Guide on how to pay a Virtual Assistant from the Philippines

If you’re planning to hire a Virtual Assistant from the Philippines, you’ll need to set them up on a regular payment schedule just like you would for your part-time or full-time staff members.

But how do you pay a virtual assistant from the Philippines? And much do VA services cost in 2024? 🤔

Watch our latest YouTube video or keep reading this guide to learn more about the steps and tools you’ll need to pay your Filipino VA:

How much to pay a Filipino Virtual Assistant

Before you decide how to pay a VA, you have to first find out how much to pay.

The services of a virtual assistant from the Philippines can cost around PHP 35,000/month up to PHP 50,000/month (roughly USD $600-$850/month or AUD $910-$1,300/month), on average. This figure can even be higher depending on the specialised skills and output your VA can deliver.

While it’s important to keep your costs low, it’s even more important to keep your remote staff motivated and allow them to provide for their families despite the rising costs and inflation.

That’s why we do our best to pay above-average rates for our VAs at Outsourcing Angel. There are many factors that can vary the rate of a Filipino VA, especially if they upskill enough to take on more tasks than required of them.

Here are the three main things to consider:

• Work arrangement: How many hours per week is your Virtual Assistant expected to be online? A regular schedule can be more cost-effective than a project-based work schedule due to the ongoing work arrangement.
• Method of outsourcing: You can either hire a Virtual Assistant through an outsourcing company or hire directly. Hiring directly might include additional costs such as health insurance, software/tools, taxes, and more.

👉 Related: How to hire a VA from Outsourcing Angel

Hiring through an outsourcing company typically covers these costs. At Outsourcing Angel, we even offer additional benefits like free replacement guarantees, bonuses for your VA, mentorship and volunteer opportunities, and more.

• Level of skills and experience: If you require a Virtual Assistant with technical or specialised skills, their salary will be higher than that of an administrative or executive role.

👉 Related: What can Virtual Assistants do?

Landing on a fair pay rate for your virtual assistant may feel difficult, but a balance does exist and we know from a decade of experience that business owners can land on that balance 💯

Virtual assistant costs in addition to salary

Have you ever heard of the phrase “You get what you pay for?” That’s also the case for Virtual Assistants.

On top of their monthly salaries, you also have to consider additional costs such as:

• Health insurance: Providing financial support for necessary medical consults, checkups and procedures ensures your VA’s continued health, wellness, and capacity to work with you.
• Training and Workshops: This helps your VA upskill along with the changing needs of your business. At Outsourcing Angel, we offer regular training to ensure that our VAs stay updated with the latest skills.
• Incentives and Bonuses: We reward our VAs with referral bonuses, performance bonuses, and more. You might want to consider a reward points system with your VA in order to incentivise them in the same way.

Our 2023 annual company trip. Our Australian team, Philippines staff, and Virtual Assistants got together on November 2023 in Batangas, Philippines for our annual company trip.

• Community and Mentorship: We organise monthly in-person meet-ups and mentorship programs to support our VAs both professionally and personally.
• Work Milestone Recognition: When your virtual assistant celebrates a milestone such as a birthday or anniversary, consider celebrating with them by sending out gifts or a bonus to foster loyatly.
• Annual company trips: You can also include your VA in any of your existing company trips. To bring our Aussie and Pinoy Teams together, we organise annual company trips where we can strategise in person, get to know each other better and relax!
• Charity and Volunteer opportunities: This is an optional cost, but you can also give your VAs the opportunity to do rewarding and hands-on volunteer work.

We encourage you to provide as much as you can to your VA without forgetting to pay yourself first.

If this presents a challenge for you, outsourcing to a trusted company can help you cover these additional virtual assistant costs.

How to pay a Virtual Assistant from the Philippines

So how do you pay a virtual assistant from the Philippines?

Here are the steps you should take:

1. Decide on your work arrangement

The first step is to determine whether your VA will be full-time, part-time, or project-based.

This will help you decide the administrative parts of your payroll workflow. It will also help you determine what your on-going costs will be like for the foreseeable future.

There are generally three types of work arrangements with virtual assistants:

• Full-time: In a full-time arrangement, you’re getting someone to work as part of your internal team 5 days per week (an average of 40 hours per week).
• Part-time: These arrangements work well when you don’t really have a need for someone who will take on a full load yet. In this scenario, your virtual assistant is only working with you 1 – 5 days per week (an average of 20 hours per week).
• Per project or per output: If you only need a VA to help with temporary or ad-hoc tasks, you can also get someone to work at a per project or per output basis and pay them either per hour or per output (i.e. words written, graphics created, videos produced, etc).

In per project outputs, it’s always better to pay the full amount after the work has been delivered to avoid any financial mishaps. Other VAs may also request a small deposit before starting the project, especially for specialised roles such as web development or video/animation production.
But as time goes by and your working relationship grows with your virtual assistant, you can start to talk about other arrangements that suit you best.

2. Decide on the payment schedule

After deciding on a work arrangement, choose a payment schedule.

Common payment schedules include monthly, bi-monthly, or per task completion:

• Monthly or Bi-monthly: Most companies follow a monthly or bi-monthly payout schedule when dealing with full-time and part-time virtual assistants.
  We personally prefer a bi-monthly payout schedule at Outsourcing Angel. For us, it’s a good balance between the longer wait time of a monthly schedule and the too tedious admin arrangements of a weekly schedule.
• After task completion: Per project virtual assistants can be paid immediately after the work has been completed. They can also be paid 50% at the start of the project and then 50% after completion (percentages may vary as per your agreement with a VA).

Virtual assistant cost: Should I pay hourly or a fixed amount per month?

Here are the pros and cons of the two payment terms:

Choose whichever route works better for you and remember to ask your virtual assistant’s input. There is no one-size fits all solution, so you and your VA should come to an agreement that suits both of you.

🔥 A hot tip from our VA managers: Do your best to avoid any delays on payments. Being late with payments can breed a level of dissatisfaction or distrust that might lead to higher turnover rates.

Being religious about paying staff on time will lead to happier and more motivated remote staff who will love and treat your business as their own.

3. Choose a payment tool to use

The next thing you’ll need to consider is the payment tool you’ll use to transfer money.

When selecting a payment tool, here are some key things to consider:

• Fees: Money transferring services may have additional transfer or conversion fees. Some services charge more fees than others so do your research to avoid the shock of hidden costs.
• Ease of use: If you aren’t the techy type, user experience will matter! So finding an easy-to-use tool with tutorial videos to explain basic functions like top-up credit, sending money, checking transit information, and so on can be an important consideration.
• Customer support: When money transfers don’t go as planned (which shouldn’t happen very often), you’ll want to have a responsive customer support channel to help you fix the arrangements ASAP.
• Exchange rate: Different money transferring services will use different exchange rates, so check which services use standard currency rates and which ones charge a higher amount.
• Clearing time: Some services provide same-day or even instant clearing in some instances, while others can take a few business days.
• Transfer limit: Transfer limits are there to protect you from fraud, but it can also be a delimiting factor, especially when you’re hiring technical and specialised virtual assistants on a monthly payment basis.