Working out how long it will take to do a task you’ve never done before as a Virtual Assistant can be one of the hardest things to do. You want to be paid enough to make it worth your time and effort. But there’s that nagging fear that you’re going to quote too much and send a good client running in the other direction.
I often get asked, ‘How long will it take to do social media posts for a client?’ or ‘How long does an inbox detox take?’ by new VAs struggling with this dilemma.
You’re stuck between a rock (you don’t want to wildly overcharge and price yourself out of work) and a hard place (but you also, most definitely, don’t want to undercharge). However, in my experience undercharging can be inevitable early on so I’ll cover that in a sec.
If you want the answer to help you work out how long tasks will take as a Virtual Assistant, keep reading!
What if you undercharge (or overcharge) a client as a Virtual Assistant?
With overcharging, you have a nice way out. If you ever overcharge a client you could tell them you’ve done that and give them some money back. How great would that look!
Undercharging doesn’t feel as nice to deal with. Nevertheless, it’s going to happen, without a doubt. Especially early on. But don’t overthink it. Don’t worry, we all do it. It’s not the end of the world.
I underestimated a job early on in my Virtual Assistant business. It was a transcription of a book for a local author and I quoted something like 8 hours. It took me about 800 hours. (I’m wildly exaggerating but I definitely lost out.)
If this happens to you, you could do one of two things…
- Swallow it up and learn from it
- Tell the client – as soon as you know you’ve massively misquoted – that it’s going to take X amount of time / money to complete the job. Some clients will be fine with it, others may not want to continue.
One thing not to do (under any circumstances!) if you’ve underestimated how long a task will take and you’ve already started it is to continue and ‘surprise’ the client with a massively inflated invoice.
One of my early Virtual Assistants did this. I asked her to spend two hours doing something for me and to see how she got on. She completed the whole task in six hours and sent me an invoice for that. Uh, no, love.
But let’s avoid undercharging in the first place.
How to avoid undercharging as a Virtual Assistant
Working hourly can make it incredibly hard to price things because there are so many factors that influence how long things take to do like the complexity of the task, your familiarity with it, your individual working pace and style, and of course the often inevitable delays getting access to client’s documents, software, ‘try this password’, etc..
You could avoid the stress of working out how long things will take altogether by offering packages. With packages, you set exactly what services you’ll be providing and charge a set rate.
For example, one of my bookkeeping packages, for up to 50 transactions a month, is £70 +VAT and includes:
- Profit and loss statements as required
- Monthly reconciliation (matching all invoices and receipts to bank transactions)
- Maintain a log of expenses
- Chasing debtors (those who owe you money!)
- The number of ‘monthly transactions’ including debits, credits and invoices that need to be raised
Packages too; ensure you don’t start losing money over time as you inevitably get quicker at tasks. My £70 charge for the above bookkeeping package is equivalent to two hours of my time. When I first start working with a new bookkeeping client it does take 2 hours to go through everything, but as I get familiar with their bookkeeping and we have a rhythm going it takes me about 30 minutes. But I do not reduce what they pay me every month.
I’ve created a custom GPT to help you work out what to charge for your packages / combined services. This kind of tool has been needed by the VA industry forever and the results really make you appreciate exactly what you’re worth. You can access it here.
Offering your services in packages and moving away from the hourly rate model is what all self-employed business owners should be aiming for to maximise the profit in their business without burning out.
How to work out how long tasks will take as a Virtual Assistant
Want to know the most surefire way to work out how long any task will take as a Virtual Assistant? It’s the holy grail of Virtual Assistant pricing that can be used for any service and this is the only place you’ll find the answer..
Step #1 Determine the parameters
First off, you need to know the full task. That’s absolutely everything the client needs. I’ve had VAs ask me ‘How long will it take me to create 3 social media posts for a client every week?’
There’s literally no way you can work that out without knowing more about the job:
- Will they provide content or will you need to research it?
- Do they want graphics too?
- Will they need to approve everything? If so, you’ll need to accommodate the time it takes to do any possible edits
- How many amends will you give them?
