eLearning App Development Featured

e-Learning App Development – Cost and Key Features

Elearning App Development is the new future trend in the market. Online learning has the potential to revolutionize knowledge. By the end of 2020, the global market of e-learning has reached a market value of $200B and could rise to $400B by 2025. The E-learning market is growing with a CAGR of 9% and retention rates of 30% to 60%. These e-learning trends are eye-catching for the new businesses who want to sustain and facilitate the quality of online learning and want to enjoy its perks.

The massive free open online e-learning sources offer valuable courses and other useful resources to the students and professionals. Without any cost or charge, such types of free sources are very useful for low-income families, children, and for the large community of people who want to gain and explore well-curated knowledge. This MOOC market could show its remarkable presence, worth $25B by the year 2025, and currently holds a share of $5B.

Giant e-learning platforms like Udemy, Coursera, Udacity, and edX are already availing their presence in the MOOC platform and offer a huge range of features at their platform and increased their retention rate and revenues.

Corporate e-learning markets enroll themselves in this step of learning mode and are quite successful. As per the Business Wire stats, this industry will grow with a CAGR of 11% between the years 2020 and 2024. One of the prominent benefits of learning this way is for those organizations who want to mark their reach to the different corners of the globe, easily scattering their market. Corporates provide budget-friendly tools for learning. According to an analysis, e-learning in corporations would take 40% to 60% less time than traditional learning methods.

Technologies like AR/VR allow the trainers to engage their students, without a doubt that education leaps advantage. IBM research found that by using the e-learning mobile app for learning, at the cost of one dollar, the productivity of thirty dollars comes back because employees can save a lot of money with online resources and excel with plenty of knowledge as well.

Types of e-learning apps

After getting an account for e-learning app development, now it is the turn for the type of app you want to get built. It is always necessary to decide the base of educational apps before any development.

Types Of Elearning Apps

Based on the term “Learning”, the applications are distinguished on the following criteria:

  • Apps for Students
  • Apps for Teachers

These categories are further classified according to their purpose as:

  • Learning management
  • Apps for apprenticeship courses
  • Specific subject learning apps
  • Educational apps
  • Multipurpose learning platforms
  • Classroom education, etc.

Why Build an E-learning App?

In a situation where many people want to acknowledge them with a similar topic, then in that case e-learning is a very fruitful solution. This helps to indulge the same knowledge among multiple people at the same time, without worrying about the space, an e-learning app is imbibed with extensive features and is much more than the traditional way of learning.

E-learning is not just another way of gaining knowledge, it’s more than that. In the pandemic times, schools have not yet started, and students need to adopt the mode of an online platform for their education and the use of a mobile application is a much time-efficient solution for them.

There are a number of benefits associated with elearning applications that make them more convenient than traditional ways of learning:

The flexibility of Learning:

This is an absolute reason for popularity amongst students. It has made any scholar acquire knowledge from any corner of the world especially, at any time. It has expanded learning parameters and has allowed students to make the best preparation possible.

Functionality:

The popularity of any app depends upon the features shared on the homepage. Functions like offline watching, downloading or saving, attempting free mocks, etc. are some characteristics that make any app gain popularity among students.

Wide Selections:

Scholars need not put themselves to the puzzle for choosing courses location wise. With the help of e-learning apps, you can choose any course, any time and gain your required information.

No Load on Pockets:

Tutors and coaching centers take a huge amount from the students for tutoring them on specific topics. But in online learning, you need not pay any money and the information is accessible free of cost. This is the big reason why students prefer learning from online educational apps.

Udemy is one of the predominant leaders in the mobile education industry to provide a wonderful elearning experience to its users. Some other top learning mobile education apps are Amazon Kindle, Photomath, Coursera, StudyBlue, Byzu’s, and Periodic Table.

Monetizing the e-Learning App:

We will not elaborate more on this concern but yes adequate information is shared here. This will give you ideas of the e-learning app development cost.

eLearning App Monetization

Going with Paid Version:

It is always better to go with complete paid versions or with some functionality. This brings you permanent users and a good amount which will help increase ROI. You can either make the feature payable or can make the entire app paid with 7 days of free trial versions.

Subscription:

People having start-ups place some subscription on accessing some advanced information on the app. Like people offer Mock Tests, Old Paper Downloading, etc. in free and subscribed versions.

