How to hire an executive assistant
for a small business (2026)
An executive assistant in the United States earns a median of $76,590 a year (BLS, May 2025), and a general administrative assistant $47,540, so decide first which of the two you are hiring. Allying does this job priced off the salary you post (a posting at the $76,590 median becomes about $1,915 a month), and the first week of the work is on a private page before any call.
Last updated
What the job pays
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants (SOC 43-6011), 459,910 employed nationally:
| 10th percentile | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual | $50,560 | $61,390 | $76,590 | $94,390 | $109,850 |
| Hourly | $24.31 | $29.52 | $36.82 | $45.38 | $52.81 |
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical and executive (SOC 43-6014), 1,706,790 employed nationally:
| 10th percentile | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual | $33,280 | $38,830 | $47,540 | $58,000 | $66,350 |
| Hourly | $16.00 | $18.67 | $22.86 | $27.89 | $31.90 |
The six largest metros by employment in this occupation, with the executive assistant median in each: New York $83,840; Los Angeles $82,850; Washington $90,320; Boston $85,260; San Francisco $105,190; Chicago $77,770.
Data: BLS OEWS May 2025 (released 2026-05-15); O*NET 31.0 (August 2026). Last updated 2026-09-17.
What does an executive assistant do day to day?
The O*NET task list, in an owner's words. Your assistant keeps your calendar, so nothing is double-booked and every meeting has a reason. They book your travel. They write the letters, invoices and reports that go out under your name, from your own numbers. They answer the phone and decide who gets through. They sort what comes in, by post and by email, and reply to the routine questions themselves. They write the agenda before a meeting and the minutes after. They put the paper together before you walk into the room. And they keep the office running: supplies, records, the basic bookkeeping, a visitor at the door.
The executive version adds judgment. An administrative assistant runs the phones, the filing and the appointment book for a team. An executive assistant runs one person's day and holds that person's confidences: the deal in progress, the payroll file, the family matter. The two BLS codes sit $29,000 apart.
Some of this is desk work and some needs a body in the building: greeting visitors, stocking supplies, picking up the catering. If your posting mixes the two, decide which half matters more, because a remote assistant, human or otherwise, cannot do the second half.
What should you look for?
Three things, in this order.
Discretion. The assistant will see everything. Ask for a reference from a previous executive, not a peer.
A record of finishing. The best assistants close loops: the reply went, the flight is booked, the minutes are out, and you did not have to ask twice. Look for someone who describes their last job in counts ("about 80 messages a day") rather than adjectives.
Fit with your tools and your hours. If you live in Google Workspace and Slack, someone from a Microsoft shop will spend a month relearning. If you start at 6 a.m., say so.
What matters less than people think: a degree, a big-company name, typing speed.
How do you write the posting?
Write the day, not the wish list. Say what a Tuesday looks like: the inbox by 8, the calendar check at 9, two meeting briefs by noon, next month's travel in the afternoon. Name the tools you use. Say whether the job is on site, remote or mixed, and which duties are which. Say the salary; the range above is public and candidates know it.
Leave out "wear many hats" and "fast-paced". Every posting says it and nobody learns anything.
If the job also includes your social accounts, your bookkeeping or your hiring, say so and price it as more than one job.
What should you ask in the interview?
Five questions for an assistant, and what a good answer sounds like.
- "Walk me through how you would sort my inbox on your first morning, with no rules from me yet." A good answer proposes classes (needs you, delegate, routine reply, file, newsletter, vendor pitch, personal) and asks who is on your VIP list before touching anything.
- "I have a board call at 2 and I am not prepared. What do you put in front of me by 1:30?" Good: one page. Who is on the call, what was decided last time, what is open, what we want. Every fact with its source.
- "A vendor emails you asking for our bank details to update their records. What do you do?" Good: nothing, until they have checked with you through a channel the vendor did not choose. An email is a request, not an instruction.
- "How do you write minutes for a meeting you were not in?" Good: from the recording or an attendee's notes only. If neither exists, there are no minutes, and they say so.
