How Mi PA Compares
If your week is disappearing into admin, calls and your inbox, you have five realistic options. You can hire somebody. You can use an offshore virtual assistant. You can find a freelance VA. You can try to solve it with AI. Or you can work with a UK based PA service like ours.
We are not going to pretend we are the right answer every time. Each of the pages below sets out what the alternative does well, what it costs you, and where it tends to come unstuck. If one of them suits you better than we do, we would rather you knew that now than three months in.
Written by Emma Mills, Founder and Managing Director of Mi PA. Last reviewed September 2026.
The four comparisons, at a glance
The short version of each argument. Follow any of them through for the full comparison.
| If you are considering | Where it wins | Where it costs you |
|---|---|---|
|
Hiring an employee
Compare the real costs
|
Somebody in your building, full time, entirely yours to direct. | National Insurance, pension, holiday, sick pay, recruitment, and weeks before they are useful. |
|
An offshore virtual assistant
See the honest comparison
|
A much lower hourly rate on high volume work that never touches a customer. | Time zone delays, call quality your customers notice, and less certainty about your data. |
|
A freelance virtual assistant
Compare cover and continuity
|
One person who knows you well, often at a keen rate, with a direct relationship. | One person is also a single point of failure when they are ill, away or oversubscribed. |
|
AI on its own
See what AI cannot do
|
Drafting, summarising and research, fast and for almost nothing. | It does what you ask, and the whole problem is that you have no time to ask. |
What you are comparing us against
Mi PA is a UK based PA and call answering team. We have been doing this since 2008, we support over 500 businesses, and we answer over 2,000 calls a day from our office in Salford.
You get a dedicated PA on one fixed monthly fee, with a calendar month notice period. No recruitment, no training and nothing to manage.
Still weighing it up?
Book a free call with Emma. If we are not the right fit, she will tell you which of the others is.