Freemium:

A subscription is applied before you log in or want to access any feature. This only contains the data of the student and need not require any money from the users. By getting the details of the user, the apps send push notifications for getting money-making notifications, features, services, etc.

In-App Advertisement:

This is a popular way of engaging people in the money-making process. Ads are placed on the pages of the applications when any user accesses that page, the ads pop-up. You need to download the required information or have to click on some buttons. This will take you to another page with related information. With each click, you get money and then benefits.

Features /panels for:

eLearning App Panels

Student:

This feature allows the student to explore full courses in detail and it’s mainly the most important feature for the mobile e-learning app. Below are the student panel features we have to see first:

  • Registration: Students should register in the app. Next time they can easily access their profile details in the student portal.
  • Course Details: It consists of all of the course material if you are a subscribed student.
  • Online Tests: Students can give tests and monitor their performance with this section.
  • Forum: It contains useful forums which will help the student in any doubt. They can connect with their teachers using the forum section.

Teachers:

This feature allows teachers with the dashboard to configure many features on their own.

  • Login Options: Multiple sign-in/sign-out options for easy login.
  • Teacher Profile: Separate detailed profile for the teacher.
  • Manage accounts and create courses, quizzes, and many more things using this account.
  • Create and manage classes with their schedules.
  • Advanced features like uploading course materials, taking class sessions, sharing the screen, answering queries over live video and chat are very useful.

Admin:

Admin is the main authority, who can access all of the main functionalities of the app. Admin can access all of the accounts including the student’s panel, teacher panel, parents panel. Below are the required admin features:

  • Registration: Admin register using username and password and enable their credentials within the app.
  • Content Management: Admin can manage the entire course content including video, audio, lectures, and be able to add and remove any ebooks and videos.
  • Class Management: Admin can manage the classes, teachers, students.
  • Student Management: Admin can add or remove any student who is associated with the profile.
  • Teacher Management: Similarly, the admin can manage the number of teachers, or remove any when someone leaves the organization.
  • Payment Management: Admin can modify the payments, subscriptions options using this feature to sustain high-end security to users.

Advanced Features

  • Integrate with Bulletin Board: This is advanced feature-oriented functionality to drive motivation among students and other learners.
  • Tests and Quizzes for practice: Tests and quizzes are important features for students to practice, enhancing their knowledge and learning capacity. These are distributed among different modules. Students are now able to track their performance scores and practice more for their improvements.
  • E-commerce feature integrated with the app: By implementing this feature, users can get various functionalities. They can easily purchase lectures, other learning products, and books within the application for premium and free versions for trial.
  • CRM plugin with the app: CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool able to monitor the customer behavior and this will help deliver them the right customized results. This is a very intriguing feature for an e-learning app in such a competitive environment.
  • Subscription: People having start-ups place some subscriptions on accessing some advanced information on the app. Like people offer Mock Tests, Old Paper Downloading, etc. in free and subscribed versions.
  • Freemium: A subscription is applied before you log in or want to access any feature. This only contains the data of the student and need not require any money from the users. User details help to send push notifications for getting money-making notifications, features, services, etc.

Apart from these, you may also integrate advanced features like Payment integration, push notifications, in-app chat, and many more. Picking up the right e-learning mobile app solution for generating good ROI is a very important aspect.

Technology Stack

Developers keep in mind the technology stack they used while building e-learning apps. There are various aspects needed to create such an app and serve high-end solutions to the users.

Backend Technologies: Python and JavaScript platforms are used to develop the app at the backend and synchronizing the database would require PostgreSQL and Cassandra. Few tools are used along with:

  • Cloud storage and google cloud platform for maintaining the online data storage solutions.
  • Push app notification feature for easy accessibility.
  • To deal with caching, CDN and Amazon S3 are used.
  • Real-time management of the project is done with Kafka Software.
  • Payment gateways like PayPal, stripe, and e-wallets have to be used.
  • Mailchimp is used for email notifications, Twilio for SMS verification.
  • Real-time analytics is used for Hadoop and Apache Flink.

The above technology stack is a continuous and tiresome mechanism, so we recommend you to reach us for any assistance you require for building your e-learning mobile app solution.

Development Process

eLearning App Development Process

There are essential 6 main steps for developing an e-learning mobile app for your business.

