Hire a virtual assistant in Australia.

Admin VAs run $12-17/hr AUD, specialist VAs $18-25/hr, bookkeeping VAs $25-35/hr. Placements start at 10 hours a week, and at 20 hours a week the monthly cost lands between $1,040 and $3,030 depending on tier. Prices exclude GST. Across June to September 2026, DotVA clients actually paid an average of $17.47 per hour worked. Against a local part-time admin at the same 20 hours (about $39,400 a year all in, modelled from award-level wages plus super, workers' comp and leave), that is roughly 46% of the cost.

Manila and the broader Philippines. Every DotVA placement is a Filipino VA working AEST or AEDT business hours from a home office with verified stable internet. The 2-3 hour timezone offset means live conversations any time before 4pm Melbourne, and async overnight if you'd rather wake up to a done list.

Recurring, ownership-style work that needs context. Inbox triage, calendar management, customer support, bookkeeping support, CRM hygiene, lead qualification, social media coordination, listing admin (real estate), patient triage (allied health), order support (e-commerce), invoicing, vendor reporting, meeting prep + minutes. They don't replace licensed work (legal advice, real-estate transactions, clinical care) and they don't make customer-facing decisions you wouldn't sign off on.

Mostly yes – they're different words for the same hire. 'Virtual assistant' (or 'VA') is the industry term, but business owners search for the outcome just as often: admin help, admin support, remote admin, an online assistant, a remote PA, or simply outsourcing the back-office and inbox work to someone offshore. DotVA places all of it. The one genuine distinction is seniority: a VA executes the tasks you assign, while an Online Business Manager runs your operations, team and systems for you. If you only need the doing, that's a VA.

7-10 business days from your discovery call to your VA's first hour worked. The breakdown: discovery call (30 min) → we scope the role + sign the placement agreement → we present a shortlist of 3-5 vetted candidates inside 5-7 days → you interview and pick → kickoff call + onboarding → first hour of work, typically inside day 10.

VAs are right when the work needs judgement, repetition with context, or relationship continuity (inbox, customer support, bookkeeping, calendar). AI builds are right when the work is structured, high-volume, and you mostly need it to be fast and consistent (lead routing, document generation, knowledge base lookup, structured data work). About a third of DotVA clients run both – a VA for the judgement work, an AI build for the structured work.

Inside 30 days we replace at no extra cost – we run another shortlist, you pick again, the new VA starts. Beyond 30 days we still help, you just pay for the new VA from the date they start (not for the old VA's notice period). About 9 in 10 placements make it to day 30 without needing a replacement.

You direct the day-to-day work and give the feedback; we handle recruiting, onboarding, performance management, and replacement. Week one you'll spend 5-8 hours getting the VA up to speed (kickoff call, walkthroughs, SOPs). After that, expected ongoing time investment is a 20-30 minute weekly check-in for the first month, dropping to a 15-minute fortnightly by month three. If anything isn't landing, you raise it with the DotVA team in Melbourne and we deal with it: coaching, a reset, or a replacement.

Yes. Every DotVA placement gets a 1Password Teams seat (included) for credentials, and every shared system uses role-based access – your VA sees only what they need to do the work. We sign a confidentiality agreement on day one; the VA does too. We handle your data in line with the Australian Privacy Principles and sign a data-handling addendum for clients who need it.

DotVA is an Australian agency (Boring Ventures Pty Ltd, ABN 67 671 943 758) and you contract with us directly in AUD – you never have a contractor relationship with the VA themselves. The VA is contracted to DotVA in the Philippines, and we handle their pay. From your side it's a single AUD service invoice, no PAYG, no super obligations, no contractor classification risk. The Privacy Act applies to data we handle on your behalf and we sign data-handling addendums for any client that requests one.

Marketplaces pass the recruiting + vetting + management risk onto you. You spend hours screening, interviewing, onboarding, and replacing VAs yourself. The hourly rate looks cheaper, but the total cost over 12 months (including your time) is usually within 10-15% of an agency. The agency model – DotVA's – absorbs that work so you only see the candidates worth interviewing, and we replace at no cost when fit isn't right.