The picks
- Boldly — Best overall: senior US-based EAs on W-2 terms, with backup coverage
- Prialto — Best managed EA: dedicated assistant plus two trained backups, from $1,600 a month
- Squared Away — Best for starting small with a US-based assistant
- Worxbee — Best for board and C-suite support from a US contractor
- Delegate Solutions — Best for fractional EA and chief of staff work
Every company on this list is still owned by its founders. I didn’t include anything owned by private equity or a roll-up, which rules out a few names you’ll see on other lists. My reasoning is below.
#1 Pick
Boldly
- Founder-owned and bootstrapped since 2012, New York
- US-based W-2 employees, 10 to 15 years' experience
- $2,600 for 40 hours a month, $65/hour above that
Boldly is my pick for most executives reading this. Sandra Lewis founded it in 2012, turned investors away, and still runs it. The EAs are W-2 employees of Boldly with health insurance and a matched 401(k), based in the US, and the hiring bar is ten to fifteen years of experience supporting senior people.
Why I picked this
The employment model is the reason. Most EA services place contractors. Boldly employs its assistants, pays benefits, and has been a Great Place to Work every year since 2019. People stay, and the company says the average client relationship lasts four years. If this person is going to hold your calendar, your inbox, and the thread on every open project, continuity is what you’re paying for.
You meet the assistant before you sign. A trained backup covers vacation and sick days at no extra cost. A client success advisor stays on the account, and if a month goes badly the guarantee refunds that month’s fees.
Pricing is on the website: 40 hours a month for $2,600, 60 for $3,900, 80 for $5,200, 100 for $6,500. Specialist work such as project management runs $79 an hour. No setup fee, 30 days’ notice to leave. New York clients pay about 3% more, which is only shown on a separate page.
The tradeoff is the floor. Forty hours a month is the minimum, so this is a $2,600 line item from day one. Public reviews are thin too, one each on Clutch and Trustpilot, so you’re going on the employer awards and clients like Ginkgo Bioworks and Permira rather than ratings.
Skip this if…
- You need under 40 hours a month
- You want the assistant working outside US business hours
- You want the lowest price per hour. Prialto is less than half the rate.
#2 Pick
Prialto
- Founder-owned since 2009, Portland, Oregon
- Full-time Prialto employees in the Philippines, Kenya, and Guatemala
- $1,600 for 55 hours a month, full-time from $3,600
Prialto is my pick if you want the service managed for you rather than a person you manage. Eric Taussig co-founded it in 2009 and is still CEO. Your assistant is a salaried Prialto employee with four weeks of training, and behind them are two more trained backups and an engagement manager.
Why I picked this
Backup coverage is the thing most EA services hand-wave. Prialto trains two backups on your account and documents your processes, so when your primary assistant is out the work doesn’t stop and you don’t re-explain anything. The company says backups cover 80% or more of absences without a gap. It is SOC 2 Type 2 certified, which matters if your EA is going to be inside your CRM and your inbox.
The reviews are the strongest in this category: 5.0 across 45 on Clutch and 4.5 across 25 on Trustpilot. Clients include Rapid7, Compass, and MIT.
Pricing is published in units. One unit is 55 hours a month for $1,600, about $29 an hour, and a full-time assistant at 165 hours starts at $3,600. There is a $250 setup fee, waived on an annual deal, and a 90-day minimum before it goes month to month. No overage fees.
The tradeoff is where the assistants are. They work US business hours but they’re in the Philippines, Kenya, and Guatemala, so this isn’t the pick if you need someone to walk into a meeting or handle a US-only compliance task. Phone work is included.
Skip this if…
- You need a US-based assistant
- You want to commit for less than 90 days
- You want to manage the assistant directly with no agency layer
#3 Pick
Squared Away
- Founder-owned and bootstrapped since 2017
- US-based military spouses, no more than 5 clients each
- From $600 for 15 hours a month, $40 to $60/hour by tier
Squared Away is my pick if you want a US-based assistant and want to start under $1,000 a month. Michelle Penczak co-founded it in 2017, has not taken outside money, and the company passed $13 million in revenue with 400-plus assistants. Every assistant is a military spouse, which is the recruiting edge: people with real careers who move every few years and want remote work that moves with them.
Why I picked this
The pricing starts lower than anything else on this list and is published. Fifteen hours a month is $600 at tier one, 25 hours is $1,000, 50 is $2,000, 75 is $3,000. Tiers two and three run $50 and $60 an hour. The tiers measure how long the assistant has been at Squared Away, not career experience, so ask about the person’s background before you pick a tier.
Assistants are capped at five clients and most have one to three. There is a backup assistant when yours is out, tasks are acknowledged within an hour, and the service covers calendar, travel, inbox, events, and startup-specific work such as deal tracking for investors. Clients include Madrona Venture Labs.
The tradeoff is disclosure. The company doesn’t say anywhere whether assistants are W-2 employees or contractors, and there’s no third-party review profile. The press is strong, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, CBS, but it’s press, not ratings. Ask the employment question on the first call.
Skip this if…
- You need a formal replacement guarantee or account manager in writing. Neither is stated.
- You want an assistant with 15 years of C-suite experience. That is Boldly or Worxbee.
