How Much Does a Filipino Virtual Assistant Cost? (2026 Employer’s Guide)

A plain-numbers breakdown for coaches, consultants, and small business owners — written from here in the Philippines.

Disclosure: this article contains affiliate links to OnlineJobs.ph. If you hire through them, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend what I’d use myself.

You’ve done the math in your head a dozen times. A full-time assistant in the US or UK runs $3,500–$5,000 a month once you add payroll tax and benefits — so you keep doing the admin yourself at midnight. Meanwhile the “$5/hour VA” ads make you nervous: too cheap usually means too good to be true, or a hire that quietly disappears after week two.

Here’s the honest version. A skilled Filipino virtual assistant working full-time typically costs $500 to $1,500 a month — all in. That’s not a markup game or a staffing agency’s blended rate. It’s what the person actually earns, hiring them directly. Below is exactly where that number comes from, so you can budget with real figures instead of guesses.

The short answer

Most Western employers pay $500–$1,000 per month for a capable full-time Filipino VA handling admin, support, and coordination. Specialists (bookkeeping, social media, executive assistance) run $900–$1,500. Technical and creative roles — web development, SEO, video editing, paid ads — start around $1,000 and climb from there. Part-time is roughly half.

Filipino VA salary ranges by skill level

These are direct-hire, full-time monthly figures (about 160 hours). They reflect what experienced VAs on the open Philippine market command in 2026 — treat them as planning ranges, not fixed rates. Rates vary with English fluency, years of experience, time-zone overlap, and how specialized the work is.

VA type	Typical role	Monthly (full-time)	≈ Hourly
Entry-level general VA	Inbox, calendar, data entry, basic admin	$400 – $700	$3 – $4.50
Experienced general VA	Customer support, scheduling, light project coordination	$700 – $1,000	$4.50 – $6.50
Specialist VA	Social media, bookkeeping, executive assistant, email marketing	$900 – $1,500	$6 – $9.50
Technical / creative	Web dev, SEO, video editing, paid ads	$1,000 – $2,000+	$6.50 – $13+

Why so much lower than a Western hire and still fair? Cost of living. A $700/month salary in the Philippines is a strong, professional-tier income — comfortably above local office wages — which is exactly why the best VAs stay long-term when they’re treated well. You’re not underpaying; you’re paying a great local wage in a lower-cost economy.

The three costs everyone forgets

The salary is the big number, but it isn’t the only one. Budget for these so month one holds no surprises:

1. The platform you hire on

The cleanest way to hire directly (no middleman markup, no ongoing per-hour fee) is OnlineJobs.ph — the largest job marketplace built specifically for Filipino VAs. You pay a monthly subscription only while you’re actively recruiting, then cancel once you’ve hired. That makes it a one-time cost for most people, not a recurring one.

For a first hire, Pro at $69 for a single month is almost always enough — you post a job, message your shortlist, run a test task, hire, and cancel. Here’s the key thing most people miss: OnlineJobs.ph takes no cut of your VA’s salary, ever. Compare that to marketplaces that skim 10–20% off every hour your VA works, forever.

→ See current OnlineJobs.ph plans

Plan	Price	Best for
Free	$0	Browsing profiles and posting up to 3 jobs — but you can’t message workers, so it stalls fast
Pro	$69 / mo	Most first-time employers: contact up to 75 workers/month, instant job approval, 200 applications per post
Premium	$99 / mo	High-volume hiring: 10 job posts, contact 500 workers/month, AI matching, background checks

2. Paying your VA across borders

You’ll send money internationally each pay cycle. The common options are Wise (lowest fees, best exchange rate — usually 1% or so), PayPal (convenient but pricier once currency conversion is added), and OnlineJobs.ph’s built-in EasyPay. Budget roughly 1–3% of salary for transfer costs.

3. Bonuses and the 13th-month norm

In the Philippines a 13th-month bonus (one extra month’s pay near year-end) is a deeply held cultural norm. You’re not legally bound to it as an overseas client hiring a contractor, but offering it — or a performance bonus of similar size — is one of the highest-ROI retention moves you can make. Pencil in one extra month of salary per year.

Real month-one budget (two examples)

Putting it together for a typical first hire versus a specialist hire:

Cost line	Entry-level hire	Specialist hire
VA monthly salary	$500	$1,200
Platform (OnlineJobs.ph Pro, hiring month only)	$69	$69
Payment transfer fees (Wise/PayPal, ~1–3%)	$5 – $15	$12 – $35
Month-one total (incl. platform)	≈ $574 – $584	≈ $1,281 – $1,304
Ongoing monthly (after you cancel the platform)	≈ $505 – $515	≈ $1,212 – $1,235

Notice the gap between the two bottom rows. Because the platform fee is a one-time recruiting cost, your ongoing monthly spend drops back to essentially just salary plus transfer fees after you cancel. A $505/month assistant who saves you 20+ hours a week is one of the cheapest leverage points in a small business.

Is it worth it? The one calculation that matters

Forget the sticker price for a second and value your own time. If your hour is worth $75 and a VA takes 25 hours of low-value work off your plate each month, that’s $1,875 of your time reclaimed — for a $505 assistant. The question was never “can I afford a VA.” It’s “can I afford to keep doing $6/hour tasks with my $75/hour time.”

Where to start

If the numbers work for you, the next step is simple: create a free account, post a clear job (this filters out 80% of mismatches before you ever read an application), and message your shortlist. The whole process from posting to hired usually takes one to two weeks.

→ Browse Filipino VAs and post your first job on OnlineJobs.ph — start free, upgrade to Pro only when you’re ready to message candidates.

Not sure how to write a job post that attracts the right people, or how to run a paid test task before committing? Grab the free 27-step VA Hiring Checklist — it walks you through the entire process end to end.

About the author: Ricardo Victor A. Velasco writes from Mati City, Davao Oriental, Philippines. He covers hiring, managing, and getting the most out of Filipino virtual assistants — from the side of the world where they actually live and work.

New to this? Our complete Filipino VA FAQ — all your questions answered covers cost, comparisons, safety and how to hire in one place.