Compare · vs hiring in-house
Hiring in-house vs ScaleWise VA
An employee is the default answer to "the store is running me". This page is the arithmetic behind that answer, so you can decide with the numbers in front of you rather than after the job ad has gone out.
The short version
A salary buys one person's week, plus employer costs, holiday, equipment and the hours you spend recruiting and training. A ScaleWise VA team buys the store's work: Shopify-trained people from day one, cover when someone is away, written procedures, and hours that follow the season instead of a fixed headcount.
When to choose us
Use ScaleWise VA when
- The work is repeatable: listings, catalogue cleanup, inventory updates, order and returns handling, the support inbox, store fixes.
- You want the work to survive one person's holiday, sick day or resignation. Every store we run has a second person who knows it.
- You want hours scoped to the month's volume rather than a fixed salary, and to change them when the season does.
- You want the time and the screenshots behind every invoice, without building that monitoring yourself.
Side by side
In-house hire and ScaleWise VA, point by point.
| What it is about | In-house hire | ScaleWise VA |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | A salary, plus employer contributions, holiday and equipment on top of it, whether the month is busy or quiet. | Hours. Hourly VA tiers start at $4 to $8 an hour depending on the work; most clients are on a monthly retainer scoped to their volume. |
| Cover | None by default. Holiday, sickness and notice periods are yours to absorb or to hire around. | A second person on the team knows each store. Cover is part of the arrangement, not an extra. |
| Time to start | Advertise, shortlist, interview, notice period, onboarding. Weeks at best. | A discovery call, a scope, and a start. Most engagements begin within a week of the call. |
| Shopify knowledge on day one | Whatever the candidate brings. Training is your time. | Shopify is the whole job. Flow, metafields, catalogue structure, apps, the admin at scale. |
| Procedures | Live in the person's head unless you write them down and keep them current. | Every recurring job has a written procedure in our portal, with a record of who has read it. |
| Oversight | You, or a manager you also pay for. | Time logs and screenshots on every invoice, and one person (the founder) you talk to about all of it. |
| Where the work happens | In your building, at a desk you provide. | Inside your Shopify admin and your helpdesk, from Islamabad, covering your working hours wherever you are: US, UK, European or Australian. |
| Ending it | Notice periods, and in the UK and EU a process. Fair to the employee, slow for you. | Two weeks' notice on a retainer. No severance, no process. |
A worked example
The number people forget: what sits on top of the salary
Put your own salary figure in; the point is the layer on top, which the job ad never mentions. In the UK, from April 2025 the employer pays National Insurance at 15% on everything above £5,000 a year, a minimum 3% pension contribution under auto-enrolment, and 5.6 weeks of paid holiday (28 days for a five-day week) during which the work still needs doing. In the US, the employer share of Social Security and Medicare is 7.65% of wages, before federal and state unemployment insurance and whatever health cover you offer.
Then the items that are not on any payslip: a laptop, software seats, a desk if you have an office, the hours you spend recruiting, the weeks you spend training, and the cost of the store being run badly for the six weeks between one person leaving and the next one being useful.
A retainer has none of that layer. You pay for the hours the store needs, the cover is built in, and the procedures stay with the store when people change.
Questions
Questions people ask.
Is a virtual assistant cheaper than an employee?
Usually, once employer contributions, holiday, equipment and cover are counted, and always when the workload is less than a full week. Our VA tiers start at $4 to $8 an hour, with hours scoped to the month.
Who owns the procedures and the accounts?
You do. Procedures are written for your store and handed over if we part; logins are yours and we work inside your Shopify admin as staff accounts you can revoke.
Can we start with a few hours and grow?
Yes. The hourly model exists for that. Most clients move to a retainer once the month's volume is predictable.
Can a full-time person be dedicated to our store?
Yes. Hours scale up to full time when the volume is there, with the same written procedures and a second person who knows the store for cover.
Where the figures come from
- UK employer National Insurance rate and threshold: HMRC, rates from 6 April 2025. Auto-enrolment minimum: The Pensions Regulator. Statutory holiday: GOV.UK.
- US employer FICA share: IRS Publication 15.
- Our hourly tiers: the Hire a VA pages on this site. Engagement models: the Pricing page.
Prices and terms on other companies' pages change. If one of these has, tell us at hello@scalewiseva.com and we will correct it.
Not sure which one you are?
Tell us what the store is and what is eating your week, and a written quote follows the call. The hourly tiers are on the Hire a VA pages and the engagement models on Pricing.
“For the first time I am confident my Shopify store is in the right hands.”
Rex M., United States · Fiverr, repeat client
