Two managed VA services. One is the biggest player in the space. The other goes deeper on real estate. Here’s the honest comparison.
MyOutDesk is the largest US-based VA staffing firm with broad role coverage across many industries. If you need to place 5+ VAs at once across multiple departments, their pipeline depth is a real advantage.
PHVA is a smaller, founder-led operation that places only real estate VAs. Lower price ($900–$1,500/mo full-time), faster placement (~11 days), 2% Academy acceptance rate, and direct founder access for every client. If you’re a real estate team hiring 1–3 VAs, this is usually the better fit.
Neither is wrong. They’re built for different stages.
| MyOutDesk | PHVA | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly Cost (full-time) | ~$1,800–$2,400 | $900–$1,500 |
| Service Model | Managed Placement (large-scale) | Managed Placement (boutique) |
| Real Estate Specialization | One of several verticals | The only vertical |
| Time to Placement | 2–4 weeks (varies) | ~11 days |
| Acceptance Rate | Not publicly disclosed | 2% of Academy applicants |
| Average Retention | Not publicly disclosed | 18 months |
| Founder Access | Account manager only | Direct — Julian Lundgren |
| Total Placements | Thousands across industries | 237 (real estate only) |
| Replacement Guarantee | Yes (varies by contract) | 30-day guarantee |
| Onboarding Program | Standardized, generic | Real estate–specific (Days 1–7 + 90-day plan) |
Pricing notes: MyOutDesk publishes a starting price but actual pricing varies by role, tier, and contract length — verify directly. PHVA pricing range covers TC, ISA, EA, listing coordinator, and similar real estate roles.
Being honest about the competitor’s strengths is the only way you can trust the rest of this page. MyOutDesk has real advantages, and we’ll tell you when to pick them.
If you’re a brokerage hiring 5, 10, or 20 VAs simultaneously across roles (admin, marketing, IT, customer support, executive), MyOutDesk has the bench depth to fill all of those at once. PHVA can place 1–3 simultaneously without compromising vetting; beyond that, we’d be stretching.
MyOutDesk has been in the space since 2008 and has paid relationships and integrations with several major real estate coaching programs. If your coach has already pre-negotiated a MyOutDesk discount, that may shift the math.
If you run a real estate brokerage and a separate e-commerce business or insurance practice, you can place all of your VAs through MyOutDesk under one contract. PHVA only places real estate roles, so you’d need a second provider for non-real-estate work.
MyOutDesk has the legal, security, and procurement infrastructure expected by large enterprises (SOC 2-style attestations, master service agreements, dedicated enterprise account managers). PHVA can sign an MSA but does not currently maintain SOC 2 attestations — if your legal team requires that, MyOutDesk is the safer pick.
Every PHVA Academy graduate is trained on the workflow of US real estate transactions: contract-to-close timelines, MLS listing prep, broker compliance basics, the difference between an ISA and a transaction coordinator, and the mechanics of CRMs that real estate teams actually use (Follow Up Boss, KvCORE, BoomTown, Sierra Interactive, Lofty, Real Geeks). At MyOutDesk, real estate is one of several verticals, and your VA may be coming off a previous placement in tech support, healthcare, or e-commerce.
If you’ve ever spent the first three weeks of a placement explaining what an EMD is, you know why this matters.
PHVA is small enough that Julian Lundgren — founder, former MN Realtor — is on the kickoff call for every new client. He sees the patterns across all 237 placements and applies them to your specific situation. At MyOutDesk’s scale, you work with an assigned account manager whose job is to manage many accounts at once. They’re competent, but they don’t have the founder’s 360-degree view of what works.
PHVA Academy accepts 2% of applicants. We test English fluency, real estate workflow comprehension, written communication, attention to detail, and live problem-solving on a mock TC scenario. The result: you don’t get a generalist VA hoping to learn real estate — you get someone who’s already proven they can do real estate work.
MyOutDesk does vet candidates and has its own quality bar. We don’t have visibility into their exact acceptance rate. What we can say is: smaller pipeline + tighter spec = a different kind of selectivity.
