Should a recruitment agency buy interview scheduling software or hire a virtual assistant?

Scheduling software fits when the job is finding a time: it reads the calendars and lets the candidate pick a slot. A virtual assistant fits when the job is everything around the interview: chasing, rearranging and updating records. An agency with both problems at volume can have the workflow built, by an independent builder such as Alea Applied AI, across the ATS, the calendars and the inbox it already runs. Who owns the exceptions decides it.

Updated 4 October 2026

How do the four options compare?

Prices are the ones each company published on 4 October 2026. Wages are medians from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS). Each cell is a summary: the detail and the qualifiers are below.

Compared on	Buy scheduling software	Hire a virtual assistant	Hire an administrator	Have it built
Cost	Calendly Teams: 16 dollars a seat a month billed yearly. Cronofy's Scheduler: 15 dollars an assigned seat a month. GoodTime and Paradox print no price.	Wing: 999 dollars a month full-time, 699 part-time. MyOutDesk: from 1,988 dollars a month, full-time.	No official wage for the title. Nearest BLS medians, May 2025: 50,610 dollars a year for human resources assistants, 48,310 for secretaries and administrative assistants. ONS median in the UK, April 2025: 26,851 pounds for human resources administrative occupations. Employer costs come on top.	A fixed-fee audit, then a build quoted at a fixed price before it starts.
Time to live	Neither Calendly nor Cronofy gives a setup time on its pricing page. Calendly has a free plan.	Wing says an assistant is live in 48 hours. MyOutDesk says most clients are matched with an assistant within days.	The time it takes to recruit and train one person.	An audit of about a week, then a first working version usually live in two to four weeks.
Covers	Finding the time. On Calendly, reminders and automations start at Standard and round robin across recruiters at Teams.	Whatever you hand over, in set hours: Wing's full-time plan is 160 hours a month, its part-time plan 80.	Whatever one person can chase, rearrange and record in working hours.	The request, the offer of times, the confirmation and the reschedule, across the ATS, the calendars and the inbox you already run.
Leaves with you	Setting it up for each recruiter, and whatever its reminders do not resolve.	Instructions, access to your systems and day-to-day direction. Both firms say they oversee their assistants' performance and replace one at no extra cost.	Recruitment, training, supervision, cover for absence, and the hours the person does not work.	Agreeing the acceptance criteria, the cases the rules pass to a named person and, on Bullhorn, your written instruction to Bullhorn for our access.

What does each option cost, and what does it cover?

Each option is described from its own published pages, read on 4 October 2026, in the currency the page prints, and closes on when it fits.

Buy scheduling software
Scheduling software reads calendars and lets the candidate pick a slot. Calendly lists Standard at 10 dollars a seat a month billed yearly (12 billed monthly) and Teams at 16 (20 billed monthly); reminders and automations start at Standard, round robin, which shares bookings across recruiters, starts at Teams, and there is a free plan. Cronofy lists the Team plan of its Scheduler at 15 dollars an assigned seat a month (12 pounds, 14 euros), billed monthly, and says only seats used in the month are charged. GoodTime and Paradox print no price; GoodTime says its pricing depends on annual candidate volume, not on the number of users. Bullhorn lists interview scheduling in two plans priced by quote: Max, for small agencies, and Front Office Enterprise, for larger ones. Neither Calendly nor Cronofy gives a setup time on its pricing page. This route fits when the whole job is finding a time.
Hire a virtual assistant
A virtual assistant firm places a remote assistant with you for a flat monthly fee. Wing lists a full-time general virtual assistant at 999 dollars a month for 160 hours and a part-time one at 699 for 80, working in your time zone at the hours you choose, and says an assistant is live in 48 hours. MyOutDesk lists full-time placements from 1,988 dollars a month, eight hours a day and five days a week, says the rate covers recruiting, vetting, payroll and benefits, and says most clients are matched with an assistant within days. Both say they oversee the assistant's performance and replace one at no extra cost. This route fits when the work around the interview is varied: chasing, rearranging, updating records.
Hire an administrator
Recruitment administrator and recruitment coordinator are not titles in the index of BLS's Occupational Outlook Handbook. The index files a staffing coordinator under human resources specialists, a median annual wage of 75,940 dollars in May 2025, and HR, personnel and employment clerks under information clerks, where human resources assistants are reported at 50,610; its median for secretaries and administrative assistants was 48,310. Which of these is nearest is our judgement. Benefits come on top: BLS's employer cost figures for June 2026 put them at 11.51 dollars an hour worked for office and administrative support staff in private industry, against 25.22 in wages and salaries. In the UK, the ONS figures have no row for a recruitment administrator. ONS's provisional figures for April 2025 put median gross annual pay, for full-time employees a year or more in the job, at 26,851 pounds for human resources administrative occupations. Employer costs come on top: GOV.UK gives employer National Insurance for 2026 to 2027 as 15 percent on earnings above 5,000 pounds a year for the standard category, less an Employment Allowance of up to 10,500 pounds for eligible employers, and the minimum employer pension contribution under automatic enrolment as 3 percent, in most schemes on earnings between 6,240 and 50,270 pounds a year. This route fits when you want the person in the team, learning the desks.
Have it built
An independent builder builds the scheduling workflow across the ATS, the calendars and the inbox you already run, and operates it afterwards. That is our work: interviews booked without the email thread, confirmations chased on a schedule, and anything the rules do not cover passed to a named person. We build on top of the ATS you already use, Bullhorn, Vincere, JobAdder and Eploy among them, and only by the route the vendor's API terms allow. Bullhorn's policy asks a third party to register with it, to act on the customer's written instruction, and to hold Bullhorn's explicit written permission before an AI tool views or updates data; we have those in place before anything connects. This route fits when the volume is high enough that the exceptions, not the bookings, take the time.

