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The Direct Answer
A US in-house executive assistant typically earns $65K–$105K in base salary, and costs $85K–$140K+ fully loaded once you add benefits, payroll taxes, equipment, tools, and recruiting. Hourly and fractional EA support runs roughly $25–$75+/hour depending on seniority and geography, with quality and availability varying widely. A managed, dedicated, full-time remote executive assistant starts at around $3,000 per month (about $36K per year) all-in: vetting, matching, management, and replacement included. The right question isn’t which number is smallest; it’s which model buys back the most executive time per dollar, reliably.
2026 EA cost by hiring model:
In-House EA: The Fully Loaded Math
Salary is the visible tip. For a strong executive assistant in a major US market, current salary data points cluster like this: the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median of $47,460 (2024) for the broad administrative assistant category, while EA-specific market sources like PayScale and Glassdoor show typical executive assistant ranges around $65K–$105K, with senior and C-suite EAs in major metros exceeding that. (For the deeper salary breakdown, see our executive administrative assistant salary guide.)
The fully loaded cost is what hits your P&L:
- Benefits and payroll taxes: commonly 25–35% on top of base salary ($16K–$37K on the range above).
- Recruiting: a staffing agency placement fee typically runs 20–30% of first-year salary ($16K–$30K), or you pay in weeks of internal sourcing time. (Full comparison: EA staffing agency vs. remote EA service.)
- Equipment, software, workspace: a few thousand per year.
- Ramp: even a great in-house EA usually needs 30–90 days to reach full ownership. That’s paid time before full leverage.
- Replacement risk: if the hire doesn’t work out at month seven, you pay the search cost (and the lost-momentum cost) again.
Realistic first-year total for a strong US in-house EA: $110K–$140K+. Sometimes that’s exactly the right investment, particularly when the role demands physical presence or deep in-office integration. But most founders comparing options have never seen this number written down honestly.
Hourly and Fractional EA Rates
Hourly support prices anywhere from ~$25/hour for offshore generalists to $75+/hour for senior US-based executive support. Fractional services typically sell blocks of 10–20 hours per week.
Three things keep the “cheaper” math from holding up for founder-level support:
- You pay for coordination, not just execution. Part-time availability means your EA isn’t there when the board call moves or the wire needs confirming at 4pm.
- Context resets are invisible line items. Every handoff, every re-explanation, every “catching you up” call is billed time that a full-time embedded EA simply wouldn’t need.
- The management burden stays with you. One of our clients ran exactly this experiment: see how AG Consulting found part-time assistants were more work than a full-time hire.
When the workload is genuinely small and bounded, fractional can work. We wrote a full decision guide: fractional executive assistant vs. full-time dedicated EA.
Managed Remote EA Pricing: What Around $3K/Month Buys
Oceans Talent’s managed plans start at around $3,000 per month for a full-time, dedicated executive assistant (details on How We Hire). Because pricing conversations are only useful when you know what’s inside the number, here’s what it includes:
- A full-time, dedicated EA: not a shared pool, not an hour block. One operator, embedded in your business, five days a week.
- Vetting you don’t have to run: Oceans Talent rejects ~99% of applicants via multi-stage interviews, third-party assessments, and an intensive bootcamp covering executive support and AI tools.
- Matching with accountability: ~2 weeks from discovery to deployment, 86% first-match success, free rematch if the fit is wrong.
- Ongoing management: full-time coaches, pod leaders, and a 300+ Diver community keep quality rising after the honeymoon ends.
- Zero employer overhead: Oceans Talent employs the EA and handles payroll, benefits, and logistics.
Annualized, that’s around $36K for senior-caliber, AI-fluent, full-time support, roughly a third of the fully loaded cost of the equivalent US hire.
How Competitor Services Price
You’ll likely compare several providers, so here is the factual lay of the land (verified July 2026; pricing changes, so always confirm on the provider’s site):
- Athena lists a dedicated full-time EA at $3,600/month on monthly billing (after an initial 90-day commitment), or $3,000/month on an annual plan. Athena’s model leans toward personal and life-integration support; see our full Oceans Talent vs. Athena comparison for how the two differ on business-operations scope.
- Belay doesn’t publish set pricing publicly; its model is built around US-based contractors, typically part-time hour blocks, quoted through a sales process. Comparison: Oceans Talent vs. Belay.
