What Executive Support Actually Costs in 2026
Real numbers for managed support, placement, direct hire and offshore — with the arithmetic shown, and the costs most providers leave out of the comparison.
Almost every page you will find on this question hedges, because the company writing it does not publish its own prices. This one does not hedge. Our rates are on the pricing page and they appear below in the comparisons, including where they lose.
The four models, priced
Direct hire, US-based. $55,000–$75,000 in salary for three to five years of experience; $80,000+ in New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles. Add roughly 20–25% for employer taxes, benefits, equipment and software. Loaded cost: $66,000–$94,000 a year.
Direct hire, remote (Philippines, Latin America, Eastern Europe). $15,000–$24,000 a year for equivalent experience and fluent English. Add your own recruiting time — realistically forty hours to do it properly — plus contractor compliance. Loaded cost: $15,000–$24,000 plus a week of your life.
Placement. The remote salary above, plus a one-time fee from 20% of first-year compensation. You employ and manage them. Year one: $18,000–$29,000. Year two onward: just the salary.
Managed support. $1,500 a month fractional, $4,000 a month dedicated full-time. Includes compensation, recruitment, training, management, quality assurance, backup cover, HR, payroll and compliance. $18,000–$48,000 a year, all in.
The comparison people actually want
| US direct hire | Remote direct hire | Placement | Managed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year one | $66,000–$94,000 | $15,000–$24,000 | $18,000–$29,000 | $18,000–$48,000 |
| Year two | $66,000–$94,000 | $15,000–$24,000 | $15,000–$24,000 | $18,000–$48,000 |
| Your recruiting time | 40+ hrs | 40+ hrs | ~4 hrs | ~1 hr |
| Who manages performance | You | You | You | Provider |
| Cover for illness or leave | None | None | None | Included |
| Replacement cost if it fails | Full re-hire | Full re-hire | Free for 6 months | Included |
| Time to operational | 6–10 weeks | 6–10 weeks | 2–3 weeks | 48 hours |
Read that table honestly. Over three years, remote direct hire is the cheapest option by a wide margin and placement is second. Managed support is the most expensive line on the page. What you are buying for the difference is the removal of recruiting, management, cover and replacement risk — and if you already have someone who does that well, you should not pay for it.
The costs that get left out
Most comparisons stop at salary. These are the ones that decide whether the cheap option was actually cheap.
Your time managing them. Two to four hours a week is normal for a direct report. At a founder’s effective hourly rate that is frequently larger than the salary difference.
The gap when they leave. Average tenure for an assistant hired without structured screening is under a year. A gap costs you the re-hire, the re-onboarding, and the two months where the work quietly comes back to you.
Cover. A direct hire on holiday is a fortnight where you do your own calendar again.
The cost of a bad hire. Roughly three months of salary in wasted pay, plus the disruption. This is the number that makes proper screening cheap.
What a bad hire really costs
Take a $20,000-a-year remote EA who does not work out at month four:
- Salary paid: ~$6,700
- Your recruiting time: 40 hours
- Your onboarding and management time: ~30 hours
- Work that came back to you during the wind-down: hard to price, not zero
- Cost of doing it again: another 40 hours
Roughly $7,000 in cash and about two working weeks of your own time — which is the real argument for either screening properly yourself or paying someone to do it.
Sanity checks on any quote
- Is the price published? If a provider will not name a number before a discovery call, you are being priced by segment rather than by service.
- What is the buyout fee? If you later want to employ the assistant directly, what does that cost? Ours is 15–25% of annual plan cost. An industry-standard $20,000–$24,000 is a lock-in, not a fee.
- Is there cover? Ask what happens when your assistant is ill. If the answer is vague, there is no cover.
- Dedicated or pooled? “Dedicated” is used loosely. Ask how many other clients that person supports.
- What happens in month one if it is wrong? Ours is a trial month you pay for afterwards. Ask what theirs is.