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What an executive assistant costs in 2026, and what the job actually is

By Tudor Bungardean. Published 13 October 2026. Every outside fact read on 13 October 2026.

An executive assistant costs $76,590 a year at the US median, $109,850 at the ninetieth percentile, and about $109,000 a year fully loaded at the median once benefits are added at the 30% share the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures, as read on 13 October 2026. By the hour, a US-based assistant from a managed service costs $36 to $50; the marketplace median is $13, with executive-level freelancers at $38 and up; a fractional chief of staff is around $172 an hour. In London the boards put the average between £42,499 and £59,004, depending on whose listings are being averaged. The second half of this page is the job itself, in the words of eight employers who were hiring for it in September and October 2026, because the price only means something next to the work.

What an executive assistant earns in the US

Annual pay, US. The BLS row is the May 2025 survey for executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants (459,910 employed); the board rows are each site’s own average on the day it was read
SourceLowMiddleHigh
Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025$50,560 (10th percentile)$76,590 (median)$109,850 (90th percentile)
Indeed, executive assistant, updated 5 October 2026$45,767$74,727 (average)$122,013
Indeed, executive assistant to the CEO, updated 3 October 2026$46,030$78,581 (average)$134,150
Payscale, executive assistant, July 2026$48,000 (10th)$68,026 (average base)$94,000 (90th)
Payscale, executive assistant to the CEO, July 2026$53,000 (10th)$74,459 (average base)$103,000 (90th)

The spread between the sources is the spread between methods. The BLS figure is what employers reported paying; Indeed’s is taken from the salaries written on its job postings over three years; Payscale’s comes from people reporting their own base pay. The three agree on the middle: a competent executive assistant in the United States is a $70,000 to $80,000 salary, and the one who runs a founder’s life is $5,000 to $10,000 above the general title. For the whole occupation of secretaries and administrative assistants, 3.5 million people, the median is $48,310 and the BLS expects the count to fall 2% by 2035. The executive end of the title is where the pay and the hiring are.

The loaded cost: what the salary turns into

A salary is 70% of what an employee costs. The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release of 9 September 2026 puts private-industry compensation at $46.89 an hour worked, of which wages and salaries are $32.82 and benefits $14.07, so benefits are 30.0% of the total. Divide a salary by 0.70 and you have the cost before recruiting, equipment and the months of ramp.

Our arithmetic from the BLS 70/30 split; no source publishes these totals
SalaryLoaded cost a yearA month
$50,000$71,400$5,950
$76,590, the median$109,400$9,120
$95,000, the top of a founder’s assistant posting read this week$135,700$11,310

In the UK

The UK boards disagree with each other by more than the US ones do, because each averages the jobs it happens to list. Reed puts the average executive assistant salary at £45,121 across the UK and £59,004 in London, with a City of London block at £60,447. Totaljobs puts it at £32,499 across the UK and £42,499 in London from a smaller and more junior set of listings. Read them as a range, £42,000 to £59,000 in London for the role as these pages define it, and add employer’s National Insurance and the pension on top, as in the US.

By the hour: virtual assistants and a fractional chief of staff

Read on 13 October 2026 from each provider’s pricing page; the effective hourly rates in the Zirtual row are our arithmetic from its monthly packages
OptionPriceWhat it is
Time etc, US$390 a month for 10 hours to $2,160 for 60, which is $39 down to $36 an hour; unused hours roll overA dedicated US-based assistant, no setup fee, the first task free
Time etc, UK£310 a month for 10 hours to £1,680 for 60, £31 down to £28 an hour, plus VATThe same service in the UK
Zirtual$599 a month for 12 hours to $1,699 for 45, which is $50 down to $38 an hour; hours do not roll overUS-based, college-educated assistants, two-hour response in your business hours, one to four users by plan
UpworkTypically $10 to $20 an hour, median $13; administrative work $12 to $20, executive-level assistants $38 to $50 and upFreelancers, hired and managed by you; the rates are Upwork’s own for North American freelancers with over 1,000 hours
BelayNot published; support starts at 45 hours a month, month to monthA managed US assistant; Belay says it is not built to compete on price
A fractional chief of staff$172 an hour on average, $150 to $195 for the middle half; from about $7,200 a month at roughly twelve hours a weekGo Fractional’s rate page as archived on 20 September 2026; its live page would not load

The hourly options are cheaper than they look only for the first ten hours a month. Forty hours a week at $38 is $6,600 a month, which is the loaded cost of the median employee without the loyalty; and the marketplace median of $13 buys a different job from the one in the postings below. The useful comparison is not hourly against salaried but the job against the price: what, exactly, is the person being paid to keep from falling through the cracks?

The job, in the words of the people hiring for it

Eight postings, read on 13 October 2026, for assistants, coordinators, an operations manager and a fractional chief of staff at agencies, studios, a consultancy, a media company and a financial firm in the US. The salaries on them run from $2,500 a month for a remote coordinator to $75,000 to $95,000 for the assistant to a founder, and $45 to $50 an hour for a part-time operations manager. The duties are the same five verbs in every one of them.