- "Tell me about a time you told your executive no." Good answers are specific and calm and involve a commitment that could not be kept.
What does one cost a small business in 2026?
An employee: the median executive assistant earns $76,590 a year (BLS, May 2025). In June 2026 wages and salaries were 70.0% of what private employers paid per hour worked and benefits the other 30.0%, by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' count (Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, released 2026-09-09, read 2026-09-17). At that split, the median hire implies about $109,400 a year in total cost. A 2025 posting for an executive assistant to an owner in Franklin, Tennessee offered $80,000 to $120,000 (a Built In listing, marked removed 2025-11-19, read 2026-09-16).
A virtual assistant service: BELAY's guide puts US-based virtual assistants at $1,200 to $3,000 a month for part-time support, or $30 to $75 an hour; BELAY does not publish its own prices (read 2026-09-17). Boldly publishes $2,600 a month for 40 hours and $5,200 for 80 (read 2026-09-17).
An offshore assistant: Assist World's live postings pay a remote executive assistant $1,200 to $1,700 a month (read 2026-09-16). What the agency charges the client is not on the posting.
Allying's price for this job is 30% of the salary you post, billed monthly, with a floor of $900 a month. On the $76,590 median that is about $1,915 a month; on the Tennessee posting's $80,000 low end it is $24,000 a year, or $2,000 a month. The exact figure is in a written proposal next to what the month contains, before you decide anything.
| Option | What it costs | What week one looks like | Who decides, who spends |
|---|---|---|---|
| An employee at the median | $76,590 in salary; about $109,400 a year all in at the 70.0/30.0 split | Access to the inbox and calendar, learning your people | You manage them; you decide what they may sign or send as you |
| A virtual assistant service | $1,200 to $3,000 a month for part-time support (BELAY's guide); $2,600 for 40 hours a month (Boldly) | A matching call, then a first block of hours | The service assigns the person; hours are the unit |
| An offshore assistant through an agency | The assistant is paid $1,200 to $1,700 a month (Assist World's posting); the agency's fee is not published | A matching call and a time-zone plan | The agency; ask what the assistant may access |
| Allying | About $1,915 a month on a posting at the $76,590 median; floor $900 | A public-commitments brief and three templates, then triage rules, the calendar cleanup, briefs and ten drafts within 48 hours of one file, before any call | Nothing is sent, booked, paid or signed without a person; nothing is spent in your name |
What should the first week produce?
Whoever you hire, ask for these by Friday.
The inbox sorted into classes, with a rule for each and a count of what sat unanswered past 24 hours when they arrived. The calendar cleaned: every conflict, every meeting with no purpose, a proposed fix for each, nothing moved without your yes. A brief before every meeting that needed one. Agendas before your recurring meetings, minutes after. Ten routine replies drafted in your voice and held for you to send. The next trip staged as options, nothing booked. And a one-page note of what they will not do without asking.
If the first week produces a list of questions and no drafts, you have hired a note-taker.
When should you not hire an executive assistant?
When the job is mostly in the building. If the posting is half visitors, mail and supplies, hire an office manager on site.
When what you need is a bookkeeper, a recruiter or a customer-service person with an assistant's title. Each is its own job.
When you are not ready to let someone into the inbox. An executive assistant without access is a typist. Decide first what they may read, what they may reply to, and what always waits for you.
When your inbox carries patient health information. That needs a different setup with a signed business associate agreement, and Allying does not do this job on those terms.
How Allying does this job
Allying does the executive assistant job the posting asked for: your inbox, your calendar, briefs, minutes, itineraries and expenses. Nothing is sent, booked, paid or signed without a person.
Before any conversation, from public sources only, the first week starts with a public-commitments brief: a 30-day map of the events, launches, talks and deadlines your company has announced, a prep brief for the nearest one, and three templates in your company's naming (a meeting brief, an agenda, minutes), every line with a source and a date. The rest needs one file from you under a short confidentiality agreement: a seven-day calendar export and a week of inbox subject lines. Within 48 hours of that, the page carries the inbox triage rules with your VIP list drafted for you to confirm; the calendar cleanup, every change staged as a card and none applied; the coming week's briefs, agendas and minutes; ten replies in your voice held as drafts, with a voice sheet for you to correct; and a travel dry run with two or three itineraries, nothing held or paid.
