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It is an ill wind that blows no one any good. The truth of this adage is vindicated once again when we look at the aftermath of the global pandemic. While for some industries the vicious attack of microscopic organisms was a curse, causing drastic shrinkage and even closure of companies, other sectors stood to gain from the recurrent lockdowns and other limitations. But such a positive outcome becomes possible only if stakeholders adopt novel approaches to addressing the challenges at hand. 

The education realm is one of those that takes the situation in its stride, holding the fort and even expanding due to the ushering of specialized software that made remote learning accessible for millions of students and teachers.

Such a robust growth turns the edtech industry into an appealing investment niche, with the estimate of online education websites and apps market to top $243 billion in the next year. 

However promising the revenue prospects in the domain may seem, even budding entrepreneurs realize that one must thoroughly examine the lay of the land before taking any steps in the direction of launching an edtech project. One of the factors that can influence your ultimate decision whether to embark on any business venture in this industry is the expected cost of building an online learning platform or app. 

Cost of E-learning Development: Summands to Consider

Being a seasoned player on the market of edtech products, Multi-Programming Solutions knows that there are three major factors that condition the cost to create e-learning app or site.

The Product’s Nature and Complexity

Determining the ballpark sum you will have to fork out starts with the choice of the education software piece you plan to create. Typically, entrepreneurs opt for either an e-learning platform/site or a mobile app. The cost of e-learning app or platform greatly depends on the number and nature of features you want to see in it. 

An education website development presupposes the existence of three sets of basic elements catering to the purposes of all user types. 

Students are to enjoy foolproof signing in and profile management, a search system equipped with several filters (conventionally, level, rates, price, and language ones), transparent information on subscription and payment options, course discussions, and knowledge gauging opportunities (tests or quizzes).

Teachers should be able to have a special profile of their own, the ability to share all kinds of learning material (videos, links, photos, texts), submission and editing of courses they developed, live-streaming mode, and screen sharing.

Admins must exercise full control over the activities of users at the platform, track statistics, and fix issues once they crop up. 

And don't forget about the landing page. This is the storefront of your site used by visitors to form the first impression of your company. So, if you want to turn them from random viewers into loyal users you should pay serious attention to the design and content of the landing page. Ideally, it should contain basic information about your team, its goals, and services extended to customers of all categories (primarily, students and instructors). 

The must-have functionalities for an e-learning app encompass registration and log-in systems, dashboard, notifications, payment system(s), progress monitoring, polling, reviews, and ratings. A great forte of an app is its offline mode availability and its users can enjoy it once you opt for building an e-learning PWA

You can choose to add some advanced features which, of course, will drive the price of e-learning app up. Such functionalities may include interactive content sharing and learning mechanisms, video streaming, document storage, social media integrations, analytics, progress tracking, chat/forum, multi-language support, etc. 

The Required Tech Stack

The software and tools necessary to implement an edtech project are determined by the features mentioned above and the target audience. If you are building an app, you will have to utilize iOS and/or Android front-end development software (React, Native, Java), HTML, CSS, and Adobe Illustrator for UI, AWS for cloud data storage, MySQL or MongoDB for the database, PayPal, E-Wallet, or Stripe for payment integration, Push.IO or Twilio for push notifications, to mention a few. 

The more cutting-edge your product is with a scope of advanced features, the more expensive technologies it will require for creation (AR, VR, breakout rooms, in-app camera, session recording, etc.).

The Roster of Experts

First of all, you will need a business analyst who will conduct preliminary research to see whether there is demand for your product or the market is already overcrowded with similar apps. As for the development team, it typically consists of a project manager, an Android/iOS developer, a couple of programmers, a front-end and a back-end developer, a QA engineer, a graphic designer, and a UI/UX designer. 

And this is for an average app. The number of project team members to build a more complex product must be multiplied by (at least) two, which tells negatively upon the final cost to develop an e-learning app that is rather feature-rich.

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