Month-to-Month vs. Long-Term VA Contracts: Which Is Right for You?
Companies that require long-term contracts are telling you something: they are not confident you will stay voluntarily.
Think about what a contract actually does. It legally obligates you to keep paying for a service regardless of whether that service is delivering value. The company on the other side of that contract is protected from the natural consequence of underperformance — which is losing your business. The moment you sign a 12-month commitment, the incentive structure shifts. Your satisfaction becomes less urgent. The service has been sold.
This is not a cynical reading of the VA industry. It is the logical consequence of contract structures. When you remove the possibility of losing a client, you change how the company behaves toward that client. Not always dramatically, and not because anyone is malicious. Just because the feedback mechanism is blunted.
Month-to-month forces accountability in both directions. The VA service has to earn your business every month. And you, as the client, have to show up with clear direction and reasonable expectations — because you can walk, and they know it.
How the Major VA Services Structure Their Contracts
Understanding the landscape helps you evaluate what you are agreeing to.
| Service | Contract Structure | Minimum Commitment |
|---|---|---|
| Athena | Annual commitment required | 12 months |
| Belay | Contract required | 6 months minimum |
| Wing | Month-to-month | No minimum, but VA turnover is reported as high |
| Time Etc | Flexible | Month-to-month with rolling subscriptions |
| The Human Capital | Month-to-month | None — no lock-in |
The Athena comparison and Belay comparison pages break down the full differences in model and pricing. But the contract structure alone tells a significant part of the story.
Athena's 12-month commitment is among the strictest in the industry. At their price point, that is a substantial financial exposure before you have confirmed the match is working. Belay's 6-month minimum is more moderate but still means that if the placement is not right, you are negotiating an exit rather than simply choosing not to renew.
Wing offers month-to-month, which is a legitimate differentiator. But high VA turnover means you may get month-to-month flexibility paired with inconsistent staffing — which undermines much of the value of a dedicated VA model. Flexibility without stability is not the goal.
THC's model is month-to-month with a dedicated VA and 97 percent client retention beyond year one. Clients stay not because they have to. They stay because the arrangement is working.
What the Retention Number Actually Means
97 percent of THC clients stay beyond year one. In an industry where many services report significant churn in the first three to six months, this number warrants scrutiny.
It is not because of a contract. There is no contract keeping those clients in place. They are staying because:
The VA match is right. THC's placement process is designed to match VA skills and work styles to client personality and business needs. A poor match is the most common reason clients leave any VA service early. Getting the match right reduces that friction.
The VA stays. Turnover on the VA side is one of the most disruptive experiences a client can have. You train someone for weeks, build a working relationship, establish communication rhythms — and then they leave and you start over. THC's model prioritizes VA retention, which is why the dedicated model works. A VA who knows your business is a different resource than a VA who is constantly being onboarded.
The model scales. As clients' businesses grow, THC accommodates the change — shifting from part-time to full-time, adding task categories, adjusting workflows. Clients do not outgrow the arrangement; it grows with them.
The support structure holds. Every THC client has a dedicated Client Manager, not just a VA. If something is not working, the Client Manager's job is to fix it — before the client reaches the point of wanting to leave. See how our success management team operates as a built-in accountability layer.
When Long-Term Contracts Might Make Sense
There are scenarios where a longer commitment structure makes genuine business sense, and it is worth acknowledging them honestly.
Enterprise arrangements with custom SLAs. For large organizations deploying multiple VAs with custom service level agreements, data handling requirements, and integration into complex internal systems, a contract may be mutually beneficial. It gives the VA service certainty to invest in dedicated infrastructure, and it gives the enterprise predictable cost structure for budgeting purposes.
Multi-VA deployments with complex training. If you are deploying three or four VAs who each require extensive industry-specific training — healthcare compliance, legal research protocols, proprietary software systems — the VA service has a legitimate argument for recouping that training investment over a defined period.
Specialized skill-set placements. Some niche VA engagements require recruiting and training a VA with highly specific certifications or experience. If the VA service is investing heavily in that sourcing process, a minimum commitment is a reasonable ask.
