How does 90-day hour rollover work?

When you purchase a bucket of hours from TaskBullet, all hours remain valid for 90 days from the purchase date. Any hours you don't use in the first month carry forward into the second and third months automatically — no action needed, no extra fees.

What happens to unused hours with a traditional VA retainer?

Most traditional VA retainer agencies reset your hour balance at the end of each billing cycle. If you pay for 40 hours and use 28, those 12 unused hours disappear. You pay full price again next month regardless of what you consumed.

How much money does monthly hour expiration waste per year?

If you consistently use 70% of a 40-hour retainer at $45/hour, you lose 12 hours per month — that's $540/month or $6,480/year in unused capacity. With 90-day rollover, those 12 hours carry forward and get used the next month when workload picks up.

What is the 60-day unused hour guarantee?

If you purchase a bucket of hours and cannot find a use for them within 60 days, TaskBullet will work with you to resolve it. It's an additional layer of protection beyond the 90-day rollover window.

Is 90-day rollover the same as 3-month validity?

Yes — 90 days and 3 months refer to the same protection window. Your hours stay valid for 90 days from the date of purchase, giving you a full quarter to deploy them at your own pace.

90-Day Hour Rollover vs Monthly Expiration: Real Math for Businesses

Most virtual assistant retainer agencies operate on a simple principle: you pay for hours each month, and unused hours expire when the billing cycle resets. It sounds reasonable — until you run the numbers.

Here's the real math on what monthly expiration costs versus TaskBullet's 90-day rollover model.

The Monthly Expiration Problem

Traditional VA retainers work like this:

You commit to 40 hours per month at a fixed rate
You pay the full amount whether you use all 40 hours or not
At month-end, unused hours disappear — your balance resets to zero
Next month, you pay full price again

The assumption is that your workload is perfectly consistent every month. For most businesses, it isn't.

The Real Numbers

Scenario: 40-Hour Monthly Retainer at $45/Hour

| Month | Hours Paid | Hours Used | Hours Wasted | $ Wasted | |---|---|---|---|---| | January | 40 | 35 | 5 | $225 | | February | 40 | 28 | 12 | $540 | | March | 40 | 42 (cap) | 0 | $0 (but needed 2 more) | | April | 40 | 22 | 18 | $810 | | May | 40 | 38 | 2 | $90 | | June | 40 | 30 | 10 | $450 | | H1 Total | 240 | 195 | 47 | $2,115 |

Annual projection: $4,230 wasted on hours that expired unused.

That's a 17.6% waste rate — and this is a conservative estimate. Many businesses report using only 60–70% of their retainer consistently, which pushes waste to $6,480–$8,640/year.

Same Scenario with 90-Day Rollover

| Month | Hours Purchased | Hours Used | Hours Rolled Over | Cumulative Available | |---|---|---|---|---| | January | 40 | 35 | 5 | 5 | | February | 40 | 28 | 17 | 17 | | March | 40 | 42 | 15 | 15 (used rollover!) | | April | 40 | 22 | 33 | 33 | | May | 40 | 38 | 35 | 35 | | June | 40 | 30 | 45 | 45 (available for Q3 spike) |

Hours wasted: zero. Every unused hour carries forward for 90 days. The surplus from light months gets deployed during busy months — automatically.

In March, when you needed 42 hours, you had them — because February's surplus rolled over. In April, when the workload dipped, the unused hours sat safely in your bucket instead of evaporating.

The Compounding Effect

Monthly expiration doesn't just waste hours — it distorts behavior:

Artificial urgency: Teams rush to "use up" remaining hours before month-end, assigning low-value tasks just to avoid waste
Underutilization guilt: Clients hold back on delegating during slow weeks because they're "saving hours" for a potential spike that may not come
Over-commitment: To avoid wasting paid hours, businesses commit to more tasks than they actually need — creating management overhead

With 90-day rollover, none of this applies. You delegate when the work exists and let unused hours accumulate for when they're needed.

The 60-Day Guarantee Layer

TaskBullet adds a second protection: the 60-day unused hour guarantee. If you purchase a bucket and genuinely cannot find a use for the hours within 60 days, TaskBullet works with you to resolve it.

This means you have:

90 days to use purchased hours (rollover window)
60 days of guarantee protection if you realize the hours won't be needed

The two protections together eliminate the financial risk of buying capacity in advance.

When Does Monthly Expiration Make Sense?

To be fair, monthly expiration works if:

Your workload is exactly the same every month (rare for growing businesses)
You always use 95%+ of your allotment (even rarer)
You don't mind paying for the 5–40% you don't use

For everyone else — businesses with seasonal variation, project-based spikes, or simply unpredictable week-to-week demands — rollover pays for itself from month one.

Bottom Line

The difference between monthly expiration and 90-day rollover isn't a feature — it's a structural advantage. Over 12 months, it typically saves 20–40% of your VA budget while giving you more flexibility, not less.

See TaskBullet's Bucket Pricing →

How the Flexible Hour Model Works →

Compare All VA Hiring Models →