theprocedurepeople.com/blog/2014/09/24/how-i-hired-a-woman-to-hire-herself/

By hiring someone as a casual/part-time employee who isn't a sub-contractor (with their own company or established business) you can get their time a bit cheaper.

Many of the women I've found on hiremymum.com.au only really want to work 5 - 10 hours per week and value the flexibility I'm able to offer -- it's the perfect way to get started systemising your business without a lot of risk or administrative overhead.

I also recently posted a very "quick n dirty" way to start working with local VAs if you've never done it before: http://www.theprocedurepeople.com/blog/2014/09/25/a-basic-framework-for-creating-your-first-procedure/

Cheers,
Iain

If you are looking to hire a local VA, the pay would be upwards of 30$ per hour depending on the complexity of the task involved.
You can find good quality offshore VAs for maybe $5-$10 per hour also. Screening for good candidates is the key here. If you are willing to put in some effort initially, you can easily find good offshore VAs also.
Virtual Assistants Australia
Aceinfoservice.

Deciding on the location of the VAs you hire depend largely on what skills are required for the job. If the task required is blog commenting and related work, I would say that the best decision is to hire from offshore companies, like ones from the Philippines. However, if the job requires knowledge and expertise of an Australian VA, then it is best to hire locally. In our company, for instance, calling customers are handed on to our Australian staff while the emailing, SEO, production management, and other non-voice operations are handled by our amazing staff from the Philippines. You can check out our services and how we can help you at https://www.processcorp.com.au/

Hey mate,

There is not an issue with the lack of quality staff overseas, the issue is FINDING the quality staff.

We have plenty of staff members at Virtual Coworker who are as good or better than Australian VAs. That's not meant to bash Aussie VAs at all, it's to acknowledge that there are extremely smart and capable people in the Philippines.

If you pay a little bit more, say 8-10 dollars per hour, and use a recruitment agency you will find that the staff you interview and hire will typically be miles ahead of the freelancers you find on oDesk and Elance.

Cheers and good luck,

Kevin

Hi guys,

We published an article about the cost comparison for onshore vs. offshore work (Philippines) at

http://www.capaciti.com.au/article-onshore-vs-offshore-staffing-costs/.

Check it out. Thanks!

Blog commenting for SEO ?

That is not quality work. That is spam.

As an expert SEO who ranks for the highly competitive term "seo expert in (my city)" and several other search terms, I can guarantee you that blog commenting is not the best way to build links.

You want to hire a good quality VA to do spammy link building activities ? Sounds strange.

Its all about how you choose. I am based in India but I can guarantee you that I can provide as good a SEO service as any other Australian agency / VA. Its not about the goegraphy. Its about skill.

If you know your job well enough, you should be smart enough to choose your VA . Be it from India or Philipines or Nigeria.

Hiring a Australian VA will not guarantee you results. Hiring a skilled person will.

We have been providing Virtual Assistance services to Australian businesses for the last 4 years. We charge anywhere between $5 per hour for work such as creating marketing datases, updating E Mails etc and up to $20 per hour for more complex tasks like SEO, doing roof research for Solar companies etc.

This is much lower than what you would be paying for an Australia based VA.

Choose wisely.

Good luck.
Ace Data Services
B2B Data providers and Virtual Assistants

The virtual assistance in Australia, indeed, cost differently than in any other place. The cost of a virtual assistant in Australia depends on the specific job that the specific VA is going to be responsible for. In general, VAs may charge $12-$20 for administrative jobs (such as data entry, but not limited). The more advanced the responsibilities are the higher they will charge you. That's what generally a virtual assistant cost depends on. I would say a cheap virtual assistant would ask for a minimum of $11 in Australia but for less responsible jobs. 

Of course, you can get cheap virtual assistant overseas due to their lower cost of living and currency rate, but it may come at an expensive total cost for your small business, especially if they are not well versed in the subject or with little experience working for Australian businesses.
 
Australian virtual assistants are great if your business is entirely local. They know the culture, lingo, news and how to deal with Aussies. The cost for a virtual assistant based in Australia can be as low as $20 an hour to a $100+ an hour. It depends on what you need done from basic data entries to personal virtual secretaries to bookkeeping that requires a qualification. Be aware that some virtual assistant businesses may be based in Australia but outsource all the work overseas and takes a cut.
 
For blog commenting and social bookmark submission as you mentioned above, it is not a technical task but does require knowledge in the subject matter, some SEO and also online etiquette. You’ll be hard pressed to find $4 an hour in Australia, but I think you really need high quality content and comments from your virtual assistant as it may reflect on your business, and you should really consider hiring an Australian virtual assistant.

I agree with Ace Data. Blog commenting can come across as spam if you do it too much or harp on about the same thing, especially if you pepper them with links. Authors may end up just deleting them, so you have to write something insightful and relevant, not just agreeing or thanking.

For tasks like blog or forum commenting, it is affordable if you want to switch to virtual assistant services in Australia. You can get better quality comments too. Do check out our list of top virtual assistants on our site and put in a quote to get VA rates.

My clients were struggling to get local VA or assistants as the cost took a big chunk of their profit. Then they found extendedoffice.com.au team who are based in Melbourne. The option they proposed was a balance between onshore and offshore staff. My client kept 20% of staff in Melbourne and kept 60% in Philippines via Extendeoffice and 20% in India . They got the best of both worlds. The Melbourne staff provide all face to face jobs and all the backoffice done in Philippines and India. The great thing about Extended was they helped him in setting up the staff offshore and also helped with their technology needs. I guess that is best thing you could get. 
They were able to use the extra income to build their business and spend more in Marketing and Ads. 
 

Hello Nick, I have spoken to a lot of people asking what virtual assistants charge or what is the virtual assistant hourly rate in Australia, but I have to say it depends. It really does. Typically not less than $30 an hour. And the maximum cost of a virtual assistant I have ever encountered was $80/hours.