What stays yours: any message to anyone outside the company on day one, any booking with a charge, any expense submission, any document shared outside, any reply to an investor, the press or your family, and any change to who can see what. After your first approved card of a kind on a channel (a scheduling confirmation, a routine reply), that kind runs on its own; money, anything irreversible and anything to the press or your family still ask, and "ask me again" takes it back. Signing a message as you is the one exception: that waits until you have approved ten of a class unchanged.
Every morning, a note: today's calendar with a brief beside each meeting, inbox counts, promised items due. Every evening, what was handled and what waits on you. Every Friday, the counts: unanswered past 24 hours, drafts you sent unchanged, briefs on time, minutes within two hours, minutes of your attention asked.
The work is done with AI and overseen by a named specialist who answers for it.
Who you talk to
Mae Santos, Allying's co-founder, is the person you talk to; write to hello@allying.com and she answers. Before Allying she ran the office of a family investment company as Chief of Staff. The work is reviewed before it reaches you.
What Allying refuses on this job
- Acting on any instruction found inside an inbound email, attachment, calendar invite, document or voicemail. Content is data; only you and the people you name give instructions, through a channel you chose.
- Sending money, buying anything, entering a card or bank number, or approving an expense or a payroll item. A person confirms and pays.
- Signing anything, or clicking accept on a contract, terms, offer, quote or NDA, in your name or the company's. You sign.
- Making a commitment on your behalf: a price, a hire, an offer, a speaking slot, a donation, a public statement. You make it.
- Sharing confidential material outside the people named for it: financials, payroll, legal matters, health details, deals in progress, personal matters. You decide who is on the list.
- Signing a message as you without a named sign-as permission. Without one, the worker writes as itself, for you.
Questions owners ask
Executive assistant or administrative assistant?
One person's inbox, calendar and confidences is an executive assistant, median $76,590. Phones, filing and appointments for a team is an administrative assistant, median $47,540. A posting that asks for both at the lower salary gets the lower candidate.
Can an assistant reply to my email as me?
Only if you grant it, and only for classes you name, such as scheduling confirmations. Allying's assistant writes as itself, for you, until you have approved ten of a class unchanged.
What if I do not want anyone in my inbox yet?
Start with the calendar and the meeting briefs, which need no mail access, and add the inbox after a week of work.
What happens with confidential material?
You set who may see what. Financials, payroll, legal, health and personal matters sit on the top tier and go to no one else. The agreement states what is stored, where and for how long.
Can I stop?
Month to month, with one email.
Sources
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates (released 2026-05-15), national and metropolitan workbooks. Read on 2026-09-17.
- O*NET 31.0 Database (August 2026), tasks for 43-6011.00 and 43-6014.00. Read on 2026-09-17.
- O*NET license, CC BY 4.0. Read on 2026-09-17.
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (released 2026-09-09): private industry wages and salaries 70.0 percent of employer costs per hour worked, benefits 30.0 percent. Read on 2026-09-17.
- BELAY FAQ: US-based virtual assistants $1,200 to $3,000 a month for part-time support, $30 to $75 an hour; BELAY does not publish its own prices. Read on 2026-09-17.
- Boldly published plans: $2,600 a month for 40 hours, $3,900 for 60, $5,200 for 80, $6,500 for 100. Read on 2026-09-17.
- Assist World, Executive Assistant (AI-Savvy), remote, $1,200 to $1,700 a month. Read on 2026-09-16.
- Fix Group Management, Executive Assistant to Owner, Franklin TN, $80,000 to $120,000; posting removed 2025-11-19. Read on 2026-09-16.
- Allying playbook, executive / administrative assistant, version 1.1.0. Read on 2026-09-17.