The picks
- Time etc — Best overall: US-based assistants, published pricing, no commitment
- Boldly — Best for a senior executive assistant on W-2 terms
- MyOutDesk — Best for a full-time offshore assistant with a manager behind them
- Virtual Assist USA — Best for a US-based employee assistant under $1,000 a month
- 20four7VA — Best-reviewed Philippines option
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
Time etc
- Founder-owned and bootstrapped since 2007
- US-based assistants, dedicated to you
- $390 for 10 hours a month, up to $2,160 for 60
Time etc is my pick for most people hiring an assistant for the first time. Barnaby Lashbrooke started it in 2007, has never taken outside money, and still runs it. You get a dedicated US-based assistant, the price is on the website, and you can stop any month.
Why I picked this
The pricing is the simplest on this list. Ten hours a month is $390, 20 is $760, 40 is $1,480, 60 is $2,160, which works out to $36 to $39 an hour. There’s no setup fee, unused hours roll over, and the first task is free so you can see the work before you pay. It’s the smallest starting point on this list.
The assistants are in the US and are matched to the work you describe: inbox and calendar, scheduling, research, CRM updates, social posting, drafting. Each assistant goes through a ten-stage selection process, and the company says fewer than 2% get through. The Trustpilot score is 4.8 across 282 reviews, the best review footprint of any US-assistant company I looked at.
The tradeoff is the contractor model. Your assistant is a freelancer working through Time etc, not an employee, and you don’t get a named account manager, just a client happiness team. For 10 to 40 hours a month of defined tasks that’s fine. For a full-time role where you want someone managing them, look at MyOutDesk.
Skip this if…
- You need 40 or more hours a week from one person. Time etc tops out at 60 hours a month.
- You want the assistant to be an employee of the company you pay. Boldly does that.
- You need bookkeeping or phone coverage as the main job
#2 Pick
Boldly
- Founder-owned since 2012, New York
- US-based W-2 employees with 10+ years' experience
- $65/hour, 40-hour monthly minimum ($2,600)
Boldly is the one I’d call when the job is executive assistant rather than a task list. Sandra Lewis founded it in 2012 and still runs it. The assistants are W-2 employees of Boldly, based in the US, and the company only hires people with ten or more years of experience.
Why I picked this
The employment model is the reason. A contractor can drop you for a better client next month. A W-2 employee at a company that’s been a Great Place to Work every year since 2019 tends to stay, and Boldly says the average client relationship runs four years. If this person is going to hold your calendar, your inbox, and the context on every project, I think that continuity is worth paying for.
Pricing is published: 40 hours a month for $2,600, 60 for $3,900, 80 for $5,200, 100 for $6,500. That is $65 an hour, with specialists such as project managers and marketing support at $79. No startup fee, cancel any month after the first. You meet and approve the assistant before you start, and a client success advisor stays on the account.
The tradeoff is price and the 40-hour floor. At $2,600 a month minimum this is a budget line, not an experiment. Public reviews are thin too, one on Trustpilot and one on Clutch, so you’re going on client names like Ginkgo Bioworks and Permira and the employer awards rather than ratings.
Skip this if…
- You need under 40 hours a month
- The work is mostly social posting and data entry. You would be paying executive assistant rates for it.
- You want a formal replacement guarantee in writing. Boldly handles re-matching case by case.
#3 Pick
MyOutDesk
- Founder-owned since 2008, Sacramento
- Full-time assistants in the Philippines and Latin America, on MyOutDesk payroll
- From $1,988/month for 40 hours a week
MyOutDesk is my pick if what you want is a full-time person rather than a block of hours. Daniel Ramsey started it in 2008 and still runs it. The assistants work 40 hours a week for you alone, are on MyOutDesk’s payroll with benefits, and come with an account manager on their side and a success manager on yours.
Why I picked this
The price for a full-time assistant is $1,988 a month at the first tier and $2,500 at the second, which is roughly $11.50 to $14.50 an hour. For that you get a dedicated person who shows up every day. If the assistant doesn’t work out, MyOutDesk replaces them at no cost.
The range of roles is wider than most offshore shops. They place assistants for admin, customer support, bookkeeping, and marketing work like email, social, and video editing, and the account manager is the person who makes sure your assistant has the tools and the brief. Reviews are the deepest on this list: 4.9 across 303 on Google and 5.0 across 68 on Clutch.
The tradeoff is time zone and industry mix. Most assistants are in the Philippines, so you are choosing between a night-shift assistant on your hours or an overlap window. A large share of their clients are real estate, so if your business is something else, say so early and ask for an assistant who has done it. The homepage claims 700 reviews and I could find about 370, which is still plenty.
Skip this if…
- You need under 40 hours a week. There is no part-time tier.
