What an Executive Assistant Costs (vs an AI One)
TL;DR: A full-time US executive assistant costs roughly $92,000 to $124,000 a year once you add benefits and overhead to a base salary that averaged $70,310 (median) in BLS May 2023 data. A US virtual EA runs $25 to $100+ an hour, an offshore VA $1,000 to $2,500 a month, and an AI executive assistant lands near $3,600 to $6,000 a year. The catch: an AI does not cover everything a human EA does, so the honest answer is a blend, not a swap.
If you run a company and do your own scheduling, inbox, and follow-ups, you have probably priced an executive assistant and flinched. This post lays out the real, sourced 2025-2026 numbers for every option, in-house, virtual, offshore, and AI, so you can see what each tier actually buys. No spin on either side.
How much does an executive assistant cost per year?
A full-time in-house executive assistant in the US costs about $92,000 to $124,000 per year fully loaded. The base wage is only part of it. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a median annual wage of $70,310 and a mean of $73,680 for Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants (SOC 43-6011) in its May 2023 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release, covering about 483,570 workers. Salary platforms that lean on job postings sit a bit higher: Salary.com put the average at $88,705 per year ($43/hour) as of June 2026, while Glassdoor's largest sample showed roughly $84,258 in 2026.
Base salary is not the real cost. Employers also pay payroll taxes, health insurance, paid time off, equipment, software, and office overhead.
What is the fully loaded cost of an executive assistant?
The "fully loaded" cost is base salary plus everything an employer spends to keep that person working: payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, software, and overhead. Staffing and finance sources consistently put the fully loaded multiplier at 1.25x to 1.4x base salary, and it can run higher with generous benefits or a high-tax state. BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation data backs the lower bound: across 2025, benefits made up roughly 30 percent of total compensation for private-industry workers, meaning every dollar of wages carries about 40 cents of additional employer cost.
Apply that to the wage data and the picture firms up.
| Cost component | Low estimate | High estimate | Source basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $70,310 | $88,705 | BLS median 2023 / Salary.com avg 2026 |
| Payroll taxes + benefits (1.3x typical) | ~$21,000 | ~$35,500 | ECEC ~30% of comp; 1.25-1.4x rule |
| Equipment, software, office overhead | ~$1,500 | ~$5,000 | Staffing-source estimates |
| Approx. fully loaded total | ~$92,000 | ~$124,000 | Combined |
What does a virtual or part-time executive assistant cost?
A US-based virtual executive assistant typically costs $25 to $100+ per hour, with most experienced agency placements landing in the $35 to $60 per hour band. The staffing firm Boldly reported in 2025 that North America and Western Europe virtual EA rates run $25 to $100+ per hour, while general salary platforms place the average closer to $24 to $38 per hour depending on how "executive support" experience is weighted.
The appeal is fractional hours. Many owners do not need 40 hours of EA work; they need 10 to 20. At 20 hours a week and $45 an hour, that is roughly $47,000 a year with no benefits load, since the agency handles employment. Part-time virtual EAs trade dedicated, always-on coverage for lower commitment and cost.
How much does an offshore virtual assistant cost?
An offshore virtual assistant handling executive and admin support costs roughly $5 to $15 per hour, or $1,000 to $2,500 per month full time. Rates this low reflect the cost of living in places like the Philippines and India, not lower work quality. The Philippines has one of the largest English-speaking workforces in the world and a mature business-process-outsourcing sector. Boldly's 2025 data put offshore VA rates at $4 to $10 per hour, and 2025-2026 staffing guides put full-time offshore EA pay near $1,000 to $2,500 a month.
The honest caveats: time-zone overlap, software and equipment allowances ($20 to $150 a month), agency markups of 15 to 30 percent, and the 13th-month pay norm in the Philippines all add to the sticker rate. Offshore is the cheapest human option, but it asks more of you in onboarding and management.
What does an AI executive assistant cost?
An AI executive assistant typically costs $300 to $500 per month, or about $3,600 to $6,000 per year, with no benefits, payroll taxes, turnover, or recruiting fees attached. That is the band where tools built for owners, including Raegan, currently sit. The gap is large: at the low end, an AI assistant is roughly 5 percent of a fully loaded in-house EA and a fraction of even an offshore hire.
The math is not the whole story, though. The reason the number is so different is that an AI does a narrower, more repeatable slice of the work, very fast and at any hour, while a human covers judgment, relationships, and physical-world errands an AI cannot touch.
Why the cost gap is so large
The gap exists because the three human tiers carry costs an AI does not: employer taxes, benefits, paid leave, equipment, recruiting, and the turnover that BLS time-to-fill data pegs at a 44-day median vacancy and that SHRM estimates costs roughly half to twice a role's salary to replace. An AI assistant has none of that. It also scales hours to zero marginal cost, so a founder paying for one effectively gets nights-and-weekends coverage built in.
Turnover deserves its own line because owners underprice it. SHRM's widely cited benchmark puts the cost of replacing an employee at 50 to 200 percent of annual salary once you count recruiting, the 44-day average vacancy, onboarding, and the months it takes a new hire to reach full productivity. For a $70,000 EA, that is anywhere from $35,000 to $140,000 every time the seat turns over. With US voluntary turnover still running in the low double digits in 2025, the risk is not hypothetical. An AI assistant does not quit, does not need re-recruiting, and does not lose institutional memory when it leaves, because it does not leave.