- You need coverage outside 9 to 5
Honorable mentions
#4
Worxbee
- Founder-owned since 2013, Greenville, South Carolina
- US-based contractors with 5+ years supporting senior executives
- $1,300 for 20 hours a month, $65/hour
Worxbee does executive support and nothing else. Kenzie Biggins founded it in 2013 and runs it. The assistants are US-based, the hiring bar is five-plus years supporting senior or C-suite executives, and board support is on the service list, which is rare. Pricing is published: 20 hours a month for $1,300, 30 for $1,950, 40 for $2,600, the same $65 an hour as Boldly but with a lower floor. You meet the assistant before you start, most people start within a week, and if the match is wrong they re-pair you free.
Choose this if: You want Boldly-level experience at 20 or 30 hours a month, and board or investor support is part of the job.
Skip it if: You want an employee rather than a contractor, or you need backup coverage. Worxbee assistants are 1099 contractors and the company excludes applicants from 16 states including California and New York. There is no stated backup when your assistant is out, and no third-party reviews.
#5
Delegate Solutions
- Founder-owned since 2007, fully remote
- US-based team, a strategist paired with your assistant
- Pricing on request
Delegate Solutions has been doing this since 2007 under founder Emily Morgan, and it sells a different shape of service: a fractional executive assistant paired with a strategist, and a fractional chief of staff tier above that. The job here is calendar and inbox plus fixing how your executive office runs. Staff get PTO, a 401(k), and insurance, which points to an employee model, though the site does not say so outright.
Choose this if: What you need is someone to build the systems around you as well as run them, and you are fine paying for a small team rather than one person.
Skip it if: You want to see pricing before the call, or you want one dedicated assistant. The team model means more than one person may touch your work, and rates are quoted, not published.
Why I only list founder-owned EA services
Several of the names you’ll see on other lists aren’t owned by the people who built them anymore. BELAY sold a majority stake to Tenex Capital Management in 2021, moved its founders out of the CEO seat, and has bought five accounting firms since. Zirtual was sold to PennSpring Capital, a private equity firm, in December 2023, and has since bought Delegated, Double, and the assistant division of Virtual Gurus. Somewhere was bought out by an investor syndicate in 2024 and its founder is now an advisor. Base replaced its founder as CEO in 2026 after a venture round.
I left all of them off, and I’ll keep leaving off anything a PE firm or a roll-up buys. That’s not a claim that those services are bad. It’s a flag I personally avoid, because in my experience pricing after a sale tends to be higher and more optimized for the owner than for the client. Here’s what I’ve seen change:
- The pricing page disappears. BELAY publishes no rates. Four of the five companies on my list publish theirs.
- The assistant becomes the margin. Roll-ups protect margin by moving to contractors, shared assistants, or cheaper regions, and they don’t tell the client. BELAY’s assistants are 1099 contractors and it won’t hire in California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado, or Montana.
- Support turns into sales. Once there’s a growth target, the account manager’s job becomes finding the next upsell.
- Reviews slide. BELAY is at 3.8 on Trustpilot with 16% one-star reviews. Zirtual is at 2.5.
When the product is a person who reads your email, I want the company run by someone who still answers to clients and to the assistants.
Service, recruiter, or VA company
Three different products get called “executive assistant services,” and it helps to know which one you’re buying.
- An EA service employs or contracts the assistant and bills you monthly. That’s everything on this list. Fastest to start, easiest to stop, and the service handles replacement.
- A recruiter finds you an EA you then hire onto your own payroll. Great Assistant charges $7,000 to $10,000 per placement, and Connect, formerly LifeSquire, charges 30% of salary with an $8,000 minimum. Right answer when you want a full-time employee of your own, wrong answer for 20 hours a month.
- A VA company places generalist assistants for admin, marketing, and support tasks. Cheaper per hour, less experienced at managing an executive. I cover those in best virtual assistant companies.
How to choose
Choose Boldly if you want a senior US-based EA who’s an employee, you can use 40 hours a month, and you want backup coverage built in.
Choose Prialto if you want a managed service with trained backups and the best reviews in the category, and offshore is fine.
Choose Squared Away if you want a US-based assistant and want to start at 15 or 25 hours a month.
Choose Worxbee if the job includes board or investor support and you want $65-an-hour experience at a 20-hour floor.
Choose Delegate Solutions if you want someone to redesign how your office runs, and then keep it running.
If you’ve never had an assistant, my advice is to start with Squared Away at 25 hours or Worxbee at 20, keep a list of what you handed off, and move to Boldly or Prialto when the list is bigger than the hours.
Questions I’d ask any EA service before signing
- Who owns the company? If the answer is a fund or a holding group, see above.
- Is my assistant an employee or a contractor? Boldly and Prialto say employee. Worxbee says contractor. Squared Away doesn’t say. Ask.
- What happens when my assistant is out for a week? You want a named backup who already knows your account.
- How many other clients does my assistant have? Squared Away caps it at five. Most services won’t tell you unless you ask.
- Can I meet the person before I sign? Boldly, Worxbee, and Squared Away all say yes.
How I chose
I only considered companies owned by their founders or by the person running them today. I checked each one’s about page, press, Crunchbase, PitchBook, and acquisition news, and dropped anything owned by private equity, a roll-up, or an acquirer. That removed BELAY, Zirtual, Delegated, Double, Somewhere, Base, and Clara Labs. I also dropped companies where I couldn’t confirm who runs them, and recruiters, which are a different product.
From the rest, I ranked on published pricing, whether assistants are employees or contractors and where they are, backup coverage, and independent reviews on Clutch and Trustpilot. Nobody paid to be here and we don’t take affiliate commissions or referral fees. If a listing is ever paid, it’ll say so on the card.