For most small businesses, none of these conditions apply. Most small business clients need a reliable, well-matched generalist VA with strong administrative and communication skills. The case for a long-term contract in that scenario is weak. What you need is a service confident enough in its quality to let you leave if it stops working.
The Lawyer Case Study: Two Years, No Contract
One of THC's longest-running client relationships is with a solo litigation attorney who came on as a client in her second year of practice. She needed calendar management, client intake coordination, billing follow-up, and document formatting.
She has had the same VA for two years. No contract. No lock-in. She renews every month because the arrangement works — her VA knows her clients by name, anticipates scheduling needs, and has never had to be reminded of a preference twice.
She was asked once whether she would ever sign a long-term contract with a VA service. Her answer: "Why would I sign something that protects them from having to be good?"
That question captures the dynamic precisely. A month-to-month structure does not just protect the client from a bad arrangement — it keeps the service honest about delivering value on an ongoing basis.
Addressing Cancellation Concerns
When clients consider month-to-month services, cancellation fears sometimes surface as a concern in the opposite direction: "What happens if I leave? What happens to my data? What happens to my VA?"
These are legitimate questions and worth answering directly.
What happens to your data? At the end of any THC engagement, all client data held by the VA is returned and/or deleted per your instructions. We do not retain client business information after the relationship ends. The offboarding process includes a formal data disposition step.
What happens to your VA? Your VA is a THC employee. They continue with THC and are matched with other clients. If you return to THC later — which does happen — we make every effort to reconnect you with the same VA if they are available.
What about the transition? THC provides an offboarding period to ensure knowledge transfer is complete. If you are moving to a different service or bringing work in-house, your VA can document their processes, hand off active items, and ensure the transition is clean. We do not make leaving difficult, because we would rather you come back than leave with a bad experience.
Can you re-engage after canceling? Yes, without penalty. Former clients re-engage without a new setup fee and, where possible, with the same VA.
THC Pricing: Month-to-Month, No Exceptions
THC offers two pricing tiers, both month-to-month with no lock-in:
| Plan | Price | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Part-Time VA | $700/month | 20 hours/week |
| Full-Time VA | $1,300/month | 40 hours/week |
Both plans include a dedicated VA and a dedicated Client Manager. There are no setup fees, no minimum commitments, and no cancellation penalties.
See the full pricing page for details on what is included at each tier. For a third-party view of how THC compares to other services, the case studies section includes client outcomes across industries and business types.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there any benefit to committing long-term with THC?
THC does not offer a long-term contract option, so there is no pricing discount or incentive tied to a commitment period. The month-to-month structure is not a default that gets overridden for large clients — it is the model. The benefit of staying long-term with THC is not a discount; it is the compounding value of a VA who knows your business deeply, operates with increasing autonomy, and requires less of your active management over time. That relationship value grows with time. The pricing stays predictable.
What is THC's cancellation process?
Cancellation requires 30 days notice. During that 30-day period, your VA continues to work normally and an offboarding checklist is initiated: process documentation, active task handoffs, data disposition per your instructions, and a transition briefing if you are moving work to a new resource. There are no penalties, no clawback provisions, and no exit fees. If you have prepaid for a period beyond your cancellation date, the unused portion is refunded.
Why do 97% of THC clients stay beyond year one?
The honest answer is the same reason any service retains clients: it works. THC's 97 percent retention reflects three things working together. First, the placement process produces matches that hold — clients and VAs who work well together and build real professional relationships over time. Second, the Client Manager layer provides active account management that catches friction before it becomes a cancellation. Third, THC's VA compensation and culture produce low VA-side turnover, which means clients are not restarting with new VAs every few months. Month-to-month retention at 97 percent is a more meaningful quality signal than any contract-enforced retention rate, because every one of those clients is choosing to stay.
The contract structure of a VA service is not a minor administrative detail. It tells you who the arrangement is designed to protect. A 12-month commitment protects the service from the consequences of underperformance. A month-to-month structure keeps the pressure where it belongs — on the service, to earn your business every single month.
THC's 97 percent retention is not a coincidence. It is what happens when a VA service has to be good to keep its clients.
Book a free 15-minute strategy call and see what a no-contract, no-excuses VA relationship looks like.