What do we do, and on what terms?

We build and run the system inside the software your agency already uses. It starts with a fixed-fee audit, about a week, that measures the current process and models the fix. The build is then scoped and quoted at a fixed price, and a first working version is usually live in two to four weeks. The acceptance criteria are written before any build begins: what the system will do, measured how, by when. If it does not meet them, the fix is ours. After that we can keep running it, reviewed monthly, and you can cancel at any time.

How do you decide?

Name the job. If it is finding a time, software does it for the price of a seat. If it is everything around the interview, that is a person or a built workflow.
Count the interviews you arrange in a week, and how many of them are moved.
Check your ATS first. Bullhorn lists interview scheduling in two of its plans, and your vendor may already sell what you need.
Ask what a tool or an assistant may touch. Bullhorn's API Fair Use Policy says its API must not be used to connect third-party AI or LLM tools to view or update data without Bullhorn's explicit written permission.
Cost the person in full: the wage, the employer's costs on top, and the time to recruit and train. A virtual assistant firm's flat fee already includes some of that.
Decide who owns the exceptions: the candidate who goes quiet, the client who moves the slot twice.

When are we the wrong choice?

If the whole job is finding a time, a scheduling tool at the price of a seat is the direct answer
If you arrange only a few interviews a week, a booking link and a person are enough
If you run Bullhorn and a product it sells already does what you need, start with that
If you are about to change ATS, wait until that settles rather than building twice

Frequently asked questions

Is interview scheduling software cheaper than a virtual assistant?

For a small team, yes on the published prices, and they buy different things. The software is priced by the seat: Calendly's Teams plan is 16 dollars a seat a month billed yearly. The assistant is priced by the month: Wing's part-time assistant is 699 dollars for 80 hours. The software offers times, books one and sends the reminders. An assistant picks up what is left when the reminders have gone unanswered.

How much does a virtual assistant cost a recruitment agency?

On 4 October 2026 Wing listed a full-time general virtual assistant at 999 dollars a month for 160 hours and a part-time one at 699 for 80. MyOutDesk listed full-time placements from 1,988 dollars a month, with a second tier from 2,500, and said the rate covers recruiting, vetting, payroll and benefits.

What does interview scheduling software cost?

On 4 October 2026 Calendly listed Standard at 10 dollars a seat a month billed yearly and Teams, the first plan with round robin, at 16. Cronofy listed the Team plan of its Scheduler at 15 dollars an assigned seat a month. GoodTime and Paradox printed no price, and Bullhorn listed interview scheduling in two plans priced by quote.

An automation agency or a virtual assistant for admin: which fits?

A virtual assistant fits when the work is varied and changes from week to week: you pay a flat monthly fee for a person's hours. A built system fits when the same steps repeat at volume: it runs them by rule, and passes what the rules do not cover to a named person. The assistant firms' published fees recur every month. Ours starts with a fixed-fee audit; the build is then quoted at a fixed price, and running it afterwards is a separate arrangement, reviewed monthly.

Can an agency use scheduling software and a person together?

Yes. They cover different parts of the job: the tool offers times and books one, and a person, or a built workflow, handles the candidate who does not answer and the interview that moves.

Sources

Every statement on this page about a named company, a price, a wage or a rule was read at its source on 4 October 2026. Prices, wages and policies change: read them again before you rely on them.

See where the time is going

Book a diagnostic. On a short call we map where work is getting stuck in your firm and whether there is a system worth building. No pitch, and if there is nothing there worth doing, we will say so.

Book a diagnostic