Zirtual

Company overview

Zirtual is a US-based virtual assistant company founded in 2011, aimed at entrepreneurs, professionals, and small businesses that want dedicated admin support. The pitch is straightforward: every assistant is college-educated and based in the United States.

In August 2015 Zirtual abruptly stopped operations over cash flow and payroll problems. Startups.com acquired the company shortly after and resumed service. The episode was covered heavily at the time and is worth knowing about — more on it below.

What Zirtual does

The work is executive-style admin:

• Calendar and scheduling
• Inbox and email management
• Travel coordination
• Research
• Light social media
• Customer support for small teams

Assistants are dedicated, not shared across accounts. So the same person learns your business and stays with it.

Pricing

Tiered subscription, priced by the number of assistant hours per month. The rate most often cited is $2,499 for 50 hours, which works out to roughly $50/hour.

Some reference points:

• Entry plans start around $549/month for 12 hours.
• Full-time coverage (160+ hours) lands closer to $7,900/month.

That is US-rate pricing, plain and simple. If you want a Filipino VA at $9/hour, you’re shopping in the wrong category — Zirtual is what you pick when you specifically need someone in the same country, fluent, and with a degree.

Historical context

The 2015 shutdown

The cash-flow shutdown happened mid-month with very little warning, leaving clients and assistants scrambling. Coverage from the time is easy to find if you want the play-by-play.

Since then

The company has been operating under Startups.com’s ownership without further interruption. Worth knowing the history is there, especially if you’re committing to a longer contract.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• US-based, college-educated assistants
• Set up for executive-style admin work
• Subscription tiers map to actual workloads
• Backed by Startups.com after the 2015 incident

Cons

• Full-time coverage gets expensive fast
• Narrower service scope than offshore providers offering marketing, dev, or design

Final thoughts

If you need a US-based VA — for compliance reasons, communication preferences, or the kind of work that touches sensitive data — Zirtual is one of the few providers actually set up for it at this scale. It is not a budget option and it is not trying to be. The 2015 shutdown is part of the story; the operational track record since then is the more important data point.

Historical Updates