The short answer: somewhere between $800 and $110,000 a year, depending on what you actually mean by "executive assistant." That range is wide enough to be useless, so here's the real breakdown.
If you're a consultant pulling in $200K-$1M in revenue, or running a boutique agency under 20 people, you've probably searched this exact question at 11pm after spending your evening on inbox cleanup instead of billable work.
In-House Executive Assistant: $70,000-$110,000/Year
A full-time EA in the U.S. costs $55,000-$85,000 in base salary. Once you add payroll taxes (7.65% FICA), health insurance ($6,000-$14,000/year), PTO, equipment, and onboarding, you're at $70,000-$110,000 total. That's $5,800-$9,200/month.
What you get: a dedicated person who learns your business deeply. Over 6-12 months, a good in-house EA becomes genuinely hard to replace.
What you're signing up for: management. When they quit — average EA tenure is about 2.5 years — you start from scratch with a 3-6 month ramp. For a consultant billing $250/hour, management overhead costs 3-5 hours per week. That's $750-$1,250 in lost revenue every week just to manage the person saving you time.
BELAY: $2,600+/Month
BELAY's pricing starts at roughly $2,600/month for a part-time dedicated VA. U.S.-based, generally experienced, and the company handles HR, payroll, and replacement.
At $2,600/month, you're typically getting 45-60 hours of support — roughly $43-$58/hour. You're still getting one person with one skill set.
Boldly: $2,400+/Month
Boldly starts around $2,400/month and requires 7+ years of EA experience. For executives at larger companies, that premium matters.
For consultants and small agency owners, you're paying for experience you may not need. If your admin is inbox management, scheduling, and invoicing, a 15-year EA is overqualified — and you're paying for that.
Philippines-Based Virtual Assistant: $800-$1,200/Month
Full-time (40 hours/week) at $5-$7.50/hour. For data entry, appointment setting, basic inbox sorting — a well-trained offshore VA handles these reliably.
Here's the tradeoff: management time. You'll spend 3-5 hours per week training and managing. If you bill at $200/hour, those 4 hours cost $800/week. That's $3,200/month in lost revenue to manage an $800/month VA.
There's also the 12-13 hour time zone gap. Great for overnight tasks, terrible for real-time collaboration.
Managed Operations Team: $1,500/Month
This is the Solveline model. Instead of one person, you get a managed team — operations coordinator, systems admin, project support — at $1,500/month. No management overhead, no replacement risk.
This works best when your admin is 10-20 hours per week spread across different types of work. One person rarely does all of those well. A team covers the range.
The honest limitation: if you need a deeply embedded person who sits in your meetings and makes judgment calls requiring years of context, a managed team isn't that. You're trading depth for breadth and reliability.
The Hidden Cost Most People Don't Calculate
If you're billing $200/hour and spending 15 hours a week on non-billable work — that's $12,000/month in revenue you're not earning. Even a full-time EA at $9,200/month pays for itself if it frees up 12 of those 15 hours.
The Philippines VA at $800/month looks cheapest until you add $3,200 in management time. Solveline at $1,500/month sits in a specific sweet spot: less than BELAY, more than a Philippines VA, and zero management overhead — the line item most people forget.
The worst decision is spending nothing and doing it all yourself while telling yourself you'll hire someone "when things calm down." Things don't calm down. You just get used to the weight.
Key Cost Ranges
In-house EA: $70,000-$110,000/year. BELAY: ~$2,600/month. Boldly: ~$2,400/month. Philippines VA: $800-$1,200/month. Managed operations team (Solveline): $1,500/month.