- You need a US-based assistant for compliance or client-facing reasons
- You want to be the assistant’s only manager with no agency layer
Honorable mentions
#4
Virtual Assist USA
- Founder-owned since 2008, Pittsburgh
- US-based W-2 employees, dedicated assistant plus a trained backup
- $885 for 20 hours, $1,678 for 40, hours never expire
Virtual Assist USA is a cheaper way to get what Boldly sells, a US-based assistant who’s an employee of the company you pay. Danielle Cuomo founded it in 2008 and runs it. Assistants are W-2, bonded and insured, and each client gets a dedicated assistant, a team supervisor, and a trained backup for when the primary is out. Pricing is prepaid blocks that never expire: 20 hours for $885, 40 for $1,678, 60 for $2,379, or $47.25 an hour pay as you go. No minimum, no contract, no onboarding fee.
Choose this if: You want a US-based employee rather than a contractor, you need under 40 hours a month, and the work is admin, marketing support, or light tech rather than executive assistant.
Skip it if: You want a deep review footprint. There are six reviews on Clutch at 4.7 and not much else, and the company is 30 to 40 people.
#5
20four7VA
- Owned and run by its founder since 2014, Maryland
- Mostly Philippines-based, dedicated assistant plus account manager
- Quote-based pricing, 10 hours a week minimum, weekly rolling agreement
20four7VA has the biggest review footprint of any company here: 4.7 on Trustpilot across 662 reviews. Catherine vanVonno has been sole owner since 2014 and the company is certified women-owned. Assistants are mostly in the Philippines and each client gets an account manager for the life of the account. The agreement rolls weekly with a 10-hour minimum, there is a two-week probation before a $99 setup fee, and if your assistant quits they replace them within a day.
Choose this if: You want a low-commitment way to try an offshore assistant for admin, ecommerce, or marketing support, and you care about reviews.
Skip it if: You want the price before the call. 20four7VA quotes per role and does not publish rates.
Why I only list founder-owned VA companies
A lot of the best-known names in this category aren’t owned by the people who built them anymore. BELAY sold a majority stake to Tenex Capital Management in 2021 and has bought three accounting firms since. Zirtual was sold to PennSpring Capital, a private equity firm, in December 2023, and in the two years since has bought Delegated, Double, and the assistant business of Virtual Gurus. So four brands that show up as separate options on other lists are one holding company.
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 has no published rates. Every company on my list except 20four7VA publishes prices.
- 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.
- 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. Time etc and 20four7VA, both founder-owned, are at 4.8 and 4.7.
When the product is a person, I want the company run by someone who still answers to clients and to the assistants.
The three models
Every company here runs one of three models. Pick the model first, then the company.
- US-based contractor (Time etc). Your assistant is a US freelancer working through the company. Cheapest way to get a US assistant and easy to start small, but they can leave and there’s no manager on their side.
- US-based employee (Boldly, Virtual Assist USA). The assistant is a W-2 employee of the company you pay, which buys you continuity and a backup. Boldly starts at 40 hours a month and $65 an hour; Virtual Assist USA starts at 20 hours and about $44.
- Offshore full-time, managed (MyOutDesk, 20four7VA). A dedicated person on the company’s payroll working 20 to 40 hours a week for you, with a manager behind them. Best cost per hour, and the right answer when the job is a role rather than a task list.
If you want to hire someone onto your own payroll, none of these is the product. That’s a recruiter. Hire With Near and Somewhere are the names to look at there, though Somewhere was sold to an investor group in 2024.
How to choose
Choose Time etc if you’re hiring your first assistant, want someone in the US, and want to start at 10 or 20 hours a month with no commitment.
Choose Boldly if the role is executive assistant to you or your CEO and you want a senior W-2 employee who’ll still be there in three years.
Choose MyOutDesk if you need a full-time person for admin or ops and want an agency managing them alongside you.
Choose Virtual Assist USA if you want a US-based employee assistant for admin or marketing support and need under 40 hours a month.
Choose 20four7VA if you want to try an offshore assistant with minimal commitment and want to read 600 reviews first.
My usual advice is to start with Time etc at 20 hours a month, keep a list of what the assistant took off your plate, and move to a full-time person at MyOutDesk once that list is longer than 40 hours a week.
If what you need is specifically a marketing virtual assistant, someone who runs your email tool, CRM, and reporting rather than general admin, that’s a different hire and the placement we do ourselves through the NanoGlobals talent network. It’s not ranked here because it’s ours.
Questions I’d ask any VA company 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, and who pays them? Both can work. You just want to know which one you’re buying.
- Is the assistant dedicated to me or shared? Shared pools are cheaper and worse for anything that needs context.
- What happens when my assistant is sick, quits, or goes on vacation? You want a named backup or a replacement timeline in days.
- Can I see the price before the call? Four of the five companies here publish it. Quote-only pricing isn’t disqualifying, but ask what the quote depends on.
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, Virtual Staff Finder, FreeUp, and Fancy Hands. I also dropped companies where I couldn’t confirm who runs them.
From the rest, I ranked on published pricing, where the assistants are and how they’re employed, whether you get a dedicated person and a manager, and independent reviews on Trustpilot, Clutch, and Google. 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.