Business owners are a funny bunch. We’ll happily spend hours colour-coding spreadsheets, chasing invoices, or trying to work out why the printer is eating paper again… all while telling ourselves we’re “saving money.”
Spoiler: you’re not. You’re bleeding it.
The Hidden Math You Don’t Want to Do
Let’s rip the Band-Aid off.
Say you’re a professional billing $150/hour. You spend two hours a day on admin, emails, chasing paperwork, playing calendar Tetris. That’s $300 in potential income down the drain every single day.
Over a year? That’s $78,000 you’ll never see again.
Now, compare that to our Starter Lineup VA package at $697 a month. That’s $8,364 for the whole year. Do the maths, you’re literally choosing a $70k hole in your pocket just to keep juggling your own inbox.
Not such a smart “saving,” hey?
The Stress Tax (It’s Real, and It’s Nasty)
Money aside, let’s talk energy. Admin work comes with what we call the stress tax, that invisible drain on your creativity, patience, and brainpower.
- Decision fatigue from 400 emails before lunch
- Snapping at your family because an invoice bounced again
- Staring blankly at your to-do list because your brain is fried
And for our neurodivergent clients (ADHD, ASD, etc.)? Admin can feel like quicksand. The harder you fight it, the faster it pulls you under. Once they hand that work to us, they don’t just save money — they reclaim the energy to actually do the stuff they’re brilliant at.
The Growth Ceiling Nobody Warned You About
Here’s a secret: most BTM clients stick around for 2.5 years. Why? Because by then they’ve grown enough to justify hiring in-house staff.
That’s not us losing a client — that’s us high-fiving them over the finish line.
But the ones who never outsource? They smack into the solopreneur ceiling. It’s not their skills or demand that stops growth, it’s the fact they’re chained to their inbox.
If you can only serve 20 clients because you’re buried in admin, when you could serve 35 with help… that’s not just lost revenue. That’s your whole business potential getting squashed under paperwork.
The True Cost Calculator (Grab Your Coffee, Do the Sums)
Here’s how to figure it out:
- Your hourly rate × admin hours per week × 52 = Annual DIY Cost
- Add 20% for the stress tax (yes, it’s real).
- Add the clients you didn’t take on because you were stuck chasing invoices.
- Subtract the cost of a BTM VA package.
If the number makes you feel slightly sick, congrats, you’ve just discovered why DIY isn’t cheaper.
Case in Point: The NDIS Payment Chase
We see this one all the time. An allied health practitioner spends five hours a week chasing NDIS payments. That’s $900 in billable time lost every week (at $180/hour).
Hand it to us? Payments get followed up systematically, cashflow improves by 40%, and you get those five hours back to spend on clients (or, let’s be real, Netflix).
Annual difference: about $46,800 in reclaimed revenue, all for an $8,364 package. That’s a 450% ROI.
The Compound Effect: Where the Magic Happens
The real win isn’t just the money (though that’s nice). It’s what happens when you’re no longer the bottleneck:
- You can actually take a holiday without your business falling apart
- You’ve got energy for business development (not just email triage)
- You can say “yes” to more clients without adding more stress
- You’re running your business instead of it running you
The Bottom Line
So, here’s the question:
Can you afford a VA?
Or can you afford to keep being your own admin monkey?
At Beyond the Maze, we’re not just ticking boxes — we’re giving you back time, energy, and the chance to grow without hitting the wall.
Because every hour you’re buried in admin is an hour stolen from your zone of genius.
And frankly? You’re too good for that.
Click on the Book a Call button now at the top right of this page and talk to us about how we can help.
