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

Here is what I use. I took the figures that Chapman put together but tried to make some meaning out of them for myself.in a handy spreadsheet.Chapman provides some averages for three general course categories split into 3 levels of development effort across 12 development activities. While the breakdown is only provided for the average effort in each of the categories, I used the percentages derived from this to fill in the low and high effort buckets. Then, I use these numbers as a guide. For example, below you can see a course where I think my analysis will be: close to the basic course/average effort heavy on design light on storyboarding with graphics provided no video no audio Average authoring (thanks StoryLine!) Light QA Testing 0 Project management (I work alone) With a few reviews an average pilot and time for email back and forth with the client My estimated time spent for one hour of training falls between Chapman's Low and Average effort for the basic course I am developing. (Even though I chose to put in a higher degree of time and effort into design).Knowing the time you will spend is only part of the equation. You also have to know what you will charge. I've observed some make the rookie mistake of jumping out of the gate by charging what they used to make when they worked for a corporation. They forget that now they have all of the costs and overhead of their new business that they have to account for. So for example, assume a person had an annual salary of $65,000 as an ID, the hourly equivalent would be $31.25. If they charged this, lost a few weeks for vacation (unpaid now), had business expenses of $10,000, and spent 25% of their time looking for clients, their effective hourly rate drops to about $21. If they had accounted for these other assumptions up front, they would have billed at a rate of $50 to reach their same prior salary, cover their business overhead, time spent engaging new clients, and their vacation. If I am just starting, and struggling to stay engaged (managing a 50/50 split between working and looking) my hourly rate would jump all the way to $75. Once I have a reasonable rate based on my desired income (what I think my work is worth - without being too greedy) adjusted for expenses and a reasonable work -v- work search split, the rest is simple math. Attached is my spreadsheet you can use along with 3 screenrs that walk through it. My spreadsheet uses a modifier that is just a restatement of the cost per hour of training to a cost for each 5 minutes. This makes it easier for me to estimate courses that don't fit neatly into even hour buckets. Part 1: https://player.vimeo.com/video/204931345 Part2: https://player.vimeo.com/video/204931355 Part3: https://player.vimeo.com/video/204931363

Hi Sean, have you seen this resource already? Despite the title, it does contain info about both time and cost.

Owen Holt said: ..... If they had accounted for these other assumptions up front, they would have billed at a rate of $50 to reach their same prior salary, cover their business overhead, time spent engaging new clients, and their vacation. If I am just starting, and struggling to stay engaged (managing a 50/50 split between working and looking) my hourly rate would jump all the way to $75. I should point out that clearly other factors need to be taken into consideration and one should set realistic expectations. For example, just because I might need to charge a much higher rate to hit my annual income goals doesn't mean that it will be the right rate to win business or be a rate that is commensurate with my current skill level & experience. I use the excel sheet for guidance only, but there is not a form or calculation that I am aware of that replaces common sense and human intellect.

Hi there Eric, and welcome! Since the site allows downloads, I downloaded the presentation and attached it to this post. Hope that helps.

Thank You Jeanette, this is a great presentation! I really appreciate your extra effort to help me out. Thanks again, Eric

Cost of developing 1 hour of elearning

NiteshJain
Community Member
8 years ago
I must say that it's a wonderful game. Beautiful illustrations...

This is a game, which has less text. My courses are text heavy which require a lot of instructional design work. Also, the content is technical which made me to review it deeply. I have some team members who spend their time in reviewing the content. Some designers for graphic enhancement of around 60 slide including assessments. Anyways, it is nice to have discussion.

Just want to confirm how much effort in hours you spent on development. Yours and all those who design and reviewed..
PhilMayor
Super Hero
8 years ago
3-4 days of my time, 1 day of illustrator, 6 hours v/o. Review time of my colleagues would not be chargeable as that would be the same as SME review.

The majority of my courses are text heavy, I typically charge 1 hour for every minute of a course, unless they are short courses of 5 minutes or less as that averages out about 8 hours work. For highly complex courses I would see the time going up to around 100 hours for a 60 minute course. Perhaps your courses are more complex or I am faster.
andywhitman
Community Member
8 years ago
At first blush I definitely agree that 300 hours is a little obscene, but see a difference between what Nitesh is getting across and what I think most others produce; that is Instructional Design v.s. elearning development. Those things necessarily overlap but I think most people focus on elearning development.

I can see why Nitesh might spend more time if he's trying to instructionally design the content - something I don't really see in most project work even when the course looks really neat.
AnantkumarM
Community Member
8 years ago
Based on my experience:

A level 2 course of 1 hr seat time built using Storyline would take a little over a week's ID effort, a week for custom interface design and integration, anywhere between a week to 10 days to integrate the content, audio and 2 rounds of QA and fixes. So anywhere between 4-6 weeks depending on the amount of content complexity etc. Approximately 160-180hrs.

A level 1 course could be much faster using default player features, templates, minimal customization with or without audio. Effort wise more in the 80-110hrs range.

Cost could vary drastically across markets. Like you could get a level 1 course done for less than $2,000 and a level 2 anywhere between $3000-$4000 in the Indian market. This is minus the audio recording cost and stock images purchase. The same dev effort would cost you multiple times in other markets.

Cost and quality could vary from vendor to vendor so finding the right vendor team/freelancer group is very important.

So what is the right approach, I personally feel using the core strengths of each location works the best.
JennyTod
Community Member
8 years ago
Questions about cost are always on the top.
Everyone wants to know how much money they will spend.
I work in IT solution company ThinkMobiles, and our clients always ask this question.
We wrote few articles with good explanations, I think you should do the same.
ScottHewitt
Community Member
3 years ago
found this thread in a google search, I'd be really interested to know what people think about the cost of elearning?

I know that an hour is no longer the average time and course time has decreased considerably since the thread was started 11 year ago - and we didn't have RISE!

What is an average course price for a 20 minute Level 2 module?

Do people think that elearning courses are expensive?

Do people that elearning development is expensive?

thanks,

Scott
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