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You are mostly paying for geography, not quality.

BELAY, Boldly and Time Etc are genuinely good agencies. The vetting is thorough and the people are professional. But at $40 to $80 an hour, one full-time rep runs $75,000 to $160,000 a year, and most of what that premium buys is a US or UK postcode. For customer service, there is a much cheaper way to get an excellent, native-English, US-hours rep.

Competitor rates below come from published and widely reported third-party pricing as of February 2026. BELAY does not fully disclose pricing publicly, so its figure reflects reported rates. Verify current terms before deciding. We have no affiliate relationship with any of them.

One full-time rep, per year

Full-time is roughly 173 hours a month. Figures are rounded to show the scale of the gap, not to the dollar.

BELAY

Not published / US-based, quote only

Not published

Boldly

$65 / hour ($79 specialist) / Premium, US-aligned

~$135,000

Time Etc

$36 to $39 / hour / US and UK

~$75,000 to $81,000

MyOutDesk

From $1,988 / month / Philippines seats

~$24,000 to $30,000

Hirevado

Flat $1,499 or $2,499 once, plus salary you pay direct / Global CS placement

~$14,000 to $19,000

A premium US agency can cost four to eight times what a global placement does for the same full-time role. Over two years, against a premium US agency at published rates, that is well over $100,000 of difference for a single seat.

What each one actually is

BELAY places vetted US-based assistants and support staff, with a dedicated success manager and white-glove service. BELAY does not publish rates: its own FAQ directs pricing questions to a consultation, so we are not going to put a number in its mouth. It does state that US-based virtual assistants generally charge $30 to $75 an hour and that its own service sits above standard rates. You are paying for genuinely native US English, US work culture, and hand-holding.

Boldly is the premium end, aimed at executive-level support, with published rates of a flat $65 an hour across every plan from 40 to 100 hours a month, and $79 an hour for specialist work. Excellent for a strategic executive assistant, expensive for a customer service line.

Time Etc offers US and UK virtual assistants on flexible hourly plans, roughly $36 to $39 an hour, and leans toward admin and task work rather than phone-heavy customer service.

MyOutDesk is closest to us on price, placing full-time Philippines-based staff on a monthly seat model, published from $1,988. It is generalist rather than customer-service specific, and Philippines-only, so no native-English or US-timezone option.

Hirevado places customer service reps specifically, sourced globally, for one flat fee. You pay the rep directly, and every placement includes Global OS. The $2,499 plan adds an hour with the founder in Slack every weekday for your first thirty days.

The quality objection, answered honestly

The obvious pushback is that the premium agencies are cheaper for a reason: US talent. It is a fair question, so here is our honest position rather than a made-up statistic.

For phone-heavy US customer service, we think a strong Jamaican rep is the sharpest example of the point. Jamaica's first language is English, the accent reads as neutral to most US ears, and the country sits in US Eastern time year-round with no daylight-saving drift. In our experience, customers do not clock that the person is not down the road. We are not going to claim a percentage-of-BELAY quality figure, because that would be inventing a number. What we will say plainly is that for a customer-facing phone role, the difference a US agency charges four times more for is mostly the location, not something your customer hears.

There is also a real screening difference in your favour. The premium agencies vet for general assistant and executive-support work. We screen specifically for customer service: phone manner, handling an upset caller, keeping a schedule straight, staying warm under pressure. On the exact skill you are hiring for, a specialist filter beats a generalist one.

Where the premium agencies genuinely win

Choose BELAY if you specifically need US-based workers, for a regulatory reason, a client expectation, or simply a strong preference, and the budget is there. Native US staff with heavy ongoing support is exactly what they do.

Choose Boldly if you need genuine executive-level support with built-in backup coverage, and you are hiring a strategic assistant rather than a customer service line. That is worth their premium for the right role.

Choose Time Etc if you want flexible part-time hours and US or UK admin help rather than a full-time, phone-first customer service hire.

Choose MyOutDesk if you want affordable full-time Philippines staff, you are comfortable Philippines-only, and you do not need customer-service-specific screening or a native-English phone option.

Choose Hirevado if you are hiring customer service, you want native-English and US-hours options without the US price tag, and it is a first or second remote hire where the onboarding support matters. Home service businesses are our core.

Where we lose, plainly

If you must have US-based staff, we cannot help, and BELAY or Time Etc is your answer. If you need an executive assistant rather than customer service, Boldly is built for that and we are not. And if white-glove, fully managed service with a dedicated account manager is what reassures you, the premium agencies provide a level of hand-holding we do not, by design, because it is part of what makes them cost what they cost. We keep it lean so you keep the money.

Proof

PJ built a Detroit cleaning company from $600K to over $2M a year with four remote hires starting at $6 an hour. At a premium agency, that same team would have cost several times what the whole back office earns.

Read the full story

Related comparisons

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Sources and notes

Competitor terms were checked against each company's own pricing page on 6 September 2026. Verified as published: Time Etc at $390 for 10 hours up to $2,160 for 60 hours a month, which is $36 to $39 an hour; Boldly at $2,600 for 40 hours up to $6,500 for 100 hours, a flat $65 an hour, with specialist work at $79; MyOutDesk from $1,988 a month for a managed seat and from $2,500 for a specialised one; OnlineJobs.ph at $69 and $99 a month. Also verified as published: Upwork at a 5% client service fee on Basic and 10% on Business Plus, discounted to 3% and 8% for eligible US clients paying by checking account, plus a contract initiation fee of $0.99 to $14.99; VirtualStaff.ph at $99 a month per seat with a 14-day money-back guarantee; and Deel at $599 per EOR employee per month. Somewhere's rebrand from Support Shepherd following a $29.7M acquisition is confirmed by the company's own press release. Verified as NOT published: BELAY, whose own FAQ directs pricing enquiries to a consultation, and Somewhere, whose pricing page states a percentage of first-year salary without disclosing it, alongside a six-month guarantee and a refundable deposit. Earlier versions of these pages carried specific rates for BELAY and a 35% figure for Somewhere as though published. They were not, and have been corrected. Annual figures are our own arithmetic on published rates at roughly 173 hours a month, and assume full-time use, which exceeds the largest plan several of these firms publish. Pricing moves, so confirm current terms directly. Hirevado has no affiliate relationship with any company named here.