7 Budget Saving Tips For Your Next eLearning Project

Ever wonder how much it costs to build an eLearning course? Here’s the short answer: It depends! But don’t worry, there are evidence-based industry standards you can use to budget your next eLearning project.

These include:

• Complexity of content
• Complexity of engagement activities
• Development tools used to author the course (e.g., Storyline, Rise, Captivate, Camtasia, your LMS tools, etc.)
• The number of subject matter experts and reviewers involved 
• The number of review and feedback rounds (two to three is usually common)
• The state of your course content (finite, in flux, etc.) Read more about the degrees of complexity of an eLearning project to get a better sense of where your project fits.

Industry samples and statistics compiled by the Chapman Alliance estimates anywhere from $5,656 CAD per hour of blended course development. (Note: 2013 average price converted from USD to CAD, with 10.5 % rate of inflation over 6 years).

7 Tips to Save Costs

• Ensure you have executive sponsorship, budget, and such pre-approved (and in writing).
• Keep your project and review team small, and be clear on who has the final say (i.e., identify and agree upon your project sponsor before the project starts).
• Be very clear on what you want/don’t want to have included in the content.
• Use a project management framework. (If you don’t have an internal PMO, ask your instructional designer to provide project management. A good ID consultant should provide this anyway.)
• Prepare and gather all your content in advance, and keep project momentum going by agreeing to reasonable response times.
• Be open to using other tools or agree to a variety of deliverables. For example, if you’re simply looking for limited engagement with a few assessment questions, you probably don’t need to develop a costly, customized Storyline course. You may be able to build it directly in your LMS.
• Hire a consultant – they will commit to a deadline that internal teams may/may not be able to meet.​
  

​​Pro Tip:​
Most Canadian eLearning companies won’t even take contracts for eLearning course development under $10k CAD. So be prepared to get quotes above that, especially if you only provide general project requirements. The more information you share, the more accurate the quote can be.

Read more about how long it takes to build a one-hour eLearning course.

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