Forum Discussion
Cost of developing 1 hour of elearning
I occasionally have clients ask me if there are any industry standards regarding elearning development, particularly around cost.
"Sean," they say, "How much should we be paying for an hour of elearning?"
"It depends," I say.
And honestly, they are never terribly happy with that answer. So I'm trying to come up with something a little more detailed. Obviously, there are any number of factors that come into play, but I was wondering if there were any quick and dirty estimates that you all use.
Thanks!
sean
Anyone have any updated current information on cost of developing one hour of elearning?
Thanks! Kim
While there's no single quick solution to calculate the potential cost of elearning development, there are ways to estimate the price based on the type of content. Whenever a client inquires about the price, we ask them to fill out the elearning cost form which allows us to estimate the price.
Development hours for 1 hour eLearning:
Linear or Low interactivity - 300
Medium interactivity - 450-550
High interactivity - 700-800
Multiply by your per hour rate.
Can you share your estimates with all of us?
Wow that seems high - I have found those numbers from the Chapman report to be pretty close to accurate for me and most people I have worked with.
Interesting that this thread is still chugging after 6 years. =)
I honestly can't think of the last time I built a full 1 hour elearning - at this stage I'm aiming far far lower - 10 minutes still feels a little long to me.
And one of the things with building in smaller chunks is you lose *some* of the efficiencies vs. larger pieces. But you do get to make things much more dynamic, valuable and learner centric.
Bruce, I am not sure how you develop your eLearning course. But, I consider that an hour of course has around 55 content slides, 5-7 knowledge checks and a post assessment of 10 questions. Start with Storyboarding of course (onscreen content and transcript) with SME includes 2 rounds of updates. Also, in my courses I graphically enhanced each and every slide. So, you can understand how much graphical effort include. Apart from this, audio editing and synchronization with the objects on screen. Internal reviews and 2 rounds of quality check. I hope now you can understand how it comes to 300 hrs.
Just want to confirm, do you perform all the above tasks for your course? Can you share your development process?
Nitesh - 300 hours is very high including 3 rounds of review I would be looking at 60+ hrs. For High interactivity 80-90hrs.
Phil, you put me in lot of pressure now :)
could you please share any link of your course? I really want to see where I am going different.
Most of my courses are under an NDA and I really cannot share. This Ninja course https://community.articulate.com/e-learning-examples/guru-gold-winner-enter-the-ninja took 4 days to develop plus voice over time. I wrote the script, storyboarded it and did the 70% of the illustrations. I paid an illustrator for 1 days work for the other 30%. There were two review cycles where I sent it out to trusted colleagues for comments.
