Being honest saves everyone time.
You're still on the Free plan: The features that make a VA worth hiring (automation recipes, dashboards, Connect Boards, integrations) all sit behind Standard or Pro pricing. Upgrade first, then hire.
You need a monday.com strategist, not a doer: A VA builds boards, ships automations, and runs the daily ops. They don't reshape your entire operating model. If that's what you need, hire a consultant first.
You already have a dedicated PM ops person: If you have someone owning monday.com internally, a VA still helps but the ROI is smaller than for teams starting from zero.
Everyone else: the payback usually shows up in 30-45 days.