From contract signature to a productive day-one VA, PHVA averages 11 days. The pipeline is shorter because we’re only matching real-estate-trained candidates — we’re not searching across multiple verticals. MyOutDesk timelines vary, but their broader intake process generally takes longer for specialty real estate roles.
PHVA full-time placements run $900–$1,500/month all-in (depending on role and tier). MyOutDesk full-time placements typically start around $1,800/month and scale up from there. For a 12-month placement, the price difference can be $5,000–$15,000 — not a rounding error.
That said, the headline price isn’t the whole story. If a more expensive placement retains 2x longer, the lifetime math changes. PHVA’s 18-month average retention is the part of the math that often surprises people who’ve been quoted on price alone.
Every PHVA placement comes with a structured Days 1–7 onboarding plan and a 30/60/90-day expectations framework, both real-estate-tuned. We coach you through the first weekly check-in. MyOutDesk has its own onboarding process; ours is built around the actual rhythm of a real estate team (showing schedules, listing launches, contract-to-close cadence, weekly pipeline reviews).
Both providers charge a flat monthly fee that includes the VA’s wages, taxes, equipment provisioning support, and ongoing management. There are no hourly billable add-ons, recruiting fees, or buyout fees on either side. The differences are in the all-in monthly number.
Always confirm current pricing directly with MyOutDesk — they update tiers periodically.
The honest read: MyOutDesk’s premium is partly brand, partly enterprise infrastructure, and partly the cost of running thousands of placements. PHVA’s lower price reflects a smaller, more focused operation that doesn’t carry the same overhead. Neither pricing approach is wrong — just match the price model to your situation.
We’ve had teams switch in both directions. Here’s the honest framework for whether to consider it:
Your current placement is performing well, retention is solid, and the price feels worth it for your stage. Don’t switch just to save money on a relationship that’s working — the cost of replacing a productive VA is almost always higher than the monthly savings.
If any of those resonate, book a call. We’ll do an honest assessment of whether PHVA is a better fit — or whether the issue is something a switch won’t fix (e.g., scope clarity, weekly check-in cadence, role definition).
Yes. They’re the largest player in the space for a reason — consistent execution, strong brand, real infrastructure. We’d recommend them for the use cases listed above (large-scale, multi-vertical, enterprise procurement). The honest comparison is that they’re built for a different shape of customer than PHVA.
Lower overhead. PHVA is a smaller operation without the enterprise sales team, multi-vertical recruiting infrastructure, or the cost of supporting Fortune-500-scale procurement. We pay our VAs competitively (above-market for the Philippines) and the savings vs. MyOutDesk come from operational scope, not from underpaying talent.
The 30-day replacement guarantee functions as a trial. If your placement isn’t a fit in the first 30 days, we replace them at no extra cost. After 30 days, we’re month-to-month, so you’re never locked in. This is the same risk profile as a paid trial without forcing you to accept a junior placement just to lower the trial price.
Fair question. Our VAs are independent contractors who own their relationship with you — if for any reason PHVA stopped operating, you’d retain the relationship with your VA directly. This is a structural difference from W-2 staffing models where the VA is an employee of the placement firm.
MyOutDesk does offer a replacement guarantee, with terms that vary by contract. PHVA’s 30-day guarantee is comparable in spirit but cleaner in execution because the placement team is small enough that the founder is involved in every replacement decision. The differences are in operational responsiveness, not in whether the guarantee exists.
Both. Our typical client is a 2–15 agent team or a small-to-mid brokerage. We’ve placed for solo agents and for brokerages with 30+ agents. The sweet spot is teams placing 1–3 VAs at a time.
Book a 15-minute call. We’ll ask about your team size, roles, current pain, and budget. If MyOutDesk is the better fit for your situation, we’ll tell you. No sales pressure — just an honest read.
Want to compare other options? See all PHVA alternatives, vs Cyberbacker, vs Belay, or vs OnlineJobs.ph.
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