Virtual assistant agency price list and profit model in 2027

What to take away

The cost buildup behind every rate

Divide it by utilization. The result is cost per delivered hour. Every rate below is a multiple of that number, not a market guess.

The employer-side add-ons are public and predictable. FICA adds 7.65% of wages. FUTA adds 0.6% on the first $7,000 of each wage. State unemployment insurance typically runs 2% to 4% of covered pay.

Workers' compensation for clerical work commonly prices between $0.20 and $0.60 per $100 of payroll. Ask your carrier for the class code that fits a desk-based assistant instead of assuming the office rate.

Benefits are the biggest variable. KFF's annual employer health benefits survey puts average premiums near $9,000 for single coverage and $25,500 for family coverage, with the employer paying most of the single figure. Paid time off adds roughly 4% to 6% of wages.

Then the per-seat software that makes the hours billable. Prices below are published list or starting prices as of 2026.

A bench of 20 assistants at $200 per person a month in software carries $48,000 a year of cost before a single wage is paid.

Worked example. An assistant costs $4,800 a month fully loaded across 173 paid hours, which is $27.75 per paid hour. At 70% utilization they deliver 121 hours, so cost per delivered hour is $39.65. A 45% gross margin line prices at $72 an hour.

Two multipliers sit on top. Overhead and sales recovery, usually 15% to 25% for a small agency. Target profit, which is yours to set. Write both down before you quote.

The 2027 price list

Rates below are illustrative, built from the formula above at $27.75 fully loaded per paid hour and 70% utilization. Substitute your own figures.

Market context helps here. Established US-facing VA firms typically publish entry plans between $1,400 and $1,600 a month for part-time cover and $2,600 to $3,000 for full-time, as of 2026. Those plans bundle supervision and margin your own formula may not carry.

Marketplaces price differently. Upwork charges freelancers a flat 10% service fee on earnings, and Fiverr takes 20% of each order. Subcontract there and the fee belongs in fully loaded cost, not in the margin line.

Three rules make the list work. Block hours expire monthly. The coverage cap is written into the agreement. Onboarding is invoiced separately so short relationships do not lose money.

Choosing a structure, and what each one costs you

Tooling follows the structure, and the cost lands on your side of the invoice. A coverage window needs a shared inbox such as Zendesk Suite Team at about $55 per agent a month. Per-output work needs a written system in Notion or ClickUp so a second person can repeat it.

Most agencies run a reserved block for anchor work plus a per-output line for everything else. That pairing is comparable for a buyer and predictable for you.

The structure and the rules have to match, or you have sold a different product than you think. Which lines belong in the block and which belong outside it is sorted in the services guide for agency owners.

Utilization is the profit lever

Take one assistant. Divide delivered client hours by paid hours in the month. Training, internal meetings, absence and waiting on a client's answer all sit in the denominator.

Two things follow. Cost per delivered hour is fully loaded cost per paid hour divided by utilization, so a modest fall in utilization is a large rise in cost. Selling more reserved hours to the same bench raises utilization until quality starts falling instead.

At 70% utilization the assistant above costs $39.65 per delivered hour. At 55% the same person costs $50.45. Same wage, same software, 27% more cost.

Track it per person and per month. Hubstaff, Toggl Track and Harvest all report billable against paid hours, and Toggl Track starts near $9 per seat a month. The number warns you months before the profit and loss statement does.

Where retainer margin leaks

Each leak has the same fix: measure it per client, then decide. A 40-hour block at $2,880 with four hours of unbilled clarification a month loses $312 of margin at the delivered-hour rate.

Setting the floor from your own records

For pay input, the BLS occupational employment and wage statistics tables publish estimates by occupation, industry, state and metropolitan area. Administrative support occupations show median annual pay in the low-to-mid $40,000s nationally. Read them as a description of the local labor market for adjacent roles, not as a rate you should pay or charge.

The rest of the arithmetic depends on records you keep. The IRS guidance on which business records to keep sets the financial baseline; hours by client by line is the operational layer you add. Without that layer, every statement about profitability is a guess.

For the surrounding setup of a new agency, funding, insurance and the order things arrive in, the SBA business guide is a serviceable map. The capacity arithmetic those costs feed into, headcount to delivered hours, is worked through in the startup and market guide.

Publishing a price is making a claim

Whatever goes on the site has to be supportable. The FTC's advertising guidance for small businesses sets out that a reasonable basis is needed before a claim is published, and that implied claims count as claims.

Three habits cause trouble. A headline rate qualified only in small print. A saving expressed against the cost of an employee, which depends on the buyer's payroll rather than your work. A response promise attached to a price you have not staffed across every advertised hour.

Publish the structure, the unit and the entry price. Those are defensible, and they filter out buyers you cannot serve.

Changing a price without losing the account

Surprise, not the increase, is what ends relationships. Clients who get notice and a reason almost always stay.

Common questions

Should I price per hour or per month?

Price per month, defined by the capacity it reserves. Hourly pricing turns every conversation into a negotiation about minutes and punishes you for getting faster. The block rate above already contains the utilization risk, which is the point of selling capacity rather than time.

What do I do about a client who never uses their hours?

Say something before they do. A client who notices unused capacity before you mention it concludes they are wasting money. A client you approach first usually reduces the tier and stays.

How do I handle a request that sits outside the retainer?

Quote it separately, in writing, before it is done. Work performed and then invoiced as a surprise is the fastest route to a dispute. The per-output line exists so this conversation has a price attached to it already.

Is there a normal margin for this trade?

Nobody can tell you that from a page, and any figure you find will be computed differently from yours. Build the measure from your own records, watch its direction over quarters, and ignore the comparison.