Most people quote an executive assistant cost by naming a salary. That number is almost always wrong—and always too low. The executive assistant cost you actually pay includes benefits, payroll taxes, software, recruiting fees, management overhead, and the hours you lose when the seat is empty or the person is out. Add it up and the sticker price roughly doubles.
This post breaks down the fully loaded numbers three ways: a U.S. in-house full-time EA, a U.S. part-time or agency EA, and a dedicated nearshore EA. Then it reframes the whole question around the only number that really matters—what your own hour is worth.
The fully loaded executive assistant cost, line by line
When you hire a U.S. in-house executive assistant, the base salary is the beginning of the bill, not the end. Here is what stacks on top.
Base salary. A capable full-time EA in a mid-to-large U.S. metro runs roughly $65,000 to $85,000 a year. In high-cost cities, senior EAs go well past that.
Benefits. Health insurance, retirement match, paid time off, and other benefits typically add 25% to 35% on top of salary. On an $75,000 salary, that is $18,000 to $26,000.
Payroll taxes. Employer-side Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment taxes add roughly 8% to 10%—another $6,000 to $7,500.
Tools and equipment. Laptop, phone, scheduling software, password managers, and other subscriptions run $1,500 to $3,000 a year.
Recruiting. Whether you use a recruiter (15% to 25% of first-year salary) or spend your own weeks screening, sourcing a good EA has a real cost—often $10,000 to $18,000 amortized over the hire’s tenure.
Management and downtime. You will spend your own time managing the role. And when your EA is on vacation, out sick, or leaves, coverage is your problem. The average U.S. tenure for administrative roles is a few years, so recruiting is a recurring line, not a one-time one.
Put together, a U.S. in-house EA who “costs $75,000” really costs $95,000 to $120,000 a year, or roughly $8,000 to $10,000 a month.
Cost comparison: three ways to staff the role
| Factor | U.S. in-house full-time | U.S. part-time / agency | Nearshore dedicated (Teleforce) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $8,000–$10,000 all-in | $3,500–$6,000 | $2,700–$3,000 flat, all-in |
| Dedicated to you | Yes | Sometimes (often shared) | Yes, full-time |
| Benefits & payroll | You pay & administer | Varies | Included, handled by Teleforce |
| Recruiting & vetting | You own it | Agency handles | Teleforce handles |
| Coverage if they leave | Your problem | Agency-dependent | Replacement managed for you |
| Hours overlap | Full | Partial | Full U.S. time-zone hours |
| Bilingual (English/Spanish) | Rare, costs more | Rare | Standard |
The part-time or agency route looks cheaper than in-house, and it can be—but you often trade away dedication. A shared or pooled assistant does not learn your business the way a full-time person does, and context-switching across several clients caps how much they can own.
Delegate to an elite EA without the payroll headache. Teleforce places dedicated bilingual executive assistants from the top tier of LatAm talent—vetted, trained, and working on your clock, for one flat monthly rate. Meet your assistant →
Where Teleforce lands
Teleforce prices its dedicated executive assistants at $3,000 per month on a 3-month commitment and $2,700 per month on a 12-month commitment. You can switch from the 3-month to the 12-month plan anytime, and the $300 per month difference is credited to your final month.
That rate is all-in. There is no separate payroll to run, no benefits to administer, no recruiting fee, and no equipment budget on your side. Teleforce employs and manages the assistant. The EA is a dedicated, full-time, bilingual (English/Spanish) career professional—not a gig-economy VA juggling five clients—working in your U.S. time zone.
Compared to the $8,000-to-$10,000 all-in cost of a U.S. in-house EA, that is roughly a third of the price for a full-time, dedicated seat. The savings come from the Latin American labor market and the managed model, not from cutting hours or corners.
The ROI framing: your hour vs. the EA rate
Cost is only half the equation. The other half is what you free up.
Work out your effective hourly value. If you run a business or lead a team and your time is worth, conservatively, $150 an hour, then every hour spent booking travel, chasing invoices, formatting decks, or triaging your inbox is a $150 hour spent on $30 work.
A dedicated EA typically takes 10 to 15 hours a week off your plate once ramped. At $2,700 a month, the Teleforce rate works out to roughly $17 per hour of assistant time on a full-time schedule. If that hour buys back an hour of your $150 time, the return is not close—it is close to 9x on the reclaimed hours alone, before counting the higher-leverage work you can now do.
The break-even is low. Even if your time is worth $75 an hour and the EA only reclaims 8 focused hours a week, the delegated hours cover the cost several times over.
Be honest about the tradeoffs
A nearshore dedicated EA is not the right fit for every task. Some work genuinely needs a physical presence—signing for packages, staffing a front desk, running local errands. For those, no remote model works, in-house or nearshore.
There is also a ramp period. Any new assistant, in any model, needs a few weeks to learn your preferences, tools, and judgment calls. The difference is who carries the recruiting and replacement risk. With in-house, that risk is yours. With a managed service, it is absorbed into the flat rate.
If you are weighing whether to build the role yourself or buy it as a service, read our guide on how to hire an executive assistant, and if location is the sticking point, our case for a remote executive assistant covers how dedicated remote EAs actually perform against in-office ones.
See the real number for your situation. Book a 30-minute discovery call and we’ll map your workload against a dedicated bilingual EA—no obligation. Book a discovery call →
Frequently asked questions
How much does an executive assistant cost per month?
A fully loaded U.S. in-house executive assistant typically runs $7,000 to $10,000 per month once you add benefits, payroll taxes, tools, and recruiting. A dedicated nearshore EA through a managed service like Teleforce is $3,000 per month on a 3-month commitment or $2,700 per month on a 12-month commitment, all-in with no separate payroll.
Why is a nearshore executive assistant so much cheaper than a U.S. hire?
The gap comes from labor-market differences in Latin America, not from lower quality or fewer hours. You are still getting a dedicated, full-time, vetted professional working your U.S. hours. The savings come from geography plus the fact that a managed service absorbs recruiting, benefits, payroll, and management into one flat rate.
Is an executive assistant worth the cost?
If your own time is worth more per hour than the EA's effective rate, delegating pays for itself quickly. An EA who reclaims 10 to 15 hours a week of your calendar frees you to do work only you can do. The math tends to favor delegation for anyone whose hourly value clears roughly $75 to $100.
See what a dedicated bilingual EA costs
Teleforce matches U.S. executives with a dedicated bilingual executive assistant — English and Spanish, on your hours, employed on a Fortune 500-grade support backbone. Tell us how you work and we'll come back with a fit.
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