How to hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines: Platforms, process and costs

The Philippines is a popular location to hire a virtual assistant (VA) thanks to high levels of education and English language, and reliable infrastructure to guarantee connectivity when working online. Many experienced and highly qualified people in the Philippines choose to work remotely for overseas clients, allowing them to manage their own hours and earn a competitive salary, even if they live outside of major cities or don’t want to tackle the city traffic to get to an office daily.

This guide walks through how to hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines including where to look, what you’ll pay, and how you can pay your new VA easily with Wise Business.

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How to hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines

There are several ways to hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines, depending on your specific needs and your preferences. Here are some common choices.

Source and hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines directly

The obvious way to hire a Philippines virtual assistant is to look for a direct route, to allow you to advertise your role, connect with individual candidates, interview and manage the relationship your own way.

Providers like Online Jobs¹ are essentially jobs boards, which may charge employers a fee to advertise, but which allow you to advertise your specific needs and connect directly with prospective candidates without a middleman. You’ll define your needs and wait for applicants, with the site attracting a huge number of highly qualified and experienced Filipino VAs.

Once you’ve got a shortlist you can complete the hiring process in your preferred manner, and agree hours, payment and other details. In this model you’ll be responsible for much of the legal and compliance aspects of hiring your VA contractor, but you also remain in control of the process end to end.

Work with a freelance market place to find a virtual assistant in the Philippines

Another approach to stay in control of your hiring is to look at freelance marketplaces like Fiverr² and Upwork³, which work globally, but have a large presence in the Philippines. You’ll be able to search VA providers based on your preferences, and select those you’d like to work with. Or you can create a ‘gig’, detailing what you’re looking for, and have potential hires come your way instead.

The advantage of marketplace sites like Fiverr and Upwork is that you can see reviews and ratings left by previous customers to get a feel for how your candidates work. There are also great search and filter tools - but you’ll come across VAs from all over the world, not just the Philippines. You can filter your searches based on the home location of the freelancer, but if you advertise a gig and you’re absolutely set on hiring a Filipino VA you may need to do a bit of manual screening to find the right person for you.

Buy Filipino virtual assistant services from a third party provider

Because there are many people working remotely and as outsourcers in the Philippines there are also third party providers which can help you find the right person, and manage hiring, performance management, equipment and desk space, compliance and other factors for a package fee. This is more similar to outsourcing, but many providers allow you to buy only a fixed number of hours, which can work if you don’t require a full time head.

As an example, Virtual Done Well⁴ has Australian directors and offers VAs who are based in their offices and provided with tools, space, support and team time by the provider. This means you’ll know your VA is supported in their role, and will have IT support, high quality equipment and internet and so on. Outsourced⁵ provides a similar package approach - and both Virtual Done Well and Outsourced provide full and part time VAs.

If you only need a few hours from your Philippine VA, you may also want to look at Task Bullet⁶, which sells hour bundles, so you can buy 20 hours or more of time from a VA, and use the hours as you need. This gives flexibility and can be a good way to test if having a Filipino VA is right for your needs.

How much might a Philippines virtual assistant cost?

As we’ve seen, the models for hiring a VA in the Philippines vary a lot - and so can the Philippines virtual assistant cost.

With Online Jobs⁷, which lets you hire directly, you’ll pay 69 USD (about 106 AUD) or 99 USD (about 150 AUD) a month to access the option to connect with candidates, although you can advertise for free to get a sense of the candidates out there. This fee allows you to hire candidates and then manage their projects and contracts yourself. The actual amount you pay your VA depends on who you hire - the amount a candidate is looking for is shown clearly on their profile page on the site so you can check and compare.

Sites like Fiverr and Upwork also have their freelancers show a ‘starting from’ price or hourly rate on their profile pages. The final amount you pay your VA will depend on negotiation, as you’ll need to discuss your requirements and then complete the contracting process directly.

If you’re using a third party which offers an ‘all in’ package, the final fee you pay will depend on the individual you hire. However, there should be more or less no incidental costs, as the provider will offer a monthly fee based on covering every normal cost.

As an alternative, Task Bullet⁸ sells hours with a VA with packages starting from 20 hours from 210 USD (about 320 AUD), through to full time monthly support at 1,099 USD a month (about 1,700 AUD).

How to pay your Filipino virtual assistant effectively

No matter how you choose to hire your Filipino virtual assistant, you’ll need a reliable, cost effective and easy way to pay them.

Check out Wise Business which offers easy ways to send money to PHP with the mid-market rate and low, transparent transfer costs. You can set up your Wise Business account in just a few steps online or in the Wise app, and send digital payments whenever you need, or set up a recurring payment for longer term use. In either case, payments arrive quickly and the costs are low.

Your VA could also choose to open a Wise account themselves, allowing you to pay them in AUD. The account has local account information for AUD which you can use to make a local transfer. The funds are received in AUD, and your VA can then either hold the balance in dollars or convert to PHP in the account with the mid-market rate.

Wise Business helps streamline overseas business payments without foreign transaction fees, saving up to 3x compared to other providers.

• Free to register — Send money to 140+ currencies with no hidden exchange rate markups
• Make up to 1,000 transfers at once with the Wise batch payments feature
• Fast, low-cost payouts to customers, freelancers, employees, investors, and suppliers globally
• Automate invoice payments, recurring transfers, and international payroll
• Fast and fully secure payments through Wise, even for large amounts

Tired of hidden fees and complex processes when making overseas payments?

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Finding the right virtual assistant for your business

As an Australian business owner, having the support of a VA can make a huge difference. Whether you need help with admin, scheduling, data entry, social media or other tasks, your VA can pick up some of the load to free your time to think about more strategic matters. There are many virtual assistants in the Philippines who are hugely experienced and talented, with excellent English language skills - making this a great place to look for your next VA contractor.

This guide gives you all you need, to start your hunt for the perfect virtual assistant in the Philippines - and once you’ve made your hire, consider using Wise Business to pay, which can mean lower fees for you, and more PHP in the end for your VA.

Sources:

1. Onlinejobs
2. Fiverr
3. Upwork
4. Virtual done well
5. Outsourced
6. Task Bullet
7. Online jobs pricing
8. Task bullet pricing