Where AI does not replace a human EA
An AI executive assistant does not replace everything a human EA does, and pretending otherwise is dishonest. An AI is strong at high-volume, rules-based, digital work: triaging email, drafting replies, scheduling, prepping briefings, and research. It is weak at, or simply cannot do, physical errands, in-person event logistics, delicate relationship management, reading a room, and the kind of judgment that comes from years inside your business.
The realistic pattern for most owners is not "fire the EA, buy the software." It is using AI to absorb the repetitive 60 to 70 percent so a human, if you have one, spends their hours on the work that genuinely needs a person. For a solo founder with no EA at all, an AI assistant is often the first affordable layer of leverage. This is also where an AI chief of staff overlaps with the EA conversation: both aim to give one person more reach, not to remove people entirely.
Raegan sits in this band as a private, self-hosted AI executive assistant that triages email and drafts replies in your voice behind an approval gate, runs your daily briefing, and is reachable across the channels you already use. It is one option among several, and it is built for the repetitive layer, not for replacing human judgment.
Which option is right for your stage?
The cheapest option is rarely the right one; the right one matches your volume and the type of work. A solo founder drowning in email and scheduling gets the most leverage per dollar from AI plus, eventually, fractional virtual help. A growing team with travel, events, and complex stakeholder management still needs a human EA, ideally one freed from busywork by AI. The tiers stack rather than compete.
There is also a cost most comparisons leave out: the founder's own time. If you are spending two hours a day on inbox and scheduling, and your time is worth even $150 an hour, that is roughly $75,000 a year in opportunity cost before you hire anyone. Against that baseline, both an AI assistant and a human EA can pay for themselves quickly. The question is which slice of the work each one removes, and at what reliability.
For owners specifically, the framing shifts again. A solo or small-team founder rarely needs a 40-hour human, but does need the repetitive layer gone every single day. That is the case our piece on an AI-powered executive assistant for founders walks through in detail.
If you are weighing the human-versus-software decision directly, the trade-offs go deeper than price. Our breakdown of an AI vs human executive assistant covers the capability gaps, and what an AI executive assistant actually does maps the specific tasks before you commit budget either way.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a full-time executive assistant cost in 2026?
A full-time US executive assistant costs roughly $92,000 to $124,000 a year fully loaded. The base wage averaged $70,310 (median, BLS May 2023) to $88,705 (Salary.com, June 2026), and benefits, payroll taxes, and overhead add a typical 1.25x to 1.4x multiplier on top of that base.
Is an AI executive assistant cheaper than a human one?
Yes, substantially. AI executive assistants run about $300 to $500 a month, or $3,600 to $6,000 a year, versus $92,000 or more fully loaded for an in-house human. At the low end, AI is roughly 5 percent of an in-house EA's cost. But AI handles a narrower set of digital tasks, so it is not a like-for-like replacement.
What is the fully loaded cost of an executive assistant?
Fully loaded cost is base salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, software, and overhead. Most staffing and finance sources use a 1.25x to 1.4x multiplier on base pay. BLS data showing benefits at about 30 percent of total compensation supports the lower end of that range for a typical US employer.
How much does an offshore virtual assistant cost?
An offshore virtual assistant handling executive support costs about $5 to $15 an hour, or $1,000 to $2,500 a month full time, per 2025-2026 staffing data and Boldly's rate guide. Add software allowances, agency markups of 15 to 30 percent, and time-zone management to the headline rate when you budget.
Can an AI executive assistant fully replace a human EA?
No. An AI executive assistant handles high-volume digital work such as email triage, drafting, scheduling, and briefings, but it cannot run physical errands, manage in-person logistics, or apply the human judgment a seasoned EA brings. Most owners use AI to remove busywork rather than to eliminate the role entirely.
What does Raegan cost compared to an executive assistant?
Raegan is offered at early-supporter pricing of $300 a month for Core and $500 a month for Pro, which works out to $3,600 to $6,000 a year. That is a fraction of a fully loaded human EA. It is a private, self-hosted AI assistant aimed at the repetitive email, scheduling, and briefing layer, not a replacement for human judgment.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics: Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants (43-6011), May 2023." https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes436011.htm
- Salary.com, "Executive Assistant Salary, Hourly Rate (June 2026), United States." https://www.salary.com/research/salary/offering/executive-assistant-salary
- Glassdoor, "Executive Assistant: Average Salary & Pay Trends 2026." https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/executive-assistant-salary-SRCH_KO0,19.htm
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation Summary." https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm
- Boldly, "How Much Does an Executive Assistant Cost?" (2025). https://boldly.com/blog/how-much-does-an-executive-assistant-cost/
- Wishup, "Virtual Assistant Cost in 2026: $4-$79/hour (Full Breakdown)." https://www.wishup.co/blog/how-much-does-a-virtual-assistant-cost/
- SHRM via Staffing Industry Analysts, "Average cost-per-hire is about $4,100, SHRM says." https://www.staffingindustry.com/news/global-daily-news/average-cost-hire-about-4100-shrm-says
- WowRemoteTeams, "What Is the Fully Loaded Cost of Hiring a New Employee?" https://wowremoteteams.com/blog/what-is-the-fully-loaded-cost-of-hiring-a-new-employee/
- Waterfall Planning, summarizing SHRM and Gallup, "The Real Cost of Employee Turnover" (50-200% of salary). https://waterfallplanning.com/learn/the-real-cost-of-employee-turnover/
If you want the repetitive email, scheduling, and briefing layer handled for a flat monthly fee, Raegan is onboarding owners in small groups now. Get early access.