Updated May 13, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Full-time dedicated packages (160 hrs/month) run $800-1,600/month from offshore agencies - delivering the strongest ROI for businesses with ongoing work.
- Shared VA packages advertise lower monthly rates but split attention across multiple clients - reducing real output per dollar.
- Stealth Agents VAs start at $10/hr, making a full-time dedicated package around $1,600/month.
- Full-time dedicated packages outperform limited-hour arrangements for businesses with ongoing recurring work.
- Monthly packages with a dedicated full-time VA save most businesses $40,000+ per year compared to an in-house hire.
When businesses start shopping for virtual assistant help, they usually encounter two pricing models: hourly rates and monthly packages. Monthly packages simplify budgeting - you know what you're spending each month and roughly how many hours that buys. But not all packages are built the same, and the difference between a limited-hours arrangement and a full-time dedicated model is more than just hours.
Here is how virtual assistant monthly packages are structured, what each tier typically delivers, and why full-time dedicated is the right choice for most businesses.
How Monthly Packages Are Structured
Most VA agencies and platforms offer tiered monthly packages based on hours per month. The basic breakdown looks like this:
Limited-hour packages (10-40 hrs/month): Best for business owners with a narrow set of highly defined recurring tasks. These packages typically run $200-600/month from offshore agencies. The limitation: there are not enough hours to develop deep business context, and the VA has no ability to handle variable workloads. These arrangements also carry a structural problem - VAs on limited hours are always looking for full-time work. When they find it, they leave.
Full-time packages (160 hrs/month): A full workday, every weekday. This is the arrangement that delivers the strongest ROI for businesses with genuine ongoing work across admin, customer support, marketing, and operations. Monthly cost from offshore agencies typically runs $800-1,600. At Stealth Agents rates ($10/hr), a full-time dedicated package runs approximately $1,600/month - the most competitive fully-managed full-time rate available.
What Full-Time Packages Actually Deliver
Understanding the monthly cost is only half the picture. What matters more is what the package realistically gets done.
Full-time (160 hrs/month): This is where the relationship changes. A full-time VA becomes a real operational resource - not just a task executor but someone who knows your systems, anticipates needs, and handles the full breadth of your administrative and support work. Businesses that move to full-time arrangements typically report 40-60% more task volume handled without additional management time from them.
The compounding effect is significant: a full-time VA in month three handles tasks in 20 minutes that took an hour in month one, because they have built deep context about your business, preferences, and workflows.
Why limited-hour arrangements fall short: A VA working 10-40 hours per month cannot build the contextual knowledge that makes a VA genuinely valuable. They restart context with each session. More importantly, VAs on limited hours are structurally temporary - they are always looking for full-time employment. When they find it (typically within 3-4 weeks), they leave and you absorb the training loss.
Dedicated vs. Shared Monthly Packages
A critical distinction that most monthly package comparisons miss: whether the VA works exclusively for you or rotates across multiple client accounts.
Shared monthly packages let an agency assign one VA to several clients, dividing their time. The headline monthly cost looks low - sometimes $150-300 for "20 hours" - but those hours are fragmented across competing priorities. Response times are slower, context is shallow, and you essentially get a fraction of a VA's attention rather than a working relationship.
Dedicated packages assign one VA to your account full-time. They learn your systems, your voice, your preferences. The efficiency compounding that happens over 30-90 days of a dedicated working relationship does not exist with a shared model.
Stealth Agents offers dedicated full-time VAs only - no shared arrangements. When you contract with Stealth Agents, your VA is yours during their working hours.
What's Typically Included in a Monthly Package
Good monthly packages include more than raw hours. Look for:
Onboarding support. An agency that places your VA and then disappears is not managing the relationship - they are just a staffing vendor. Stealth Agents assigns a Campaign Manager to each client to handle onboarding, performance monitoring, and any adjustments needed as the engagement evolves.
Replacement guarantee. If a VA is not performing or needs to leave, a strong agency replaces them without requiring you to go back through a full hiring process. This is included in the package, not an add-on fee.
Skill matching. Before placement, strong agencies assess your specific needs and match VAs with relevant experience. A package that sends you whoever is available at the time is not a managed service - it is a temp agency.
Backup coverage. If your primary VA is sick or unavailable, there should be a plan for coverage. Ad hoc gaps in a monthly package are a signal that the agency is not operationally mature.
Calculating Package Value
The straightforward way to evaluate a monthly package is to compare it against your next-best alternative.
A full-time in-house admin in the US costs $45,000-55,000/year in salary alone. Add benefits, payroll taxes, equipment, and office space, and you are at $60,000-70,000/year. A full-time Stealth Agents VA package at $1,600/month costs roughly $19,200/year.
The delta is $40,000-50,000+ per year - every year. For a business generating $500,000-$2M annually, that is a material cost reduction that goes directly to margin or reinvestment.
Choosing the Right Package
The clearest signal for which package you need is your current workload. If you are spending more than 10-15 hours per week on tasks that do not require your specific expertise, a full-time dedicated package will pay for itself quickly.
The mistake most businesses make is underbuying to save money, then managing the gaps themselves - which negates the savings and adds frustration. A full-time VA at $1,600/month who runs independently costs far less in real terms than any arrangement that creates ongoing management overhead.
Start with full-time. The relationship builds faster, the knowledge compounds, and the ROI is clear within 60 days.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What does a full-time virtual assistant monthly package include?
A: A full-time package covers 160 hours per month (standard 40-hour weeks) and typically includes a dedicated VA, onboarding support, a named account manager or campaign manager, and a replacement guarantee. At Stealth Agents rates ($10/hr), this runs approximately $1,600/month all-in.
Q: Are there setup fees for monthly packages?
A: Reputable agencies do not charge setup fees on top of the monthly rate. If an agency quotes a "placement fee" or "onboarding fee" separate from the monthly package, factor that into your true first-month cost when comparing.
Q: Can I add additional VAs as my business grows?
A: Most agencies allow you to add VAs with 30 days' notice. Stealth Agents makes scaling to a second or third dedicated VA straightforward.
Q: What happens if my VA leaves mid-month?
A: A strong agency handles replacement immediately and covers any gap in coverage. This is a key question to ask before signing - ask what the average replacement timeline is and whether you are billed for coverage gaps.
Q: Is a monthly package better than paying hourly?
A: For ongoing, recurring work, monthly packages are better - they ensure consistent availability and usually come with a slightly lower effective hourly rate than spot hourly engagements. Hourly arrangements make sense for one-off projects or testing a VA before committing to monthly terms.
Monthly packages work best when the work is real, recurring, and genuinely takes a full-time person to handle well. If that describes your business, a dedicated full-time VA at $1,600/month delivers more operational value than almost any other investment at that price point.