Virtual Assistant for Entrepreneurs: 7 Best Options (2026)
The client work ends at six. Then the second shift starts: forty unread emails, a discovery call to fit around a client in Sydney, an onboarding packet nobody sent, and an invoice that is 19 days late.
The quick answer: the best virtual assistant for entrepreneurs running a one-person business is Carly, an AI assistant that sorts your inbox, replies from your own Gmail or Outlook, books meetings, onboards clients and chases invoices while your laptop is shut. Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month. A human VA is still the right call when the work needs judgment or a voice: calming an upset client, phone calls, booking complicated travel, anything you cannot describe in advance.
Virtual assistants for entrepreneurs, compared
| Option | Type | What it takes off you | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carly | AI assistant | Inbox, scheduling, onboarding, follow-ups, invoice chasing, CRM updates | Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month |
| Time Etc | Human, US-based, hourly | General admin by a dedicated assistant | $390/month for 10 hours |
| Wing | Human, offshore, fixed monthly plans | Part-time or full-time dedicated assistant | Monthly plans, varies by role |
| Magic | Human, remote, weekly billing | Dedicated assistant at 20 or 40 hours a week | $270/week for 20 hours |
| Belay | Human, US-based, managed | Assistant plus an account manager | Quote only |
| Athena | Human, Philippines-based, full-time | A full-time executive assistant | $3,000/month on the annual plan |
| ChatGPT | AI chatbot | Drafting, thinking, summarizing | Free tier; Plus is $20/month |
1. Carly: the assistant that works your inbox while you work
Carly does the admin a good human assistant would do, and it does it from inside the accounts you already use. You set it up by describing what you want in plain words: “When a new client pays the deposit, send the welcome email, the intake form and my booking link, then add them to the CRM.” There is no flowchart to build.
Here is what that looks like for a business of one.
Inbox. Carly reads what comes in, files the noise, flags what needs you, and answers the routine questions in your voice. Replies go out from your own Gmail or Outlook address, so a client sees you, not a bot. You choose what it sends on its own and what waits for your approval.
Scheduling by CC. Add Carly to a thread and write “Carly, find us 45 minutes next week.” It checks your calendar, handles the time zone math with your client in Sydney, proposes times, answers the back-and-forth, and sends the invite. For inbound calls, set up a booking page and share the link. If you already use Calendly, Carly works with it.
Client onboarding. Michael Turner runs a one-man brand strategy practice. When a deposit lands in Stripe, Carly sends his welcome email, the questionnaire and the kickoff booking link, creates the contact in HubSpot, and reminds the client two days later if the questionnaire is still blank. Michael finds out when the kickoff call appears on his calendar.
Invoice chasing. Carly watches QuickBooks or Stripe for overdue invoices and sends a polite nudge at 7 days, a firmer one at 14, and tells you at 21.
Follow-ups. The proposal you sent on Tuesday and heard nothing about gets a check-in on Monday. The lead who said “circle back in October” gets an email in October.
It runs on events, not on you remembering to open an app. A payment, a form submission, a new email or a calendar change sets it off at 2am on a Sunday as readily as at noon on a Tuesday. Build the recurring jobs as workflows and give the jobs that need reading and writing to an AI agent.
Carly connects to thousands of apps. For this reader that usually means Gmail or Outlook, Google Calendar, Calendly, Stripe, QuickBooks or Xero, HubSpot or Pipedrive, Slack, Shopify and Google Sheets. Check your own stack here.
Best for: coaches, consultants, online sellers and agencies of one who want the evening admin gone this week.
Pricing: Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month. Get started.
Limitations: it works from instructions, so the first hour goes into telling it how you like things done. If your business lives on the phone, Carly Phone is available: book a call with the team.
2. Time Etc: US-based assistants by the hour
Time Etc matches you with a dedicated US assistant and sells hours in monthly blocks, with unused hours rolling over. It is the easiest human service to start small with, which suits a solo business that needs 10 hours of help, not 40.
Best for: entrepreneurs who want a native English speaker for client-facing writing, research and odd jobs.
Pricing: $390/month for 10 hours ($39 an hour), down to $36 an hour on the 60-hour plan.
Limitations: ten hours is about 30 minutes a working day. Your assistant works set hours, so the 9pm client email still waits for morning.
3. Wing: a dedicated offshore assistant on a monthly plan
Wing places a dedicated part-time or full-time assistant with you for a fixed monthly fee and adds a success manager and a free replacement if the match fails. You get far more hours per dollar than with a US service.
Best for: online sellers and agencies of one with a steady stream of repeatable tasks: order support, listings, data entry, inbox sorting.
Pricing: fixed monthly plans that vary by role and hours. Published figures differ between sources, so get a current quote.
Limitations: you are now a manager. Someone has to write the procedures, check the work and answer questions, and that someone is you.
4. Magic: dedicated assistants billed by the week
Magic supplies a dedicated remote assistant at either 20 or 40 hours a week and bills weekly, which keeps the commitment short.
Best for: entrepreneurs who know they have at least half a job’s worth of delegable work.
Pricing: $270 a week for a part-time assistant (20 hours), $540 a week for full-time (40 hours).
