How much money can a VA earn?
Ooh I love talking about money! Especially when it comes to how much of it you can make as a Virtual Assistant. As I’m sure you know by now, becoming a VA was the best work decision I made, and one of the reasons I love it so much is because I have complete control over what I earn.
I haven’t always felt this way though.
I used to cringe when potential clients asked my hourly rate, and sometimes I even half apologised for it.
I think we can all find money conversations a bit awkward, so I’ll start by saying that if any of this post makes you feel triggered or you find yourself doubting your earning potential, do some work around money mindset. I can send you a few suggestions of where to start - just email me at hello@amyrosegould.com. You honestly won’t regret it.
Right, let’s dive in!
So how much can a VA earn?
How long is a piece of string?
Bit of an annoying answer, but it’s true! When you’re a VA (or any business owner) YOU decide how much you earn. So even though I’ll walk you through a few practical examples of what your earnings could look like, yours can be wildly different / more than what I’ll show here.
What’s the standard hourly rate?
The standard starting rate for VAs in the UK is upwards of £25 an hour. When I started in 2016 I charged £30 an hour and I increased from there, so £25 really should be the absolute minimum you charge.
There will ALWAYS be people who want to pay less, but I never ever advise any VAs to reduce their rate. You don’t want to haggle over your prices with a client because you’ll find a couple of things happen:
You resent working for less
Your client will likely be a pain to work with, question everything and/or pay you late
A simple way to work out your potential earnings based on an hourly rate
If your hourly rate is £25 an hour and you work for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, that comes out at £3000 a month (or £36,000 a year). You could achieve this by working with 6 clients each on a 20 hours a month contract, which is roughly an hour a day. Of course that doesn’t mean you HAVE to work for each client for 1 hour a day as each day differs, so this is just an illustration.
If your hourly rate is £30 a hour and the above work pattern is the same, that comes out at £3600 a month (or £43,200 a year)
And a £40 hourly rate comes out at £4800 a month (or £57,600 a year).
And so on.
How to increase your earnings
One thing to remember is that you can always increase your earnings. Here are a few ways to do that:
You can increase your hourly rate
You can work more hours
You can build a team of VA associates and sub-contract work to them
You can change the way you charge to bespoke service packages
I always say that the more skilled you are, the more you can learn. Tech VAs do extremely well in the online space, as do VAs who have built a very strong niche and presence online.
How to diversify your earnings
If you choose to become more skilled with a particular tool or process, you may want to create packages based on the outcome of the work, not how long it took you to do it.
For example you could offer:
Social media support based on how much content you create
Podcast editing based on the number of episodes you edit
Pinterest management based on the number of pins you create
A full system set up, such as Dubsado or ClickUp
Once you’ve set up the system / created the initial piece of work for the client, you could then move them onto a monthly package where you still support them using those tools or skills you have.
* * *
I hope this post has been helpful. I like to get money talk out in the open so it feels more comfortable and less scary. Plus of course when you set up as a VA one of the first things you’ll want to know is how much money you can earn, so this post will get that out of the way so you can move onto actually signing clients!
