- March 21, 2023
- Kaitlyn
15+ Apps for Virtual Assistants
Virtual assistants are becoming more and more popular as remote work continues to grow. Starting your own virtual assisting business comes with tons of perks, like being able to choose your own rates and work on your own time, but there is a slight learning curve with all the software available. Some are more user-friendly than others. Some are incredibly expensive for no reason.
So. As a virtual assistant who owns an agency, here are my favorite 16 apps for virtual assistants that are a must-have!
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Time Tracking Apps for Virtual Assistants
As a virtual assistant, it’s crucial that you track your time with something more sophisticated than your average timer. A time-tracking software that allows you to organize by client, project, and team member is exactly what every virtual assistant needs!
Toggl
Toggl is a great time-tracking app that allows you to track team members’ time, projects, and clients. See what you spend the most time on while giving your clients the most transparent view of what projects you’re doing!
I personally use Toggl, and I haven’t had an issue with it! There is an app for your phone, a Google Chrome extension, and a website where you can track your time. They have both a free and paid version, but I have always used the free version.
Clockify
Like Toggl, Clockify is another great way to track your time. You can track your projects, clients, and team members’ time using Clockify.
Toggl and Clockify are extremely similar, but Clockify isn’t as user-friendly. If you struggle with technology, Toggl may be your best bet. But Clockify does offer more features than Toggl. If you’re having a hard time choosing between the two, check out this article that breaks down both software.
Find Clockify in your app store, in a Google Chrome Extension, or on their website!
Project Management Apps for Virtual Assistants
As a virtual assistant, your job is to make your client’s lives easier, but that can be hard if you don’t have a way to manage projects! If you haven’t started using a project management software yet, I highly recommend using one ASAP, because when you get busy and don’t have a system in place, you will regret it!
Asana
I use Asana when managing my team projects. I love being able to see the calendar view, I can get emails when a team member finishes a task, and I can add all the information and instructions for them within the task. I find this one to be the most user-friendly and popular among agencies. If you’re wanting to work in an agency, I recommend getting familiar with Asana!
Asana offers a free basic plan!
Trello
Trello is one of my personal favorites. There is a bit of a learning curve, but once you get it down, it is incredible! I use it to manage my daily tasks for my agency, important information from clients like usernames and passwords, and even my content for this blog! Trello is free for up to 10 workspaces.
Airtable
Another one of my favorites is Airtable. Airtable is probably the least user-friendly of them all, but it’s the most organized. It’s basically like an extreme excel sheet. I’ve worked with agencies that have used Airtable for their blog content calendar, but I personally use it to manage mine and my clients’ social calendars!
You can set up your workspace so you can see what type of content is being posted, when, and the status of the post (if it’s waiting for a caption, hashtags, scheduled, or already posted). It helps your clients really trust the work and process that you’re doing.
Airtable is free for up to 5 creators and editors.
Design Apps for Virtual Assistants
If you haven’t needed to design anything yet, you will soon! Whether you want to design your own logo and branding, or you need to help a client create a Pinterest post, you need to have access to some sort of design software.
Canva
If you haven’t heard of Canva yet, get familiar with it! It’s known for being incredibly user-friendly and allowing anyone to design anything, no matter if you have experience with graphic design or not!
Canva does offer a free version, but there isn’t much you can do with it. If you are only wanting to use it for random one-off projects, you can get by with the free version! If you’re wanting to design social media content, ebooks, and a portfolio, you’ll need a pro version which is $12.99/month.
With all the templates and designs that I can use with the pro version, I definitely think my pro account is worth it, but only because I use it about every day!
Email Apps for Virtual Assistants
As a virtual assistant, you are most likely very comfortable with managing emails. However, there are some apps that can help both you and your clients stay organized! There are also a few email marketing software that I enjoy more than others.
Unroll.Me
Unroll.Me is not an email marketing platform. Its software allows you to manage all the random subscriptions you have so your email doesn’t get flooded with them! It will send you one email a day with ALL of your subscriptions, instead of hundreds randomly throughout the day! You can bulk unsubscribe as well!
Unroll.Me is free to use. I use this and I personally recommend this to all of my clients!
