Full-Time Executive Assistant vs. Virtual EA: The Real Cost Comparison

The cost question isn’t really “how much does an EA cost?” It’s “how much does an EA cost including everything that isn’t the salary line,” and that second number is where the real comparison lives.

What a Full-Time Executive Assistant Actually Costs

Base Salary 

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the mean annual wage for executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants at $73,680, covering roughly 483,570 jobs in that occupation category nationally. The broader secretaries and administrative assistants category, which includes non-executive roles, carries a lower median of $48,310 annually.

The Real Multiplier: Benefits and Overhead

A base salary is rarely the full cost. Once you add payroll tax, health insurance, paid time off, and equipment, a common industry rule of thumb puts total employer cost at roughly 1.4 times base salary. On a $73,680 base, that puts fully loaded cost in the neighborhood of $103,000 a year, before accounting for hiring costs.

Hiring and Onboarding Costs

According to SHRM’s benchmarking data, average cost per hire for non-executive roles runs $5,475, while executive-level hiring averages $35,879, a figure that has risen 113% since 2017. On top of recruiting costs, onboarding itself- orientation, training, manager and peer time- typically runs $3,000 to $5,000 for professional roles, with senior or specialized hires reaching $7,000 to $15,000 once ramp-up time is included.

What a Virtual EA Typically Costs

A virtual executive assistant, sourced through a specialized recruitment firm and paid hourly or on a flat monthly retainer, commonly runs a fraction of the fully loaded in-house cost. Exact rates vary by experience level and hours needed. Still, the structural savings come from three places: no benefits or payroll tax obligation, no office overhead, and a hiring and onboarding process typically bundled into the placement itself rather than billed separately.

Side-by-Side Comparison

A Practical Example

Consider a hypothetical small consulting firm weighing a full-time in-house executive assistant against a virtual EA. Using BLS and SHRM benchmarks, the fully loaded first-year cost of an in-house hire- salary, benefits, recruiting, and onboarding combined- lands somewhere near $140,000. A virtual EA covering the same core scope- calendar, inbox, travel, and meeting prep- costs a fraction of that figure across the same year. This is an illustrative calculation using publicly available benchmarks, not a specific client’s actual costs. Still, it reflects the scale of the gap founders typically find when they run the numbers themselves.

Where the Cost Gap Comes From

The gap isn’t because virtual EAs are less capable. It’s structural: no benefits obligation, no office footprint, and a recruiting and vetting process that’s already built into the placement service rather than run from scratch by the hiring business each time. That’s also why turnover matters more than people initially assume, since re-running the full hiring cost calculation, whether in-house or outsourced, is the single biggest line item in this comparison.

The Hidden Cost of Turnover

There’s a cost the comparison above doesn’t fully capture: what happens when a hire doesn’t work out. Every time an in-house EA leaves, whether after three months or three years, the business absorbs the SHRM-benchmarked recruiting cost and the multi-thousand-dollar onboarding cost again, from scratch. A virtual EA placement through a specialized recruitment firm typically comes with a vetting process, and often a replacement guarantee within an initial window, that softens this risk considerably compared to running a full in-house search over again.

Regional Cost Variation Adds Another Layer

In-house EA salaries also vary significantly by region. A $73,680 average national wage understates costs in major metros like New York or San Francisco, where equivalent roles often command a meaningful premium. It understates the gap further once local cost-of-living-adjusted benefits are factored in. Virtual EA pricing is far less sensitive to the hiring business’s own location, since the cost structure is set by the placement arrangement rather than local labor market premiums.

When the In-House Model Still Makes Sense

Cost isn’t the only variable. An in-house EA physically present in an office has advantages for businesses where in-person coordination, greeting visitors, managing physical mail, and being present for on-site meetings are core parts of the role. For businesses where the work is primarily calendar, inbox, travel, and digital coordination, that in-person requirement often doesn’t apply, which is where the cost gap becomes the deciding factor.

For the fuller case on why small businesses make this switch, see our guide to executive assistant outsourcing for small businesses.

Running the Numbers for Your Own Business

The exact gap will vary based on your region, the seniority of the role, and how many hours of coverage you actually need. Before deciding, pull your local market’s typical EA salary from a source like BLS or a regional salary report, apply the 1.4x benefits multiplier, add a realistic SHRM-benchmarked recruiting and onboarding figure, and compare that single first-year number against a virtual EA’s hourly or retainer cost for the same weekly hours. Most founders who run this calculation themselves, rather than relying on a rough guess, find the gap is larger than they expected going in.

Write both numbers down side by side before making a decision. A gap this size, once it’s on paper instead of estimated in your head, tends to make the choice far more obvious than it felt beforehand.

The Bottom Line

A fully loaded in-house executive assistant, once you include BLS-benchmarked salary, the roughly 1.4x benefits multiplier, and SHRM-benchmarked recruiting and onboarding costs, typically lands well above $100,000 in year one. A virtual EA covering the same core scope costs a fraction of that. The gap is structural, not a quality difference, which is why it holds up across most small business use cases where the role doesn’t require a physical office presence.