- Prialto sells managed virtual assistant “units” of monthly hours with a team-based, pooled support structure. Comparison: Oceans Talent vs. Prialto.
- Magic offers on-demand assistants with hourly billing. Comparison: Oceans Talent vs. Magic.
The pattern worth noticing: models differ more than prices do. Dedicated vs. pooled, full-time vs. hour blocks, business operations vs. personal support, and managed vs. self-managed will shape your outcome far more than a few hundred dollars of monthly delta.
Cost vs. ROI: The 15–20 Hours a Week Math
Cost only means something against what it buys back. The consistent pattern across Oceans Talent’s client base, drawn from ROI data across 600+ companies, is that a well-matched EA reclaims 15–20+ executive hours per week: inbox, calendar, meeting follow-through, vendor coordination, travel, and the long tail of tasks that quietly consume a founder’s day.
Run your own number: (your effective hourly value) × (hours reclaimed per week) × 50 weeks. For a founder whose time is worth $200/hour, 15 reclaimed hours is $150K/year of recovered capacity against a cost starting around $36K. One client, MXA, documented $200K in annual savings after switching to Oceans Talent; the CEO of Cheers cut 25 hours from his workweek with one EA+.
The ROI article linked above also covers the honest inverse: when an EA hire doesn’t pay off, usually when there’s no delegation discipline or no real recurring workload. If that might be you, start with when to hire an executive assistant.
What Drives EA Pricing Up or Down
Five variables move the number in every model:
- Seniority and scope. Calendar-and-inbox support prices differently than an operator who owns board prep, KPIs, and project follow-through.
- Geography. US-based support carries US salary economics. High-caliber offshore talent, like Oceans Talent’s Sri Lanka–based EAs, delivers senior skill at structurally lower cost. (Context: best countries to hire a remote EA.)
- Dedicated vs. pooled. Dedicated costs more than shared pools, and it retains the context that makes an EA compound in value.
- AI fluency. An AI-fluent EA produces the throughput that used to require two hires; in 2026 this is the single biggest quality variable at any price point.
- Management included vs. DIY. A raw placement is cheaper than a managed service until you price your own time spent training, supervising, and replacing.
If you’re comparing against generalist virtual assistant rates rather than executive-level support, that’s a different market with different economics, covered in our virtual assistant cost guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a remote executive assistant cost per month?
A managed, dedicated, full-time remote executive assistant starts at around $3,000 per month through a provider like Oceans Talent, including vetting, matching, ongoing coaching, payroll, and replacement coverage. Self-managed freelance remote EAs can cost less per hour but shift screening, management, and turnover risk onto you.
How does executive assistant cost compare to virtual assistant cost?
Generalist virtual assistants price lower, often $10–$35/hour, because the role is task execution rather than executive-level ownership. An executive assistant costs more in every model because you’re paying for judgment, discretion, context retention, and proactive follow-through. See our EA vs VA comparison for the role differences.
How much do Athena, Belay, and Prialto cost?
As of July 2026: Athena lists $3,600/month on monthly billing (after an initial 90-day commitment) or $3,000/month on an annual plan for a dedicated full-time EA. Belay and Prialto quote through sales processes: Belay around part-time US-based contractor engagements, Prialto around pooled monthly-hour units. Pricing changes; confirm on each provider’s site, and see our head-to-head comparison pages for model differences.
Is a full-time executive assistant worth the cost?
If you’re losing 10+ hours a week to coordination, inbox, scheduling, and follow-up, then yes, usually several times over. At $200/hour of founder time, 15 reclaimed hours a week is ~$150K/year of capacity against a managed cost starting around $36K. If your delegable workload is genuinely under ~10 hours a week, start with our fractional vs full-time guide before committing.
What’s included in managed EA pricing?
At Oceans Talent: a full-time dedicated EA, the vetting pipeline (~1% acceptance), hand-matching (~2 weeks, 86% first-match success, free rematch), a structured 90-day integration, ongoing coaching and pod-leader support, and full employer administration (payroll, benefits, logistics). You bring the priorities; the rest is included.
Next step: See current plans and what they include on How We Hire, or book a call to price the role against your actual workload.
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