  • “Track commitments and follow-ups, route work to the responsible person, and confirm the real outcome.” The assistant to a founder, $75,000 to $95,000.
  • “Being the connective tissue across everything - nothing falls through the cracks on your watch.” The right hand to a chief executive at a remote agency; the same post asks for both founders’ calendars and inboxes to be managed.
  • “Help prioritize and track key follow-ups, commitments, deadlines, and action items.” A coordinator supporting two co-founders at a creative company.
  • “Maintain the milestone billing calendar across active programs” and “prepare weekly billing and receivables status reporting.” An operations coordinator at a production agency, $62,000 to $75,000.
  • “Help ensure recurring requirements and deadlines do not fall through the cracks.” A part-time operations manager, $45 to $50 an hour.
  • “Manage invoicing, including creating, sending, and tracking payments” and “send follow-up emails to sales prospects, podcast guests, and panelists.” A growth and operations coordinator, $2,500 a month.
  • “Organize and prepare materials for meetings, including agendas and follow-up notes” and “assist with expense reports, invoices, and basic budget tracking.” An executive assistant to a chief executive and a chief operating officer, $40,000 to $50,000.
  • “Give the CEO concise, regular visibility into status, progress, and risks.” A fractional chief of staff, two to three days a week.

Track, follow up, chase, prepare, keep. The assistants themselves describe the same split. In Vimcal’s 2026 survey of 600 executive assistants, 29.3% named scheduling and calendar management as the single activity they spend the most time on, 21.5% email and communication, and 16.3% projects and strategic work; travel and meeting preparation took most of the rest. On the other side of the desk, Microsoft’s telemetry from February 2025 has the average worker receiving 117 emails a day and being interrupted every two minutes in core hours, and a Censuswide survey of 251 US entrepreneurs for Time etc found a 45.5-hour week with 36% of it spent on administration: 44% create invoices in a typical week, 45% manage the schedule, 27% chase late payers themselves.

The arithmetic that justifies the hire has not changed since Melba Duncan set it out in the Harvard Business Review in May 2011: an executive on $1 million with an assistant on $80,000 breaks even when the assistant makes the executive 8% more productive, about five hours in a sixty-hour week. At a founder’s pay the sum is tighter, and it is why most of the companies in the postings above are hiring their first assistant at the moment the follow-ups have started to slip.

Where the line falls between the person and the software

Castan is an AI that builds and runs a company with its owner, who owns everything it makes, and the tracking half of the job above is what it does. It joins Google Meet, Zoom and Teams calls and sends every participant the recap; it keeps what was promised, to whom and on which call, and answers the question with the source; it notices the invoice coming due and the one gone late and drafts the chaser from the invoice and the last thing the customer said; it writes the brief before an outside call and the weekly review; and a routine described in a sentence becomes a custom agent that runs on its own schedule. Anything that reaches a customer waits for a person to approve it. The price is per workspace, whoever is in it: free to start, $29 a month on Founding and $99, $299 and $599 above that, which is the point of comparison with the table above.

What stays with a person is the part no posting manages to describe in a bullet: the judgement about which commitment matters this week, the call to the client who is upset, the trip that cannot go wrong. The companies hiring at $75,000 to $95,000 are paying for that judgement and getting the tracking thrown in. Run the tracking on software and the person you hire, if you still hire one, is hired for the judgement.

Wages, prices and surveys above carry the day each was read and link to the page it came from; the loaded-cost totals are our arithmetic from the BLS split. If a figure has moved, write to hello@castan.ai and the page is corrected with the date of the change.

Questions people ask

How much does an executive assistant cost per year?

The US median was $76,590 in the May 2025 BLS survey, with the tenth percentile at $50,560 and the ninetieth at $109,850. Indeed’s average from job postings was $74,727 and Payscale’s from self-reported base pay $68,026, both read on 13 October 2026. Add about 43% for benefits to get the employer’s cost.

What is the fully loaded cost of an executive assistant?

About $109,000 a year at the median salary. The BLS measures benefits at 30% of private-industry compensation (June 2026 release), so the loaded cost is the salary divided by 0.70, before recruiting, equipment and ramp.

How much does an executive assistant cost per hour?

A dedicated US-based assistant from Time etc is $36 to $39 an hour in monthly packages; Zirtual works out at $38 to $50; Upwork’s typical range is $10 to $20 with executive-level freelancers at $38 to $50 and up. A fractional chief of staff averages $172 an hour on Go Fractional’s page as archived in September 2026.

How much does an executive assistant earn in London?

Reed’s average is £59,004 in London and £45,121 across the UK; Totaljobs, from a more junior set of listings, £42,499 in London and £32,499 across the UK, read on 13 October 2026.

What does an executive assistant actually do?

In the postings read for this page: track commitments and follow-ups, manage calendars and inboxes, prepare meeting materials and follow-up notes, create, send and track invoices, keep the trackers current, and make sure nothing falls through the cracks. In Vimcal’s 2026 survey, scheduling and email together were where half of assistants spend most of their time.

Sources

Prices and terms at other companies change over time. Every figure on this page carries the day it was read, and the page it was read on is linked above. If one has moved since, write to hello@castan.ai and the page is corrected.

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