How Much Does It Cost to Hire an Assistant?

A personal assistant and a virtual assistant are priced on this page by hourly job pay from pay sites. An assistant on your payroll, such as an administrative or executive assistant, is priced by the month, as wages plus employer taxes. The kinds of figure measure different things, so this page keeps them apart.

The personal assistant figure, in short. Indeed is the one source this page has for a personal assistant, so the $18.80 an hour above is Indeed's figure as read on October 2, 2026, and not a market rate. It's pay taken from job posts, so it isn't a service's price and it has no employer taxes in it. Indeed's page changes often. This page has no figure for a personal assistant service, and none for a personal assistant hired by the day.

The virtual assistant figures, in short. The Indeed and PayScale figures above are job pay in the US, so neither one is a service's price or an overseas rate. Upwork's own cost page puts virtual assistants on Upwork at $10 to $20 an hour in its headline, as of October 2026. Other spots on that page give other figures: its search description gives a median of $13 an hour, and its body text gives an average of $18 to $35 an hour (read October 2, 2026). Overseas, this site has no sourced market rate, only one owner's number: in his own hiring of overseas contractors, Jeremy Kenerson has paid about $1,500 a month for a full-time person.

A virtual assistant can be your employee. The IRS says a person who works for you from somewhere other than your office is your employee under its rules if you can control what will be done and how. The label you use doesn't settle it: the IRS and the Texas Workforce Commission each test for who is a contractor, and independent contractor vs employee covers both tests. Not legal or tax advice. Ask your accountant.

The payroll math is this page's own ground. The rest of the page works out what an administrative or executive assistant costs on your payroll, by the month, with every line shown.

A part-time administrative assistant hired as an employee in Texas costs $2,048.29 a month at the middle (median) hourly wage. That's wages plus employer taxes, before benefits (BLS May 2025 wages, 2026 tax rates). At the US median wage it's $2,136.26 a month, with no state unemployment tax counted. Both figures assume 20 hours a week, which is this site's assumption.

Here's the Texas math:

1. Wages: $21.70 an hour for 20 hours a week and 52 weeks is $22,568.00 a year.
2. Employer taxes come to $2,011.46 a year: $1,399.22 for Social Security, $327.24 for Medicare, $42.00 for federal unemployment tax and $243.00 for Texas unemployment tax.
3. Total: $24,579.46 a year, or $2,048.29 a month when divided by 12.

The part-time figure is a little more than half the full-time one, because the two unemployment taxes come to the same $42 and $243 a year either way: the wages pass both caps.

BLS counts anyone who usually works under 35 hours a week as part time. That's for its statistics only, BLS says, and it isn't a legal definition.

DeskTeam360 runs this site. It sells a flat-rate team, and it doesn't do payroll. If most of your assistant's list would be production tasks, such as website updates, email builds or video edits, you can book a call.

These monthly figures leave out six costs: benefits, paid time off, equipment, software, the cost of hiring, and workers' comp if you choose to carry it.

Benefits aren't in these totals. The first hire cost page gives a BLS national average for scale, and says why you shouldn't add it to these totals. Which benefits an employer must or should offer is outside this page.

Workers' comp is a private employer's choice in Texas, and in most cases it isn't required. The choice comes with paperwork. An employer with no coverage has to file a notice with the state, post a notice at work and give new employees written notice. Once it has five or more employees, it also has to report work injuries with more than one day of lost time. The first hire steps page has the dates, and what the state says coverage does. If you do carry it, the premium is one more cost on top, and this page has no figure for it.

An employee is one way to get help. For a hire next to an outside team, see outsourcing vs hiring.

If the help you need is production work more than office work, a call shows whether a flat-rate team fits.