Education today has crossed boundaries of the physical world and has integrated itself into the digital space. As technology widens its expanse into the different sectors, e-learning itself has got a more significant client base and subscribers today. As institutions tend to grow day by day, most of them lack a necessary substructure to support the entire education module. It is here where interactive learning or e-learning takes the upper hand. Easy accessibility, availability, and more importantly a large number of users have kept the learning apps in demand.
Now, as everything has their variant, for e-learning app development you can choose from two most prominent options, to make it easy to understand, we can take Coursera and Udemy as instances. Talking about Coursera, the app works with universities and educational establishments and offers distance learning courses with certificates. Whereas Udemy has a different approach, it offers aspirants to learn courses at their own pace.
We have discussed other possible types of e-learning or educational apps in our previous article. Check this out if you haven’t yet: The Ultimate Guide To Educational App Development.
How Much e-Learning App Development Costs?
But before making the app, it is more important to gauge the educational app development cost and the other important parameters that can affect the development cost. If you are still in the dark about the latest e-learning concepts, then you might need to revise. While developing an e-learning website and app very similar to Udemy for the first time, it will have a fair share of questions with it.
To start the e-learning website or app there is certain research you would have to do that we have explicit in our previous blog , once you complete the research and validate the idea, to execute it you need to hire app developers or a mobile app development that consists of a team of below-mentioned professionals.
Project Manager
Business Analyst
Native or cross-platform specialist backend developers (as per the type of the app)
UI/UX designer
Quality Assurance
The decision to hire a development company or developers will greatly affect the cost to Develop an Educational App Like Udemy as they charge differently. Furthermore, the region they belong to also impacts the most on the cost to make an application like Udemy. For instance, if you are hiring developers from the USA, their charges fall between 99 USD to 259 USD while Asian countries charge amid 20 USD to 90 USD for the same development services.
Well, this is not enough for the cost of Udemy like app development, plenty of factors more are there that influence the overall cost. To understand the forecast of the Educational App Development Cost better, let’s check out possible factors.
App Features List
To make the app functional, you have to add features that perform their roles when the user interacts with them and make the app functional. Before listing out features for your app, look into the wide range of features and opt for the ones that comply with your e-learning app. Here we’ve curated some of the basic to advanced features for different app user personas to let you have an idea.
Fundamental Features
Registration & Profile management for learner & instructor both
Dashboard to check the activity on the app for both parties
Search Engine to direct search the course or program
Categories to explore the courses by streams
Filter to search the course precisely by the duration, fee, etc
Recommendation for relevant courses
Course Page with all necessary details from topics to instructor and duration to fee
Create and upload Courses feature with the edit option for instructor and teachers
Mock-test feature in the course for learners and students
Progress tracking and analyst feature to evaluate the course
Online Certification
Webinar option for teachers to host online forums or lectures
Push Notification & Advertising
Online Payment option for students to pay for online certification courses or likewise
In-app chatbot to have the support in real time for both parties
Admin panel to control the overall activities on the app including content management, courses management, delete any inappropriate content, other authoritative management
Advance features
Premium Version upgradation: the most used feature and one of the efficient revenue model with you can earn extra with offering advanced courses and eliminating ads in the premium version of the app, you can alure the learner to upgrade to premium.
Coupons for special or new arrival courses
Career guidance support
Download option to download the course
Rate and review system
Elements or Content in the App
User engagement is one such thing that can’t be overlooked. In this era of digital interactivity and over the top platforms, this is one of the primary aspects that your app needs. We all know the fact that user engagement would directly proportionate to the amount of content you add to your e-learning app.
Having an interactive website will help in generating more user engagement. it's important that the content developer you chose is conversant in the content format you're using. If you're developing story-line modules, they're often billed hourly, hence a 3-hour online course will take roughly 300 hours of content production at a budget of $30-$45000. Also, you can take a look at the existing Mobile app development company and the type of simulations they are using to build a more effective platform.
Multi-Level of Instructional Design and Interactivity
1. Good Interactivity: The second most important point to build a good application is interactivity. The right level of interactivity is sufficient for the app to survive in the market as well as it will affect the overall cost of Udemy-like app development. For maximizing the institutional goals, app developers shall have a deep understanding of the user interactivity the app aims to achieve. They can be further subdivided into four main points which are:
Audience type: App developers should have a clear picture in their minds about the target audience, length of the course, and delivery.
Online platform: The Online platform is a very useful and interactive tool that is used to support the application.
Budget: The overall budget of content production shall also be taken into account.
Add ons: The app should have pre-existing materials such as videos and PowerPoint slides in it.
2. Process Alignment: You are doing great work regarding app development, but you have not maintained a steady process of workflow. Do you think your app will be ready in time? The answer is obviously no. To make an application like Udemy, one has to maintain a strict flow of work.
Stop spending more time refining and fine-tuning the app as it only delays the process further by some days. Start by making changes to the app. It might not look like any danger, but frequent changes always lead to a slow down of the development process, which will, in turn, reduce the business turnover at the end. Therefore it is always better to formulate the plan way ahead and stick with the decision.
Platform compatibility is also essential, and this can be achieved by only investing in a responsive tool. This lets the app to be easily accessible on all devices type like Android and Mac.
Do take a look at the work done by the hired on-demand app developers who value time and resources. They also abstain from wasting time to create multiple versions of the e-learning course, thus buying you extra hours.
3. Innovative Features: Today, everything is online. Therefore, enriching your app with innovative features will let you win over the customer base in seconds.
Try introducing features like a chatbot which will solve the queries online and save you the time of responding to their emails. Also, you can integrate data analysis in machine learning algorithms to predict and study growing customer trends.
Lastly, secure your payments with blockchain, so that daily transactions can take place smoothly and hassle-free.
Conclusion
E-learning is the advanced form of new-age learning. The trend is ready to grow at a rapid scale in the forthcoming years also. Therefore, the cost to develop an educational app like Udemy, in this current scenario can be a little more expensive. But not all companies build apps through their core team members. You can outsource some of your work to get it done properly without congregating any loss. So, before beginning this developmental journey, go through these significant points carefully and then start the work.
Do you have any E-learning app idea?
Sanjay Kidecha
CMO
by Sagar Bagsariya
by Manav Patel
by Mihir Mistry
by Drashti Pandya