Limitations: twenty hours a week is the floor. Many one-person businesses do not have that much admin once the repeatable part is automated.
5. Belay: managed US assistants with an account manager
Belay hires US-based assistants, matches one to you, and assigns a client success consultant to keep the relationship on track. It is the premium, low-risk route. Our Belay review covers contracts and onboarding.
Best for: established entrepreneurs with revenue to spare who want an experienced assistant and no hiring work.
Pricing: not published. You get a quote on a sales call.
Limitations: cost and commitment. It is built for executives and growing firms more than for someone testing whether delegation works for them.
6. Athena: a full-time executive assistant
Athena recruits in the Philippines, trains assistants in its own delegation method, and places them full-time with founders and executives. Clients hand over personal admin too: travel, gifts, household bills. See the Athena review.
Best for: entrepreneurs already earning enough that every hour reclaimed is worth a few hundred dollars.
Pricing: $3,000/month on the annual plan, full-time only.
Limitations: a full-time person is a lot of capacity for a one-person business, and you have to keep them busy for it to pay off.
7. ChatGPT: a thinking partner, not an assistant
ChatGPT is excellent at the blank page: a proposal draft, a sales page, a reply to a difficult email. It has added connectors and scheduled tasks, but entrepreneurs who try to run admin through it report the same ceiling: you paste the email in, it writes the reply, you copy it back and press send. It does not own your inbox or your calendar the way an assistant does. For that, use Carly.
Best for: writing, planning and research.
Pricing: free tier; Plus is $20/month.
Limitations: you stay the operator. The work starts when you open the tab.
AI, human, or both
Split your admin into two piles.
Repeatable: the same kind of email, the same onboarding steps, the same invoice reminder, the same scheduling dance. This is most of what eats your evenings, and it is what Carly is for. The $35 entry point is less than one hour of a US assistant’s time, and it works nights and weekends.
Judgment: a client who is unhappy, a supplier negotiation, a trip with four connections, a task you cannot explain until you see it. A human wins here.
Many owners end up with both. Claire Bennett, a leadership coach, has Carly running her inbox, bookings, onboarding and late-invoice reminders, and pays a Time Etc assistant ten hours a month for podcast outreach and event logistics. Our virtual assistant pricing guide has the full math on the human side.
How to pick
- You are solo and your evenings go to email, scheduling, onboarding and invoices: go with Carly. It is the fastest to start, the cheapest to run, and it acts the moment something happens, at any hour.
- You need a person for a few hours of varied work: Time Etc.
- You have 20 or more hours a week of process work: Wing or Magic.
- You have the revenue and want a long-term right hand: Belay or Athena.
Not sure how your setup would work? Book a call with the Carly team.
FAQ
What does a virtual assistant do for an entrepreneur?
Inbox management, scheduling, client onboarding, invoicing and payment reminders, CRM upkeep, follow-ups, travel and research. For a one-person business the first five are the bulk of it, and they are the part Carly handles from your own email and calendar.
How much does a virtual assistant cost?
Human services run from a few hundred dollars a month for a small block of US hours (Time Etc starts at $390 for 10 hours) to several thousand for a full-time executive assistant. Remote services such as Magic start at $270 a week for 20 hours. An AI assistant costs far less: Carly has free Zapier-style workflows, with AI agents from $35/month. More figures are in our virtual assistant statistics.
Is an AI assistant good enough for a business owner?
For repeatable admin, yes, and it has two advantages over a person: it answers at 11pm and it never forgets a follow-up. The test is whether it acts or only drafts. Carly sends the reply, books the call and updates the record, with approval steps wherever you want them. We compare more tools in the best AI virtual assistants for small business.
Can a virtual assistant send email as me?
A human VA needs delegated access to your mailbox. Carly connects to Gmail or Outlook and sends from your address in your tone, or you can give it its own address and CC it when you want help. You decide which messages go out without review.
When should an entrepreneur hire a human virtual assistant?
When the work needs a voice, a relationship or judgment you cannot write down, and when you have enough of it to fill the hours you are buying. Automate the repeatable admin first, then hire for what is left.
How long does it take to set up?
A human assistant takes days to match and weeks to train. With Carly, connect your email and calendar, describe your first workflow in a sentence or two, and it is running the same afternoon.
More: Best AI tools for solopreneurs · AI personal assistant for business owners · AI assistant for small business · Best virtual assistant companies · Virtual assistant for startups · AI-trained virtual assistants · Virtual secretary for small business
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"Before Carly, I relied on a Calendly link, but the whole process felt impersonal and not very professional. Carly changed that by handling all the back-and-forth, so I'm no longer stuck in endless email threads trying to line up schedules.
Now Carly reaches out to candidates, shares my real-time availability, lets them pick a slot, then sends a Zoom link and drops it straight into my calendar. She sends reminders to both of us before each call, which has significantly reduced no-shows and last-minute confusion.
On top of scheduling, Carly acts like a full executive assistant, sending me my schedule the night before so I can prepare for each call. It reminds me of the old x.ai assistant, but Carly is noticeably smarter, faster, and better suited to my healthcare recruitment business."