  • Develop a brief document with instructional designing (ID): This is a high-level approach for problem-solving. It breaks the content into levels of modules, courses, and screens, as per the need. There is a separate ID for different types of courses.
  • Write scripting: This is mainly a document, in the word format that has collective information of assessments, activities, and resources.
  • Create a prototype beforehand for future safety: This is a very helpful step in overviewing the flow of content in e-learning courses. If any changes are required then it is to be rewritten in the same.
  • Create, manage the modules, and courses without the use of audio: This is a fully functional module shown to the stakeholder.
  • Create and manage the courses with audio attached to them: Along with the audio, animations and text are to be embedded to share with the stakeholders for their approval.
  • Develop a new learning management system for the different versions of courses: This is the final phase, once the stakeholder is agreed with the modules, it’s ready to be launched over platforms.

Team Requirement

Have you ever imagined; behind such a giant educational mobile learning app, there would be a team of world-class technocrats who transform the complex idea of mobile learning into reality? If you too are planning to build such an e-learning app, then you must have such expert programmers or eLearning app development companies behind you. Their well-flourished ideas would circulate from start to finish with the perfect blend of execution experts, making the whole process less tiresome for you. For such a team you would require:

  • Developers for Android/iOS platform
  • Designers for UI/UX
  • Business Analyst
  • Quality Analyst
  • Project Manager
  • End Delivery Manager

Cost of Development

This piece of information here will give you an overview of the education application development cost. You need to determine a pre-defined budget before constructing any application for your business. Especially, when it comes to elearning app development, you have to be a bit serious about the features and the e-learning application development cost.

E-learning mobile app developers keep contemplating about technology, features, skills, etc. needed to produce an app. After this, an approximation is done about the money required to build education apps for students. Here, this context is about the cost incurred in the production of e-learning applications.

Our team at Octal Info Solution believes in giving more with fewer resources. We utilize our skilled professionals and resources seamlessly. Each opportunity is contemplated with many technological stacks. According to which, the cost incurred on the development is as follows:

  • iOS front-end & serve-side development – $38,500
  • UI/UX Designing – $22,750
  • Management – $7,000
  • Testing – $5,250
  • Lump-sum costing – $73,500

The cost of producing any application may vary, especially in education apps. The sections, functionality, popularity, team involvement, and the skills needed decide the total cost for any e-learning app development. Along with this figure, 2500-2600 hours (15-30 days) are dedicated to producing an application. It generally costs (total) between $87,500 and $91,000. The figures are presented here on an approximation basis.

Factors affecting the eLearning App Development Cost:

Application Design:

In e-learning apps, design is the key factor. The UI/UX of the application should remain as simple as possible. People from every age group are capable of accessing the sections available on the app. It should have modern yet elegant graphics, images, fun activity zones that make your app stand out from other applications of the same category.

Features/Complexity:

The functionality of any app affects the cost of production. The more features you want to add, the more it becomes complex. Applications that belong to the kids learning usually have less yet manageable features. But when it comes to apps for competitive exams, online tests, etc. the functionality increases, and hence the e-learning application development cost increases.

Selection of Convenient Platforms:

Whether you want to build e-learning apps for Android or iPhone or both? The selection of platforms also plays a vital role in the cost of elearning app development. The app prepared on iOS or Android version, Hybrid or Native applications, etc. are some of the major sources of elearning app development.

Big platforms need big money investment as technology here is quite expensive. Platforms like native or cross-platform are slightly costly as it features single and multi-platform support.

Location-Based Development:

Last but not the least, location or geographical areas also affect the cost to develop an e-learning app, as the hourly rates of developers vary from one country to another. As listed below, Asian countries like India provide more affordable resources than the USA and Europe. Therefore, hiring resources from India is always going to be more affordable.

eLearning App Development Cost

These are some of the factors which lead to shuffling in the development of e-learning apps. Other least important factors are Target audience, Region, Multi-lingual Concepts, Customer Reach, etc. Covering all the aspects for decreasing the cost is not possible every time but yes, picking up the right solution for generating good ROI is possible.

Conclusion:

E-learning is the need of the hour for everybody. Market stats have landed up attractive figures to convince anyone to enter this lucrative digital domain. If you want to take this as an opportunity, consult with us.

eLearning App Development CTA

Arun Goyal

Managing Director @ Octal Info Solution, Leading Software & Mobile App Development Company in Singapore.