- Do they also want you to schedule the posts?
- Do you need to research hashtags?
You will find this out either via email communication or during your discovery call. Get as much information as possible and don’t be afraid to clarify everything before working out the quote.
Step #2 Do a dummy run
Once you have all the information for the task the way to work out how long something will take is to test it out. Set your Toggl Track timer (one of my favourite VA tools) so that you can refer back to the time it takes whenever you need to.
Social media example: So, if you want to know how many social media posts you can knock out in an hour, set a timer and create social media posts based on either what the client wants or what your package offers. Once you’ve seen how many you can do in an hour you can work out how long the client’s task will take every month.
Email management example: If you want to work out how long it will take you to do an inbox detox then this is where package pricing comes in! You set the parameters of the package and what you’re going to offer, e.g. maximum number of emails you’ll deal with. But again, do a dummy run by going to YOUR sent items and moving things into folders, unsubscribing, etc for 15 minutes and then multiply everything you’ve done by 4 to see how many you’ve sorted in an hour. You can then work out how long your client’s task / package offering will take and send your quote to the client.
Data entry example: If you want to know how long it’ll take you to input data into a spreadsheet, time yourself inputting dummy data for half an hour and see how far you get. You can then double it to work out how much you’d get done in an hour and from there, work out how long it’s going to take you to do the client’s task.
WordPress support example: If you’re one of those who’s done my WordPress course and you’re looking to offer website maintenance, it will depend on what you’re offering. Updating plugins takes seconds and adding blogs takes minutes but you’re going to want every quote to be a minimum of an hour even if it’ll only take you 15 minutes. Otherwise, you’ll end up with so many low-cost invoices going out that it really won’t be worth your time. So, as with everything, find out exactly what the client wants / decide what you’re going to offer and do a dummy run on your own website.
Ultimately, the secret is to know the full scope of the job and do a trial run. Please note these trial runs are NOT free client work. Giving any freebies undervalues your services.
Step #3 Add padding
With all quotes, add in an extra hour for getting access to any software or documents of theirs you’re going to need to do the job.
Trust me when I say, over the course of your VA journey you’ll have so many instances of clients saying ‘Try this password’ and six passwords later you get the right one from them! Your time is money.
You won’t need to do these dummy runs every time you get an enquiry, because within no time you’ll be able to gauge how long a task will take without even thinking and you’ll likely move on to packages anyway so there’s never any working out needed.
How to avoid clients ghosting you as a Virtual Assistant
When you send over the quote don’t be apologetic or offer any discounts, it devalues your service, looks a little desperate and doesn’t really instil confidence. Potential clients want to know their business is in good hands.
In your email include:
- The scope of the task
- Your quote
- How to go forward
Remember, we’re making our client’s lives easier and they’re busy so make it as easy as possible for them to get started.
Also, include the scope of the task on the Booking Form when you send them your terms of business – use KoffeeKlatch contracts if you’re unsure. This is important because if there’s ever any ‘Oooh, could you also do this…’ from the client you can go back and say ‘Of course, but it’s outside the original brief so I’d need to add ‘£xxx’ to the invoice’.
Mastering Time Estimation as a Virtual Assistant
Don’t assume your calculation will be met with wide eyes and a response of ‘Are you kidding me? I could do it myself cheaper’ because our clients are ultimately paying for the change we make. Therefore, your calculation should be based on a minimum hourly rate of £30 per hour.
You must be confident with your calculations because everyone is different so there’s no point asking anyone else if you’ve judged it right because we all work differently. One of the most attractive traits of Virtual Assistants who maintain a long-term relationship with clients and, ultimately, a long-term business model are those VAs who don’t have to clarify everything.
Be brave, send the quote and you’ll be high-fiving yourself (I’m aware that’s clapping – haaa) when the client comes back and says ‘Great, let’s get started’.
If you’ve not yet worked out what services you’ll offer as a Virtual Assistant download my free guide, 90+ Services Virtual Assistants Can Offer by clicking here.