An executive assistant runs your time: calendar, inbox, travel and meeting prep. A chief of staff runs your priorities: projects, decisions and follow-through across the business. Most owners need the assistant first. In the US, a chief of staff usually costs about twice as much.
The short answer
- Hire an executive assistant if your problem is time. Meetings, email, scheduling and admin eat the hours you need for clients and decisions.
- Hire a chief of staff if your problem is reach. You have managers and projects, and too much of the business waits on you to decide, connect or chase.
What each one does
Executive assistant
The BLS describes executive assistants as giving high-level support to an office and its top executives. In a small business, that usually means:
- Running your calendar and protecting focus time.
- Sorting your inbox and drafting routine replies.
- Booking travel and building itineraries.
- Preparing you for meetings with notes and documents.
- Sending follow-ups and tracking what is waiting on others.
- Being the first contact for people who want your time.
The work is about your day. The measure of success is simple: you spend your hours on the right things, and nothing falls through.
Chief of staff
A chief of staff works on the business, on your behalf. There is no single job description, but the role usually includes:
- Turning your goals into a plan with owners and dates.
- Running the weekly rhythm: leadership meetings, reviews, reports.
- Following up with managers on projects and decisions.
- Taking on projects that cross teams, such as a launch, a new system or a hire.
- Filtering what reaches you and making some decisions in your name.
- Telling you what is going wrong, plainly.
The measure of success is different: the business moves faster, and fewer things need you.
What each costs
All figures are in US dollars, for the US.
Executive assistant. The BLS puts the median pay at $76,590 a year for May 2025. The middle half of earners make $61,390 to $94,390, per the same BLS data shown on O*NET.
Chief of staff. The BLS has no separate category for the role, so salary surveys are the best guide. The 2024 compensation survey by Ask a Chief of Staff, a newsletter for the role, collected 470 responses, mostly from North America. Its median salaries:
- 1 to 2 years in the role: $125,000.
- 15 years or more: $175,000.
- Seed and pre-seed companies: $120,000.
- Public companies: $190,000.
That is a self-reported survey of its own readers, so treat it as a guide, not an official rate. Both roles also carry benefits and payroll taxes. The BLS employer cost survey for June 2026 shows benefits at about 30% of total pay across private industry.
A virtual executive assistant is the cheapest of the three options. US agencies publish plans from about $36 to $65 an hour as of October 2026, such as Time etc and Boldly. There is no common part-time market for chiefs of staff.
Signs you need a chief of staff
- You have several managers, and you spend more time chasing them than they spend chasing you.
- Decisions wait days because only you can make them.
- Projects that touch more than one team stall between handovers.
- You prepare your own leadership meetings and write your own reports.
- You already have an assistant, and your calendar is in order, but the business still feels stuck on you.
- You need someone who can say no to a manager in your name.
If most of these are true, a chief of staff may pay for itself. If your list is mostly about email, meetings and travel, it is an assistant problem.
Signs an executive assistant is enough
- You have few or no managers, and you do most of the client work yourself.
- Your week is full of scheduling, email and small admin.
- You know your priorities. You just do not have time for them.
- You do not yet have a weekly operating rhythm to run.
Can one person do both?
Some owners hire a senior executive assistant and give them project work over time. That can work well in a small business, as long as you are clear about which hat they wear each week. The risk is that urgent calendar and inbox work always beats the important projects. If you go this way, put the projects in writing with dates, and review them every week.
Write the split down
Before you hire either role, write one page that says who owns what. Use it in the job post and on day one.
Executive assistant owns
- My calendar, including focus blocks and meeting rules
- My inbox: triage, routine replies, follow-ups
- Travel and meeting prep
- What reaches me, and when
Chief of staff owns
- The quarterly plan, with an owner and date for each goal
- The weekly leadership meeting and its notes
- Follow-up on projects and decisions with managers
- Projects that cross teams: [list them]
I keep
- Final decisions on [pricing, hiring, key clients]
- Relationships with [top clients, partners]
- Anything that changes what clients were promised
Review this split every [quarter]
Next steps
To write the role itself, use how to write a job description. To decide what to hand over first, see how to delegate tasks. If a chief of staff will run your leadership meeting, a team meeting agenda and a weekly review template give them a starting rhythm.