eLearning Pricing Considerations
Many aspects factor into the cost of a training program. To get the conversation started, read the paragraphs below.
eLearning
eLearning Pricing Considerations
Sooner or later the conversation must turn to hard numbers and the question on many people’s mind is: How much does it cost to create a custom eLearning project?
Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer.
When creating custom training of any kind, there are many things that affect the cost. The biggest factors are shown in the interaction above. And, of course, the other major factor is how much of the content and how many of the media elements will be provided by your team, as opposed to how much we would be asked to create.
Front–End Analysis
Sometimes a front–end analysis is an appropriate way to get a handle on your project. This analysis will help define what needs to be done and establish a working roadmap for the project. In addition, this analysis can form the basis for getting bids and estimating the time and resources that will be required to complete the job.
At other times a front–end analysis is impossible or impractical, or perhaps you recognize that no matter how well you try to define things up front, the project is bound to evolve as it goes into production. In those instances, it is a matter of working with whatever information is available to formulate an estimate.
If a front–end analysis does seem appropriate and you would like assistance, we would be happy to help.
The Questions
Whether or not you conduct a front–end analysis, some basic questions must be answered.
- Who will be preparing the content; i.e., who will be doing the instructional design and creating the storyboards that the course developers can use?
- What already exists for the course to be based on?
- What resources will be available for an instructional designer?
- What is the projected length of the course?
- What level of interactivity are you interested in providing to students?
- How important is the branding/image being presented?
- What degree of graphic sophistication is appropriate? What imagery is available and what images need to be purchased or created?
- How important is it that students are engaged?
- Who is the audience?
- What are the technical requirements?
- What is the timeframe in which the project must be deployed?
- Will supplementary materials need to be developed?
- Will the course be tracked and, if so, do you have an LMS in place to handle that? If not, what sort of tracking and reporting will be required?
Your responses will help define the scope of the project and provide project specifications.
If you don’t have enough information to accurately answer key questions about your project, you may want to consider establishing a ceiling price for the project. A reputable vendor will do the best job they can within the ceiling you set.
Estimating by Finished Hour
A basic tactic often used in this industry is basing the price on one finished hour of custom courseware—one hour of a student’s time at the computer when taking the final course. This is a crude measurement because before the course is developed, it is hard to predict how much time the average student will take to complete it. We can, however, often set an objective of how long we would like the course to be and work backward from there. Or we can make an educated guess based on existing courses.
If an existing course is being delivered in a classroom setting or by some other means, that information can also be used to estimate the total number of hours the completed course will be. For example, we may be able to make an educated guess that a 50–page textbook used in a four-hour, instructor-led course may equal 1 hour or 1.5 hours of computer time.
One Hour Does Not Equal One Hour
Even when we know how long a course will take, there are still many other considerations—most importantly, who will be doing the instructional design (creating storyboards, ensuring the approach is instructionally sound, defining interesting and engaging ways to present the content, and so on). Another big consideration is what kinds of media elements will be used and who will be creating or providing them: Will we need to create extensive graphics? Will there be narration or video? Will we need to create simulations? And finally, how much interactivity will there be and how complex will it be?
Once these are defined, we can begin to zero in on a cost per hour. In our experience, the first finished hour of training for most eLearning applications tends to be between $10,000 and $40,000, but can occasionally be higher with complex, labor intensive applications. Subsequent hours can be 10–25% less, depending on content. Of course, that is a huge range and not much help unless we can narrow it down further.
Needless to say, the more we do, the higher our part of the cost will be. If you create the storyboards, provide the media elements, and tell us exactly what you want done, the price will be toward the lower end. If we do the instructional design, create complex simulations, include narration and video, and create a sophisticated graphic environment, the price will be closer the higher end.
Levels
One way of communicating how you anticipate the course looking and functioning is to define the level of interactivity and multimedia. While others may define levels slightly differently, this should give a general idea of how levels can be measured.
Level 1: Primary activity is turning page; contains supporting graphics on many pages; may contain some simple animation or video; no narration.
Level 2: Provides a limited amount of interactivity throughout (expanding text fields, multiple choice questions, etc.) and multimedia including limited sound or narration and/or video or animation; may include a limited number of more sophisticated interactions.
Level 3: Provides student with extensive interactivity and multimedia; may include sophisticated interactions throughout; may include many sophisticated custom graphics; may include extensive narration.
Level 4: Provides high-end presentation, including extensive custom graphics, interactivity, multimedia, and simulation walkthrough capabilities throughout; may include sophisticated programming; may include creation of a virtual environment.
In addition, we can try to define the instructional design requirements by a similar means:
Low: Storyboards written and provided to d’Vinci, ready to be programmed. This may include d’Vinci providing feedback and suggestions for making the course more engaging.
Medium: Course exists in some form already, possibly as stand-up training or as a PowerPoint presentation with instructor's notes. d’Vinci's task would be to create storyboards that define text, multimedia, and interactivity for each aspect of the eLearning training.
High: No course exists and content must be developed from scratch. d’Vinci's instructional designer must develop course material from manuals, interviews with subject matter experts.
Knowing the Budget
To come up with a price estimate for a course, we try to gather as much information as possible and establish a fixed price quote.
Alternatively, we can work within a specified budget. When we know the budget, we can work backward and include or exclude elements, based on priorities, with the goal of delivering the best possible course for the allocated budget.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can answer any questions or clarify the information presented here.
