Frequently Asked Questions

A Virtual Assistant typically requires you to do the heavy lifting of delegating and managing each task. We created this niche because we realized that traditional assistant services often create more work for the client.

As Virtual House Managers, we are project managers for your personal life. We don’t wait for you to struggle through a delegation list; we anticipate what needs to be done, build the project plan, and drive it to the finish line. We do the planning and the execution of digital errands so you can focus on your career and your family.

Mental load—also known as cognitive labor or "invisible label"—is the exhausting, never-ending to-do list you carry in your head. It’s the constant anticipating, planning, and problem-solving required to keep a household running. 

At Heron House Management, we don’t just take on the tasks; we become thought partners to help carry that weight. By initiating conversations about upcoming needs and seasons, we extract the to-do list from your brain so you can be truly present at home.

We don't wait for you to remember to tell us what to do. We take an active, investigative approach to your life:

• Anticipatory Questioning: We ask the questions you haven't had time to consider yet.

• Calendar Auditing: We look at your upcoming weeks to spot potential issues before they happen.

Life Syncing: We think through the nuances of your specific season of life—whether that’s summer camp registration, holiday travel, or school transitions—and build the project plans for you. Our goal is to do the thinking so you only have to do the deciding.

Our goal is to provide maximum value while handling as little of your sensitive data as possible. To minimize liability and protect your privacy, we ask that you use a secure password manager to grant "share access" only for information absolutely necessary to your House Manager's projects.

We never touch Social Security numbers or direct bank account information. If a project requires this data, your House Manager will handle all the logistics and supporting tasks so that you only have to step in for the final step.

Our House Managers are real people, not AI bots or algorithms. We hire incredibly talented professionals across the United States.

Many of our managers are former teachers, project managers, or career house managers. We pair you with a manager based on your time zone, personality, and shared lived experiences to ensure they are a perfect extension of your family.

You are assigned one dedicated House Manager who becomes a trusted member of your family’s team. This allows for an intimate, trust-based relationship. While our managers share a wealth of knowledge and resources behind the scenes, you will have one point of contact who is an expert on your family’s specific needs.

Yes. While we do not impersonate our clients, we can make a wide variety of calls by disclosing that we work for you. Common examples include scheduling appointments or managing vendors..

We use Asana, a premier project management tool, to facilitate all communication. You can log in at any time to see the status of tasks, review project details, communicate with your house manager, make decisions, and add new requests.

In addition to communicating through Asana, you will meet with your House Manager regularly (typically 1x/week) for progress updates, decision making, and brain dump sessions. These check-ins are designed to relieve your mental load, allowing the manager to extract tasks from your head and move them onto the to-do list.

We offer three main tiers based on your needs: 10, 15, or 20+ hours per month. We understand that life has different seasons—some busy, some quiet—and our services are designed to undulate along with your life.

If you exceed your monthly hours, you can add more incrementally at $55/hour. If you are on our Premium Subscription, you receive a protected discounted rate of $50/hour for any additional time.

Never! We pride ourselves on flexibility. There are no joining or annual membership fees. You can cancel, pause, or change your subscription level at any time with 30 days' notice before your next billing cycle.

Item Absolutely. At Heron House Management, we believe that every home is unique and every household deserves seamless, dedicated support. We proudly and enthusiastically serve families and individuals of all structures, backgrounds, races, faiths, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities. Our house management services are built on respect, discretion, and a commitment to supporting your home exactly as you define it.

Our service is designed to create systems that minimize stress at home and get things off your To Do list for good.

Some of the most popular projects include meal planning, grocery delivery, scheduling appointments, managing the family calendar and schedule, travel booking, gift tracking and purchasing, support for aging parents, and wrangling school emails into action items and calendar reminders.

You can get some ideas broken down by areas of your life here: https://www.heronhousemanagement.com/what-we-do

YES! We love unique challenges and relish the opportunity to help where you may think its impossible.

Doing your PTA volunteer work for you, digitizing old family tapes, and booking a llama at your daughter-in-law’s wedding - these are just a few fun examples of out of the box requests we love to help with.

No request is too unusual for us!

100%! We have provided business support services since 2018 via our sister business, Heron Works. If you want to count this as a business expense, just let us know and we can roll your personal and business subscription into one expense for you.

We also provide fractional project management, podcast editing and production, social media management and more!

Our services are 100% virtual so you work with your house manager through weekly video meetings, Asana and emails. We do not provide on-the-ground support but we do help many of our clients hire onsite services including errand runners, babysitters, nannies, cleaners, and more.

Yes! This is a very common request and we have built proprietary systems to help us manage your home project with ease.

We start by gathering your requirements - what’s important to you like reviews, price, availability, referral from a friend. We then contact the vendors, track our findings in our proprietary tool, and make a recommendation based on what you said is important to you. You get access to all the estimates and information we’ve gathered so you can make an informed decision with the shortcut of our summary of findings and recommendation.

From there we handle scheduling around your calendar, communication, logistics and even payments.

Then, the most important part is making sure you are 100% satisfied with the outcome of the contractor’s work so we can close our the project.

Many of our clients are working moms but many of our clients are not! Our services are for anyone who needs the extra help managing their mental load at home. You don’t have to be employed, partnered or have kids to benefit from our services.

In fact, a great number of our clients also use our services in their business, for their aging parents, and even for work-related projects like expense reimbursements.