Virtual Assistant Pricing Packages (How to Build Retainers That Work)

Practice Runbook · updated 2026-09-22

Most virtual assistants price by looking sideways. You see what other VAs charge, you land somewhere in the middle, and you find out eighteen months later that one client has been quietly eating your margin since the day you signed them.

There is a better order to do this in. Start from the income you need, subtract the hours you cannot sell, and let the rate fall out of the arithmetic. Then build packages on top of that number rather than underneath it.

Step one: the rate you actually need

Revenue needed: 53,000. Billable hours per year: 46 × 22 = 1,012. Required rate: 53,000 ÷ 1,012 = 52.37.

That is your floor. Every package you build, every discount you offer, and every "could you just…" request gets measured against it.

The number everyone inflates

Billable hours per week. A 40-hour week is not 40 billable hours — not for anyone. Your own inbox, your invoicing, your marketing, calls with prospects who never sign, the CPD you keep meaning to do, and the twenty minutes after every interruption where you are not really working.

Twenty to twenty-five billable hours in a forty-hour week is realistic for a solo VA. If your pricing assumes thirty-five, you have built a plan that requires a version of you who does not exist.

Step two: build packages from that rate

Take the required rate and multiply. A small discount at larger volumes is normal — you are buying predictability and reduced sales effort.

A retainer discount under about 10% is sensible. Past 25% you are paying the client for the privilege of being booked — and worse, you have set a precedent that your rate is negotiable.

Step three: answer the unused-hours question

This is the clause most VAs never write down, and it causes more friction than pricing ever does. When a client uses six of their ten hours, what happens to the other four?

There are three defensible answers:

• They expire monthly. Cleanest, and the industry norm. The retainer buys reserved capacity in your month — you held the time whether or not it was used.
• They roll over for one month only. A compromise that keeps clients happy without building a debt.
• They roll over indefinitely. Do not do this. You are accumulating an unfunded liability that someone will eventually cash in during your busiest week.

Whatever you choose, write it in the agreement before the first invoice. The conversation is easy in advance and unpleasant in arrears.

Step four: decide what happens when they go over

Two rules save the relationship:

1. Speak at 85%, not at 110%. Telling a client mid-month that their hours are nearly used is an ordinary conversation. Telling them afterwards that you worked 30% over for free is a difficult one — and you will usually swallow the cost rather than have it.
2. Set the overage rate in advance. Usually your standard hourly rate, billed in the same cycle. Nothing beyond the retainer happens without the client's explicit go-ahead.

What to include, and what to keep out

Package by outcome, not by task list where you can — "inbox kept at zero, calendar managed, weekly report" reads better than eleven bullet points. But the underlying scope document should be specific, because specificity is what lets you say "that is outside our scope, happy to quote for it".

Keep out of every retainer: work for other businesses the client owns, anything needing a professional licence, new platforms you have not agreed to learn, and one-off projects. Quote those separately. They are usually better paid anyway.

Reviewing the packages you already sold

The unprofitable client is rarely the one you suspect. It is usually the long-standing one whose business grew while the retainer did not.

Once a quarter, divide each client's retainer fee by the hours you actually logged for them. Anything below your required rate goes on the conversation list. Most solo VAs doing this for the first time find one client paying an effective rate around half of everyone else's.

If you do not log hours per client, you cannot know this. You will just keep discovering it by feeling tired.

Raising prices without losing everyone

• Make it annual and expected. A stated review date in your terms turns an awkward ask into a policy.
• Tie it to scope, not to inflation. "Your volume has roughly doubled since we set this" is a fact. "My costs went up" invites a negotiation.
• Give a date, not a debate. State the new fee and when it starts.

Expect to lose someone occasionally. If the arithmetic is right, losing your lowest-paying client and replacing them at the correct rate is a raise.

Put it somewhere it recalculates

Every number above changes when you take a client, raise a fee, or lose a week to illness — so it belongs in a sheet that updates, not a note you made once. The Virtual Assistant Practice Kit below contains this exact calculator, plus a retainer tracker that shows used against included hours per client per month, and a profitability view that turns red where a client has fallen below your required rate.