What Hiring a Filipino Virtual Assistant Actually Costs (2026)
The cost has two visible parts and one that never shows up on an invoice
An hourly figure is easy to find. What is harder to find is an explanation of what that figure is made of and who actually receives it. Here is the honest structure of the cost, using only numbers we can stand behind.
A hire through PH Talents produces two amounts you can point at on a bank statement: the rate you pay the talent, and the fee you pay us. A third never appears on an invoice at all: the risk of hiring the wrong person, or someone who is not who they say they are. That one is the most expensive when it lands.
1. The talent's rate: agreed with them, paid to them
You contract with and pay the talent directly, at a rate the two of you agree together. PH Talents is never the employer and never sits in the payment chain. Nothing we charge comes out of the talent's pay: no margin, no ongoing percentage, no clip on the way through. What you agree is what they receive.
That distinction is commercial as much as ethical. Where a provider engages the worker itself, as a managed service or an employer of record does, it quotes you one rate and pays the worker separately, and the relationship between those two figures is set by that provider rather than negotiated by you. Our model has no such split in it: you agree a single rate, directly, with the person doing the work.
Talent are never charged anything at any stage. UK employment agency law prohibits charging work-seekers, and we do not.
2. Our fee: stated exactly, payable only when you hire
- Direct Placement. A one-off fee of 25% of first-year pay, paid once, on hire.
- Placement + Care Plan. 15% of first-year pay, plus GBP 135 per talent per month. The care plan runs a three-month minimum term and then rolls monthly. It adds free replacement within 10 working days, and keeps verification current.
Nothing is payable until a hire is made. Posting a role, receiving a shortlist of three to five verified candidates within five business days and interviewing all of them costs nothing; decide against all of them and you owe us nothing. Every placement carries a six-month replacement guarantee.
3. What does not arise the way it would with a UK employee
Engaging someone directly in the Philippines is not the same as adding an employee to a UK payroll, so several cost lines that attach to a UK employee do not arise in the same way. We name the categories rather than pricing them: the amounts depend on salary, role and your own arrangements.
- Employer National Insurance, the employer-side contribution sitting on top of a UK salary.
- Pension auto-enrolment, both the employer contribution and the administration the duty brings.
- Holiday pay and statutory sick pay, plus cover while someone is away.
- Desk and equipment overhead: office space, furniture, hardware refresh cycles, on-site IT support.
- Retained search fees, charged up front or in stages whether or not the search produces a hire.
Your accountant can price the first three for a UK hire exactly. The point here is the shape of the bill, not a percentage we would be inventing. How any working relationship is classified depends on how it operates in practice rather than on what the paperwork calls it, so treat this as general information, not legal, tax or employment advice, and take your own advice on how you engage anyone, anywhere.
4. The costs the DIY route hides
Hiring straight from a job board or a Facebook group looks free. The costs are real; they simply arrive later, and land somewhere other than the invoice.
- Your own screening time. A single open VA role can attract a large volume of applications. Reading, filtering, first-round calls and chasing references is founder or ops-lead time, priced at whatever your hour is worth.
- Fabricated CVs and identity fraud. Employment histories nobody can corroborate, credentials that appear on no registry, references who turn out to be a friend with a mobile phone, and, at the sharp end, one person interviewing while another does the work. These are the risks that verification exists to catch.
- Re-hiring after a bad hire. The whole cycle runs again, now carrying the sunk cost of onboarding, systems access and training.
- Chasing someone who disappears. No contract worth the name, no verified identity, and no realistic route to recovering equipment, files or account access.
5. How verification, the guarantee and the Care Plan price that risk
Our fee buys the verification work and the guarantee that sits behind it. Every profile passes five checks before a client sees it.
- Government photo ID matched to a live selfie, taken on the talent's phone and confirmed by a person.
- NBI clearance, the Philippine police clearance, verified at source. We pay for this, not the talent.
- PRC or TESDA credentials confirmed on the official government registry, where the role calls for them.
- Employment history corroborated with documents.
- Two professional references contacted through their company, not a personal number.
A profile that fails any check never reaches a client. Clients receive verification summaries only, never raw documents.
Every placement then carries a six-month replacement guarantee. The Care Plan turns that into a service level: a free replacement within 10 working days, and verification kept current for as long as the plan runs. It has a three-month minimum term, then rolls monthly.
Why we do not publish an average Filipino VA rate
There is no salary table on this page, deliberately. Any average we published would be a guess dressed as data, and you would anchor your budget to it.
Real rates move with the specifics: depth of experience, inbox-and-calendar cover versus full executive support, the software, the industry, how much of the day overlaps with your hours, part-time or full-time. An average across all of that describes nobody.
What we publish instead are the ranges attached to live roles on phtalents.io, rather than market averages we cannot substantiate. If your role is not listed, send us the brief: you get a shortlist of three to five verified candidates within five business days, and you will have paid nothing to see it.
Working out your own number
Take the annual rate you and the talent agree. Add 25% of first-year pay, once, for Direct Placement, or 15% of first-year pay plus GBP 135 per talent per month for Placement + Care Plan. Then set against it the employer costs you are not carrying and the screening you are not doing. The arithmetic is dull, which is the point: nothing is hidden in it, and no part of it comes out of the pay of the person doing the work. Questions about a specific role: [email protected].
Frequently asked questions
So what does a Filipino VA actually cost through PH Talents?
Two amounts. First, the talent's own rate, which you agree directly with them and pay directly to them; we take nothing out of it. Second, our fee: a one-off 25% of first-year pay for Direct Placement, or 15% of first-year pay plus GBP 135 per talent per month for Placement + Care Plan, which has a three-month minimum term and then rolls monthly.
Why won't you tell me the average hourly rate?
Because we would be guessing, and you would budget against the guess. Rates vary with experience, scope, software, industry, hours of overlap and whether the role is part-time or full-time. We publish real ranges on live roles at phtalents.io instead, and if your role is not listed we will shortlist against your brief for free.
Do I pay anything if I interview and decide not to hire?
No. Posting a role, receiving a shortlist of three to five verified candidates within five business days, and interviewing all of them costs nothing. Our fee is only payable when a hire is made.
What happens if the person does not work out?
Every placement carries a six-month replacement guarantee. On the Care Plan you also get a free replacement within 10 working days, and the talent's verification is kept current for as long as the plan runs rather than frozen at the date of hire.