Alternatives to Belay, Wing and MyOutDesk for a Shopify store
Search "virtual assistant agency" and the same names come up: Belay, Wing, MyOutDesk, and a dozen more. They are good at what they do, which is placing a trained generalist assistant with a busy professional. A Shopify store is a different problem. This page is what they offer, what they publish about price, and what changes when the assistant's whole job is your store.
Choose a generalist agency when the work is executive support: calendar, inbox triage, research, travel, bookkeeping handoffs. Choose a Shopify-specific team when the work is the store: catalogue, orders, returns, the customer inbox, the theme and the apps. The generalist can learn Shopify on your time; the specialist arrives already knowing why the Flow broke.
Choose a generalist agency when
- You need an executive or administrative assistant more than a store operator.
- You want a US-based or US-hours assistant and are pricing accordingly.
- You want a full-time dedicated person from day one and the volume to keep them busy.
- Your business is not primarily a Shopify store.
Choose ScaleWise VA when
- The work is Shopify: listings and catalogue structure, inventory, fulfilment and returns, support, Flow, metafields, app settings, ads.
- You want hours scoped to the month rather than a full-time package, and to start below a full-time commitment.
- You want the procedures written, a second person who knows the store, and the time and screenshots behind every invoice.
- You want to talk to the founder about your store rather than to an account manager about your assistant.
Side by side
| Generalist VA agency | ScaleWise VA | |
|---|---|---|
| What they are for | Executive, administrative and customer service assistants, placed with a business and managed by the agency. Shopify is one skill among many, if present. | Shopify store operations only. Ten people, all of whom work in Shopify admin every day. |
| Published price | MyOutDesk: "starting at $1,988/mo" for a full-time dedicated assistant, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (its pricing page, September 2026). Belay: no prices published; a flat monthly fee quoted on a call. Wing: the pricing page now goes to a call booking; no prices published. | Hourly tiers from $4 to $8 an hour on the Hire pages; monthly retainers scoped to volume from a discovery call. Hourly work has no minimum commitment. |
| Minimum commitment | Typically a monthly package, full-time at MyOutDesk. Part-time and hourly options vary by agency. | None on hourly. Retainers are monthly, a month's notice to end. |
| Location and hours | Belay places US-based assistants. MyOutDesk and Wing place assistants offshore, largely in the Philippines, working your hours. | Islamabad. UK and European mornings and US mornings are inside our day; late US afternoons are not. |
| Who you talk to | The assistant and an agency success or account manager. | The founder, plus your assigned operator. One accountable person for the whole arrangement. |
| Evidence of hours | Varies. Some agencies provide time tracking; ask which tool and who sees it. | Tarly, the portal we built: time, activity and screenshots captured with the team member's consent, visible on every invoice. |
| Proof | Testimonials and client logos, mostly from professional services, real estate and executive support. | Fourteen Shopify case studies with the client named, and 4.9 from 17 reviews on Fiverr. |
The learning curve you pay for
A generalist assistant can learn Shopify. Most do. The question is whose time that takes and what breaks meanwhile: the collection that lost its automated rule, the metafield that was overwritten in a bulk edit, the inventory that went negative because a location was misread. Each is a small mistake and each costs the owner an afternoon, which is the afternoon the assistant was hired to give back.
A specialist team has already made those mistakes, on stores that were not yours, and wrote the procedure that prevents them. That is what "run to a system" means and it is the whole difference between a VA and an operations team. Whether it is worth it depends on how much of your assistant's week would be Shopify. If the answer is most of it, hire for Shopify.
What you give up with us
- A US-based assistant in your timezone all day. Belay offers that; we do not.
- Executive support. We will not manage your calendar or book your travel well; that is not the job we hire for.
- A single full-time person from day one as the default. We scope hours; full-time is available when the volume is there.
- The scale of a large agency's bench. Ten people means we say no when we are full.
Questions people ask
- Are you cheaper than MyOutDesk, Belay or Wing?
- Per hour at the entry tier, yes, and hourly work has no monthly package. Full-time, it depends on the tier and the scope; we quote from a call like they do. The honest comparison is on fit: a Shopify operator versus a generalist who will learn Shopify on your account.
- Do you place a dedicated assistant like they do?
- You get an assigned operator who knows your store, and a second person behind them who also does. That is deliberate: a dedicated assistant with no cover is the arrangement that fails on their first week off.
- Can I get executive assistant work from you as well?
- Light admin around the store, yes. A true executive assistant, no; pair us with one of the agencies above if you need both.
- Why should I trust a ten-person agency over a large one?
- You should not trust either on size. Read the case studies, check the Fiverr reviews, take the discovery call and ask to see the portal. The big agencies will show you a sales deck; we will show you the time logs.
Where the figures come from
- MyOutDesk pricing: myoutdesk.com/pricing, read 16 September 2026 ("starting at $1,988/mo", 8 hours a day, 5 days a week).
- Belay: belaysolutions.com, read 16 September 2026; no prices published. Wing: wingassistant.com/pricing redirects to a call booking as of the same date.
- Our hourly tiers: the Hire a VA pages. Case studies: /work. Reviews: fiverr.com/zawi358.
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. If we are the wrong fit we will say so and point you at the right one; that is cheaper for both of us than a month that does not work.