During the sales process, one of the most common questions to an eLearning vendor like us is “How do you price your custom eLearning projects?“
A few years ago, the answer to this used to be relatively simple. Typically it would mention pricing as per ‘level’ of output. Most vendors would classify their eLearning output as Level 1, 2, or 3. Some would call it Bronze, Silver, Gold. And some others would go in for even fancier names. But the concept was pretty much the same: the higher the level, the costlier it is to develop. We’ve abided by this and given pricing matrices as per levels of eLearning – and we’ve also suggested a slightly better way of arriving at cost based on Type and Level here.
As authoring tools became widely used by internal eLearning and L&D teams of various client organizations, they too started featuring in pricing matrices. You could expect to pay a little less if the eLearning was being developed using authoring tools like Articulate or Lectora as compared to it being developed in Flash + ActionScript or HTML + CSS. That would be due to the pre-programmed templates in the tools reducing the overall efforts needed.
Now, with the advent of multi-device eLearning, a new parameter has been added to the pricing matrix: the devices that a particular eLearning is being built for. So if you are just targeting desktops it costs the least, but if you are targeting desktops, tablets, and smartphones then it costs much more. As the number of devices being targeted increases, efforts increase for instructional design, visual design, and also for testing.
So in a multi-device world we believe there are three main parameters that dictate the price of eLearning development:
1. Level of output
2. Development tools
3. Devices being targeted
How do you price multi-device eLearning? Are there any other parameters you consider? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
