The Belay Solutions Alternative: Delegated.com 

Price. Hourly rate. Amount of hours in a package. Where the virtual assistants live. How many hours they can handle. What kind of hours they work.

When you’re searching for a virtual assistant service for your company, it’s a lot to digest. How do you know whether one service is better than another? How do you know whether to go with a service like Delegated? If you do nothing but research, research, research, you’ll come across plenty of solutions in your quest. How do you know which is the best?

In that quest, you’ll find options like Belay Solutions. Belay Solutions is a virtual assistant service that allows companies to grow their business by hiring out some of their projects to virtual assistants. Like many other virtual assistant services on the market, Belay Solutions gives businesses the option of choosing from select packages, which include an allotted amount of hours. It’s a straightforward, low-commitment way to add help without committing to a full time hire.

But Belay Solutions isn’t the only option out there. We want to introduce you to Delegated, after all, and understand why we might be a viable Belay Solutions alternative that can meet your virtual assistant needs. To do so, we’ll do a side-by-side comparison and introduce some of the key differences that may help you make your decision. Here’s what separates Belay Solutions from Delegated:

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What You Need to Know About Delegated and Belay Solutions

We don’t want to do a surface-level comparison here, but we do have to start somewhere. Let’s begin by introducing you to the two services: Delegated and Belay Solutions. Who are they? What do they do? What kinds of selling points do they emphasize? Here’s what you’ll need to know:

• Belay Solutions: Belay has built itself around Biblical principles, according to its Our Story section on its website. However, the company notes, its employees are not required to adhere to their religious beliefs. Belay was started in 2010 by a couple, originally starting out as an “advisory group” and eventually entered into a process of offering virtual assistant services. 

• Delegated: Delegated is more than just a Belay Solutions alternative. It’s an alternative for anyone who’s been frustrated by the VA hiring process before. Delegated, as a new arrival on the scene, is focused on quality. The VAs go through an “intense screening process.” The packages are comprehensive, including a backup VA and even 24/7 support for emergencies in case one VA is unable to perform the work. And finally--perhaps most notably--Delegated employes U.S.-based, fully employed VAs as part of its process. That means that businesses can be confident that their VAs are receiving the privileges of employees, even while working on a part-time or intermittent basis for the ultimate customer.
  

But this is just the bird’s-eye view. Let’s zoom in on some specifics to give you an idea of the exact offerings available at Belay and Delegated.com:

Delegated and Belay: A Virtual Assistance Service Side-by-Side Comparison

Belay and Delegated share similar values when it comes to the proper treatment of its employees: they both want good, highly-skilled, experienced VAs. But how do the two services stack up when comparing their packages side-by-side? In this section, we’ll take a look at two comparable packages.

To identify those comparable packages, we decided to start with our usual sample from Delegated: the “Business 40” package. That’s the package that includes 10 hours of VA services every month. Belay offers a 40-hour-per week package that includes the same amount of time per week, and we’ll include the per-hour rates to give you an idea of how the two stack up.

Keep in mind that Belay isn’t quite so forthcoming with its prices from its main navigation as Delegated. That means that we’ll have to do our best here to work with the available information. In some cases, the information is unavailable, which should not be construed as either a yes or a no.

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Although Belay Solutions will make you go through its pages and move forward with the process to discover some of these features, we think there are still comparisons to be made when measuring side-by-side. For instance, you’ll see that the prices are relatively similar, even though the overall price of the Belay Solutions 40-hour plan is variable, as we’re working off an hourly estimate, not Belay’s published website information. We should note, however that the information above is supplied by Virtual Assistant Assistant.

Even with the gaps in this chart, we should be able to make some comparisons that will be helpful as you consider whether Delegated is an appropriate Belay alternative for your needs.

The Minimum Hourly Rate Offers and Virtual Assistant Packages

Comparing two packages side-by-side can be misleading, particularly as the pricing comparisons don’t always stack up as the packages change, or if a customer makes a different order. That’s why we also wanted to provide the additional context of what the minimum packages at Belay and Delegated look like:

Delegated’s Minimum Package

Delegate’s minimum package is known as the “Personal 12,” and it’s ideal for anyone who wants to take on a VA but doesn’t have to make a large commitment yet. This package is targeted to individuals, such as entrepreneurs, freelancers, and solopreneurs, but is open to anyone who needs assistance with the daily to-do list. Here are the basic details:

• 12 hours per month, or three hours per week
• $420/month
• $35 per hour
• 1 user included
• Additional hours for $40/hour, allowed in 5 hour increments

Belay’s Minimum Package

As was the case in the table above, the details on Belay’s minimum package are hard to come by. However, there are some items we do know, thanks to Virtual Assistant Assistant, namely that the minimum package features 10 hours per month, or 2.5 hours per week. 

Belay vs. Delegated: What Kind of VAs Will You Work With?

Given that Belay and Delegated are similar in pricing structure, you might expect that both companies use similar standards when hiring its VAs. After all, the quality of the VA you’re working with is paramount to whether you feel the plan you use is worth it or not. A VA should be able to handle your specific tasks by leveraging their skills and experience. In fact, we think it’s better if a VA is better than you at the tasks you’re outsourcing, such as data entry or social media management.

How do you measure VA quality? Obviously, each virtual assistant is going to be a unique case. But we did want to highlight Delegated’s devotion to making sure that each VA is thoroughly screened and put through a process to make sure that you’re hiring someone with tremendous skills.

This isn’t to short-change Belay, which works hard to make sure that its VAs are well taken care of, and that each VA has at least five years of experience. There are many Belay alternatives out there that offer VA services for far less money on an hourly basis, and one of the reasons for that is these alternatives can sometimes shortchange experience. They might have lower standards for who they bring on to work as a VA, which in turn translates to lower costs for the customer.

Delegated works as a Belay alternative because it shares that kind of dedication to making sure that each customer has the right VA to work with them. And Delegated believes that the tasks you assign to a VA should be more efficient and more effective because you outsourced them. That, in turn, leads to the kind of long-term growth you seek when looking for VA services.

Next Steps: What Should You Do if Looking for a Belay Alternative?

Delegated is new to the scene, which is why we understand that you might find us if you’re simply looking for a Belay alternative. But we don’t consider ourselves an “alternative.” We consider ourselves a new option in the VA industry--a way to find experienced, highly skilled VAs who can work with you on a wide range of needs. And because our VAs work from the United States, they’ll share similar hours, allowing them to interact with you, handle your phones, and otherwise be available should the need arise.

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Interested in learning more? The next step is clear. Sign up with Delegated and get in touch with our customer success manager. We’ll be more than happy to match you with the dedicated VA who can take on your tasks with skill, experience, and enthusiasm.