Time Etc Review 2026: The Best Mid-Tier Dedicated VA?
Last tested: 2026-01-15 · v7.8/10
Our verdict
Time Etc
7.8/10
Best for
Entrepreneurs needing 10–30 hours/week of dedicated async support
Skip if
You need real-time coverage or have under 10 hours/week of work
Price floor
$390/mo for 10 hours (realistic useful tier: $700–$1,200/mo for 20–30 hrs)
Typical month-1 outcome: 6–10 hours/week recovered if SOPs are written. Rollover hours are a genuine advantage — unused hours carry to next month.
Time Etc sits in the gap between Fancy Hands (task-based, no relationship) and Belay (premium US EA, 3-week wait). If you need a dedicated assistant but can’t justify Belay’s price or wait, Time Etc is where most founders land.
We tested Time Etc for 60 days starting January 2026. Our primary use case: email management, research tasks, and calendar coordination for a 12-person consultancy.
Bottom line: Time Etc delivers solid value at the $700–$1,200/mo tier for operators who have repeatable, async-friendly work. The rollover hours policy is a genuine differentiator — unused hours carry forward, unlike Belay. The VA quality is good but not as consistently “EA-level” as Belay; expect one round of recalibration in month 1.
[realism check] Realistic month-1 outcome: 6–10 hours/week recovered if you’ve written your SOPs. If you “hire and pray,” expect 2–4 hours recovered and frustration. The rollover policy saves you in months where your volume dips — a real advantage for variable workloads.
Pricing reality
Time Etc publishes their pricing, which is refreshing:
- 10 hours/mo: $390/mo ($39/hr)
- 20 hours/mo: $700/mo ($35/hr)
- 30 hours/mo: $1,020/mo ($34/hr)
- 40 hours/mo: $1,290/mo ($32.25/hr)
The 10-hour tier is a trial entry point, not a realistic working arrangement. In our testing, 10 hours covered about 2 hours of real work per week — enough for 4–5 emails drafted and 2–3 calendar items. The 20-hour tier is the minimum useful floor for most operators.
Rollover hours: Unused hours carry forward to the following month. This is rare — Belay, MyOutDesk, and most dedicated services expire unused hours. It makes Time Etc significantly more forgiving for variable workloads.
No setup fee.
Onboarding: what actually happened
Day 1: Signed up online, matched to a VA within 48 hours (much faster than Belay’s 3-week process). Brief intake form about work style and preferences.
Day 3: Kickoff call with VA. She was US-based, articulate, and had reviewed our intake form. We walked through 3 first tasks.
Week 1: First tasks completed. Quality was solid — one email draft needed a tone adjustment (she was slightly more formal than we wanted), which we corrected in a 10-minute Loom.
Week 2: Running well. The tone calibration from week 1 carried forward.
Month 2: One recalibration when we added a new task type (competitor research summaries). Two rounds of feedback before the output was right.
VA quality notes
Time Etc VAs are primarily US-based but they also have UK and Australia-based options. Quality is good but not uniformly “EA-level” — some VAs are better suited to administrative work than judgment-heavy tasks. Our VA was strong on execution, weaker on prioritization judgment (she’d complete tasks in the order received rather than by urgency).
This is solvable with a brief weekly priority note — but it requires operator input, unlike Belay where the EA is expected to infer priority from context.
Who Time Etc is actually right for
Time Etc is a fit if:
- You have 10–40 hours/month of async-friendly, repeatable work
- You want a faster start than Belay (48-hour matching vs 3 weeks)
- You have a variable workload month to month (rollover hours protect you)
- Your budget is $700–$1,200/mo
- You need US/UK timezone coverage
Time Etc is not a fit if:
- You need real-time coverage throughout the business day
- Your budget is under $400/mo (the 10-hr tier isn’t a real working arrangement)
- You need industry-specific VA expertise (real estate, legal, medical)
Compare against alternatives
See our Time Etc vs Belay comparison for the direct head-to-head. If budget is the deciding factor, see Time Etc vs Wishup — Wishup’s $999/mo for 80 hours vs Time Etc’s $700/mo for 20 hours is a significant structural difference worth modeling.
Verdict
Time Etc is the honest value-tier pick for US-based founders who need dedicated support but can’t justify Belay’s premium. The rollover hours are the feature no one talks about enough. VA quality is consistently good, if not quite “chief of staff” level.
Score: 7.8/10. Points lost for variable VA quality and the 10-hr entry tier being too thin to be useful.
We earn a commission if you sign up via our links — at no extra cost to you. We pay for our own test accounts.
Affiliate disclosure: We earn a commission if you sign up via our links — at no extra cost to you. We pay for our own test accounts. This review reflects our independent testing.