You’ll find plenty of advice online claiming that hiring a virtual assistant is simple and straightforward. In reality, it’s not—especially when you’re looking to genuinely improve productivity or manage a growing workload.
The decision involves more than just posting a job ad. You need to find the right person, handle onboarding and training, identify which tasks to delegate, and crucially, decide whether you need part-time or full-time support.
The Advantage of Starting with Part-time
Most business owners automatically go for part-time virtual assistant arrangements when they first outsource. Many freelance VAs and virtual assistant companies cater to this.
At Virtual Done Well, our minimum commitment is just 80 hours a month—about 20 hours a week—so it’s perfect for businesses testing the waters.
The part-time approach has many advantages:
Less initial investment. You’re paying for fewer hours so lower monthly costs while you try it out.
Flexibility to scale. Once you’re confident in your VA’s skills you can increase their hours based on actual needs not projections.
Manageable delegation. Starting small means you won’t feel pressured to restructure your entire workflow immediately. You can start with simple tasks and grow gradually.
Less daily management. With fewer tasks to delegate you’ll spend less time on check-ins and coordination—perfect if you’re already overwhelmed.
No need to create busywork. If you only have 15-20 hours of tasks a week you won’t find yourself creating work just to fill a full-time schedule.
The Hidden Costs of Part-time Arrangements
While part-time seems sensible on paper, the reality is more complex. The hours you free up directly correlate with the hours you purchase—10 hours of VA time typically means 10 hours back in your week, not more.
Consider the actual cost difference in 2025: A skilled virtual assistant from the Philippines costs significantly less than a local Australian employee, even at full-time rates. When you factor in no superannuation, no office space, and no equipment costs, the economics often favour going full-time from the start.
Why “Scaling Up Later” Rarely Works
Here’s what typically happens: You hire an excellent part-time VA with plans to increase their hours later. But skilled VAs don’t stay idle. Your star performer is likely working with other clients during their remaining hours.
When you’re ready to go full-time, they may not be available. You’ll either need to compromise with their schedule or start the entire hiring and training process again with someone new—wasting the investment you’ve made in your current VA.
Tasks Expand to Fill Available Time
In our experience running Virtual Done Well, clients consistently underestimate how much they can delegate. What starts as “just email management and calendar scheduling” quickly expands to include:
- Social media management
- Basic bookkeeping tasks
- Customer service responses
- Research and data entry
- Content formatting and uploading
- Invoice processing
- Travel arrangements
- CRM updates
Most clients who start with 40 hours per month request increased hours within the first three months. Those who begin with full-time support rarely scale back.
Making the Right Choice for Your Business
Choose part-time if:
- You’re testing a specific, contained project
- Your business has predictable slow seasons
- You need specialised skills for limited hours (like graphic design or bookkeeping)
- You’re comfortable potentially changing VAs when scaling up
Choose full-time if:
- You’re consistently working beyond standard hours
- Multiple team members need support
- You want to build a long-term working relationship
- You value consistency and deep integration with your processes
- Growth is a priority for 2025
The Virtual Done Well Approach
We offer both full-time and part-time virtual assistants, and we won’t push you toward an option that doesn’t fit your needs. However, after placing hundreds of VAs with Australian businesses, we’ve seen that full-time arrangements deliver better ROI for most growing companies.
With dedicated support from our management team and exclusive assignment to your business, a full-time VA becomes a genuine team member rather than a service provider. They learn your preferences, understand your business deeply, and can take on increasingly complex tasks over time.
Check our pricing page to see the real numbers—you might be surprised how affordable full-time support actually is in 2025.
The question isn’t really whether you need help (if you’re reading this, you probably do). It’s whether you’re ready to make a commitment that will genuinely transform how you work. In most cases, that transformation requires more than just a few hours a week.
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