Streak
Streak is a great way to manage your email workflow. If you want to make your email a “to-do” list and don’t want to do that via filters and labels, Streak is perfect for that! Streak also allows you to see when someone opens your email, links that were clicked, and the number of times it was opened. However, I haven’t found this to be very accurate, so take that information with a grain of salt.
Streak does have a free version, as well as paid versions.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an email marketing software, and you either hate or love Mailchimp, there isn’t much of a middle. I personally think it’s great if you have a small audience because it’s free for up to 1,000 email sends/month. It’s very user-friendly and is a great way to break into managing your own email list and learning how to offer it to your clients!
However, I don’t think it’s great if you have a large audience. It can get expensive very fast and there aren’t as many automation options as others. So, once your email list gets big enough, transfer it to another cheap but paid platform!
ConvertKit
I personally use and love ConvertKit! If you’re wanting to broaden your sources of income, there are many options for you to sell digital products and subscriptions. There are so many automation options as well!
ConvertKit is free for up to 300 subscribers, and their most expensive plan is $29/month!
Contract & Invoice Apps for Virtual Assistants
As a virtual assistant, you need to be able to create and send contracts and invoices several times a month. If you don’t have a system in place right now, it’s going to get hectic! If you’ve made it this far, you can probably tell that that’s a running theme.
Honeybook
Honeybook is by far my favorite platform for managing my client’s documents. It’s incredibly user-friendly, I can easily send contracts and invoices, I can see when they’ve read an email (and it’s incredibly accurate), and if a client is late submitting an invoice, I can have Honeybook remind them and not me! A people pleaser feature that I personally love.
Honeybook’s customer service team is top-tier. When you sign up with a paid subscription, they will ask you to send any important documents like past contracts, portfolios, or anything you want in your templates to a Honeybook team member. They then will organize everything FOR you! This in itself saved me hours and hours of work and headache and made the experience so much better!
Honeybook, unfortunately, only offers a free trial, not a free plan. This isn’t enough time to get to know the platform and decide, so you really have to jump in, which is annoying.
The starter plan only costs $19/month, while the premium plan is $79/month.
Dubsado
Dubsado is another popular CRM, but it is much less user-friendly. There is a huge learning curve for Dubsado, but once you have it down, it can be just as great as Honeybook! You can save email templates, send invoices and contracts, and overall manage your client pipeline.
Unlike Honeybook, Dubsado is free for up to 3 clients, so this allows you to really get the feel for the platform before paying for a plan when your business grows. The cheapest plan is $20/month, while the premium plan is $40/month.
Hellosign/Dropbox Sign
If you don’t need an invoicing platform but you still need some way for your client to sign a contract, Hellosign/Dropbox Sign is a great software to use. You can sign 3 contracts every 30 days for free, but then after that, plans start at $15/month. It’s incredibly user-friendly. You upload your document, place boxes on where you need information signed, and then send it! I used it before I turned my business into an agency, and I loved it.
Writing/SEO
If you’re wanting to grow your business, you are going to need some SEO tools and writing help. Some are free, some are very expensive, so let’s get to it!
Grammarly
If you’ve seen an ad on YouTube, you’ve probably heard of Grammarly, and boy, is it helpful! It’s an AI that will help you ensure that everything you’ve written is clear and concise, but it’s not perfect, so be sure to proofread before you submit!
You can use it for client emails, cold emails, email marketing, blog writing (I may be using it right now!), and even random things on your website!
Grammarly has a free plan, but you can upgrade your plan if you’re an avid user to $30/month and $45/month.
Ahrefs
There are many different SEO tools out there, but I personally love Ahrefs. It’s great for letting me see incredibly accurate information on keywords and my website, and has so much free information about SEO!
Ahrefs doesn’t have a free version and is quite expensive, starting at $99/month.
Keywords Everywhere
Like Ahrefs, Keywords Everywhere allows you to do keyword research for Google, Pinterest, and YouTube. Just download the Google Extension, and you can see information for any keyword you search! It’s free to use, so get started optimizing your content!
If you’re thinking about starting a virtual assisting business but haven’t yet, be sure to check out this article, where I break down easy steps to get you started.
Did these help you? Let me know by sending me an email at hello@strivehustles.com.
Clockify is one of my favorite tools to use. Great article and very informative!
I LOVE time-tracking apps! I’m glad you found it helpful!