A full-time virtual assistant through Jarvis costs $1,600 a month.

That's $10 per hour. 8 hours a day. 5 days a week. 4 weeks a month.

Most founders hear that and ask "can I afford it?" That's the wrong question. The right question is: what are you losing every single month by not having one?

Because the math on inaction is brutal.

The Real Cost of Doing It Yourself

Let's run the numbers.

If you're running a business doing $100K a month, your effective hourly rate is somewhere between $300 and $600 an hour. Let's call it $500.

Now think about your day. How much of it is spent on tasks that have nothing to do with growth? Inbox management, CRM updates, scheduling calls, chasing no-shows, confirming appointments, copy-pasting data between tools. For most founders, that's 2 to 3 hours a day minimum.

Three hours a day at $500 per hour. That's $1,500 a day in lost value.

Over 20 working days in a month, that's $30,000.

You're not paying for admin work. You're paying with the most valuable resource you have: time that should be going into sales, strategy, and growth.

The VA doesn't cost $1,600 a month. The VA saves you $30,000 a month. The math isn't close.

What a VA Actually Returns

Here are the five categories of ROI founders see after bringing on a VA.

1. Time reclaimed. The most obvious. 3 hours a day back is 60 hours a month. That's a full extra work week every single month. What would you do with a bonus week? Most founders use it to close more deals, build systems, or finally think strategically instead of reactively.

2. Missed follow-ups recovered. Speed to lead is everything. A lead that doesn't get a response in the first hour has a dramatically lower chance of converting. A lead that doesn't get a follow-up at all is just lost revenue. Your VA owns follow-up. Nobody falls through the cracks.

3. Deals closed faster. Slower admin means slower pipeline velocity. When your VA is updating the CRM in real time, sending proposals the same day, and following up before you even remember to ask, deals move. Fewer deals die from neglect.

4. Mental bandwidth freed. This one doesn't show up on a spreadsheet but it's real. When you're not holding 47 open tasks in your head, you think better. You show up to sales calls sharper. You make better decisions. You stop feeling like you're always one missed email away from a disaster.

5. Business runs without you. The compounding benefit. When your VA owns a function, you're not the bottleneck anymore. Clients get responses while you're on a plane. Leads get followed up with while you're in a meeting. The business operates whether or not you're watching it.

Real Example: Rachel's Agency

Rachel runs a digital marketing agency doing $95K a month. She was running all client communication, lead response, and calendar management herself. She knew it was a problem. She just kept pushing it off.

When she hired through Jarvis, the VA took over inbound lead response and calendar booking on day one.

Before the VA, Rachel's connect rate was 18%. She was responding to leads within 3 to 4 hours on a good day. Often longer.

After 60 days with a VA handling first response and follow-up, her connect rate hit 41%. Same lead volume. Same offer. Same price. Just faster response and consistent follow-through.

That connect rate improvement translated to an extra $15K to $20K in closed revenue per month.

The VA cost her $1,600.

That's not a 10x return. It's not a 5x return. The math stops being meaningful at a certain point. The business just grows.

The Break-Even Calculation

Here's a simple formula to run on your own business.

Step 1: How many hours per week does admin work eat? (Be honest. Most founders say 10 to 15.)

Step 2: If you got even half of that time back, how many of those hours would go into revenue-generating activity? Let's say 5 hours.

Step 3: What does one closed deal look like for you? If your average client is worth $3K to $5K a month, closing one extra deal per month changes the math immediately.

The formula:

• VA cost: $1,600/month
• One extra deal closed per month using reclaimed time: $3,000 to $5,000/month
• Net gain: $1,400 to $3,400/month in the first month alone

That's break-even in week one for most businesses. And that's the conservative scenario. It doesn't account for recovered leads, faster pipeline movement, or the deals you're currently losing because follow-up is falling through the cracks.

What Kills VA ROI

Three things destroy the return on a VA hire. Avoid all three.

1. Bad onboarding. Dropping a VA into your business with no context and expecting magic is how you waste a month. Day one through day five matter. Access, walkthrough, shadowing. Invest 5 hours in the first week and you get 60 hours a month back for as long as they work for you.

2. No SOPs. A VA is as good as the systems they're given. If your processes are all in your head, the VA is guessing. Document the workflow, even loosely. Record a Loom. Write a checklist. Give them something to follow and they'll follow it without you.

3. Treating them like a freelancer instead of a team member. Freelancers complete tasks. Team members own outcomes. The difference is in how you communicate expectations. Give your VA a clear role, clear metrics, and regular check-ins. They'll show up like an employee, not a contractor.

Not sure where to start? Download our free delegation checklist — the 12 tasks most founders hand off in week one. Get it when you book your free call.

Pre-Trained VA vs. Training Your Own

If you hire off a marketplace, you'll get someone willing. But willing isn't the same as ready.

The typical ramp time for a raw VA hire is 4 to 6 weeks before they're operating independently. During that time, you're teaching them your tools, your tone, your workflow, and your standards. That's 20 to 40 hours of your time you don't have.

Jarvis pre-trains every VA before they're matched. They already know GoHighLevel, Notion, Gmail, CRM management, and inbox workflows when they arrive. You're not starting at zero. You're starting at day one of actual productivity.

That difference is worth thousands in avoided training cost alone. And it means your ROI clock starts on week one instead of week five.

Want to run the math on your specific business? Book a free call at gojarvis.ai and we'll show you exactly what a VA would return in your situation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a virtual assistant cost per month?
Jarvis full-time VA placements start at $1,600/month for 40 hours/week. Part-time from $800/month. This includes pre-training, automation builds, and replacement guarantee.

Is a virtual assistant cheaper than hiring locally?
Significantly. A fully loaded US employee costs $60,000–$90,000/year. A Jarvis full-time VA costs $19,200–$24,000/year — a difference of $40,000–$70,000/year.

What's the ROI on hiring a virtual assistant?
If a VA reclaims 15 hours/week and your time is worth $100/hour, that's $6,000/month in reclaimed time vs. $1,600/month cost — roughly 3.75× ROI on time savings alone.

Are there hidden costs with virtual assistant services?
With Jarvis, no. The monthly fee covers the VA, pre-training, automation builds, and account support. No placement fee, no contracts, no add-ons.

Can I start with part-time VA hours?
Yes. Part-time placements (20 hours/week) start at $800/month. This is a good starting point if you're not yet sure how many hours you need.