An alternative to hiring an administrative assistant
Inbox sorted, records kept current and new customers set up, done remotely in your tools, without the hire.
Instead of hiring an administrative assistant, you can hand the repeatable office admin to Dull: a done-for-you back-office service that sorts your shared inbox, answers routine requests from templates you approve, sets up new customers and jobs, and keeps your records current, for a flat monthly fee, month to month, with a fixed quote on a 15-minute call. Most businesses are live in about a week.
Dull is remote, so it suits the admin that happens on a screen. Below: what the role involves, what a hire costs, how the options compare and what still needs a person in your office.
What an administrative assistant actually does
- Sort the inbox, answer routine emails and forward the rest.
- Manage calendars and book appointments.
- Enter and update records.
- Prepare documents, forms and simple reports.
- Set up new customers, jobs and files.
- Answer phones, greet visitors and handle mail.
What hiring an administrative assistant really costs
BLS tracks this role as secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical and executive (SOC 43-6014), about 1.71 million US workers in May 2025.
| Cost | Source | |
|---|---|---|
| Median salary | $47,540 a year ($22.86 an hour) | BLS, May 2025, SOC 43-6014 |
| Average salary | $49,350 a year | BLS, May 2025 |
| Benefits and payroll taxes | about $20,400 a year | BLS employer costs, June 2026 |
| All-in cost of a median hire | about $67,900 a year, or $5,660 a month | Median salary ÷ 0.70 |
| Time to fill the seat | a median of 39 days, before training | SHRM, 2026 |
| Dull | Flat monthly fee, month to month, quoted on a 15-minute call | How Dull pricing works |
BLS reports that wages make up 70.0% of what private employers spend per worker, and benefits and legally required payroll taxes make up the other 30.0% (Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026). Dividing the median salary by 0.70 gives the all-in figure. It still leaves out job ads, recruiter fees, equipment, software seats and the hours you spend training, so the real cost of a hire is higher. Pay also varies by city: the BLS page has state and metro figures.
This isn’t a like-for-like comparison, and we won’t pretend it is. A full-time employee works about 2,080 hours a year and can pick up anything you hand them. Dull’s pilot covers one process, up to 300 standard records a month. If the seat is bigger than that, tell us on the call and we’ll tell you honestly whether we can cover it.
Your options compared
| Option | Monthly cost | Time to start | Who checks the work | Commitment | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hire an employee | about $5,660 all in | median 39 days to fill, then training | You | Employment | Steady full-time volume, or work that needs someone on site |
| Temp agency | about $5,940 to $6,540 | usually faster than hiring | You | Per assignment | Short gaps, like covering leave |
| Offshore virtual assistant | about $571 to $900 hired directly, before agency fees | days to weeks to find and train | You | Varies | Broad, changing tasks when you have time to manage |
| Outsourced bookkeeper | varies by firm and volume | varies | The bookkeeper | Usually monthly | Accurate books, reconciliations and month-end close |
| Dull | Flat monthly fee, quoted on a 15-minute call | about a week | A person reviews every exception; you get a Friday summary | Month to month | One repeatable process you want off your plate now |
Temp cost is the median hourly wage plus a typical agency markup of 50% to 65% (American Society of Employers), over 2,080 hours a year. The virtual assistant range is the middle half of full-time asking rates in a 2026 survey of 1,385 Filipino VA applicants (Outsource Accelerator).
- Hiring gets you a dedicated person who learns your business and can take on anything. You also carry the salary, benefits, recruiting, training, and the gap when they’re out or leave.
- A temp agency covers the seat fast with no recruiting on your side. You pay the markup, and you still train and check the work, sometimes again with each new temp.
- An offshore virtual assistant is the cheapest per month. You find, train and manage them, check the work yourself, and handle time zones and turnover.
- A bookkeeper keeps your books accurate and closes the month. Daily invoicing, entry and chasing are a different job, so ask whether they’re included and what they cost.
- Dull is a set price, live in about a week, with a person reviewing every exception and a weekly report. It covers defined, repeatable work, not everything a full-time employee would do.
What Dull handles and what it doesn’t
What we handle
- Shared inbox triage: routine requests answered from templates you approve, everything else routed to the right person with a one-line summary.
- Calendar booking for routine appointments, under the rules you set.
- New customer and job setup across your systems, checked against your rules.
- Record updates and cleanup in your CRM, spreadsheets or job system.
- A Friday summary: what got done, what’s waiting on you and anything blocked.
For example, picture a property management office where tenant emails, vendor quotes and move-in paperwork all land in one inbox. Routine questions get a same-day reply from approved templates, quotes are logged against the right property, and new tenant records are set up before move-in. Anything that needs a judgment call goes to the manager as a short list.
What we don’t do
- Paying bills, sending payments or moving money. You approve and pay.
- Payroll, tax filings or anything that needs a licence.
- Approval decisions, like credit limits, refunds, write-offs or payment plans. We prepare them; you decide.
- Medical or dental patient records (HIPAA) and card numbers. They aren’t part of the standard pilot: if your work involves them, tell us on the call and we’ll go through what’s needed before anything starts.
- Phone calls with your customers. The pilot works by email and in your systems.
How the switch works
- A 15-minute call. Tell us which seat is empty or which work is piling up. We’ll tell you straight whether we can take it on.
- We learn your rules. You give us a login with only the access the job needs, about 20 examples of finished work, your “always” and “never” rules, and one person who answers our questions.
- Shadow first. We run alongside your current process on real records, and you check our output against yours before we take anything over.
- Live in about a week. Then you get a summary every Friday: what got done, what’s waiting on you and anything blocked. It’s month to month, so if we stop being worth it, you cancel.
When hiring is the better choice
Hire if you need someone in the building: answering phones, greeting visitors, handling mail and running errands. Dull doesn’t do in-person work or phone reception.
Related
Covering more than one seat? See the alternative to hiring a data entry clerk, the alternative to hiring an order entry clerk, the alternative to hiring an accounts payable clerk, and what Dull costs.
Frequently asked questions
The median US secretary or administrative assistant (outside legal, medical and executive roles) earned $47,540 in May 2025, according to BLS. With benefits and payroll taxes that is about $67,900 a year, or $5,660 a month. Dull charges a flat monthly fee, month to month, usually well below the all-in cost of a full-time hire. You get a fixed quote on a 15-minute call.
No. Dull works remotely in your inbox and systems. Phone reception and in-person tasks need someone on your team.
Yes, a shared inbox. We answer routine requests from templates you approve and route everything else to the right person.
Forward it to a shared inbox. Anyone you approve can send requests, and you keep one point of contact on our team.
The ones you already use, such as Gmail, Outlook, Google Sheets, your CRM and QuickBooks. You give us access the way you would a new hire.