how much to charge to make online course

by Mr. Demetrius Hirthe PhD 3 min read

Creating an online course can run between $200 at the very minimum to $5500 or more a year depending on the method you choose to create and market it. These cost account for the hosting platform, screen capture software, email service provider, domain names, to advertising cost.

Wrapping Up
Year1 hour of eLearning content costs, $
20218,542 – 36,320 (22,431 on average)
20208,150 – 36,205 (22,178 on average)
20197,830 – 37,365 (22,598 on average)
20177,140 – 35,550 (21,345 on average)
Jun 20, 2020

Full Answer

What is the average cost of online courses?

Jun 20, 2020 · How much does it cost to develop an online course? 215601 20/Jun/2020 Online Course Development Price According to Researchers In 2010, the Chapman Alliance did in-depth research and found that it can cost around $10,000 to produce one hour of educational content. Why exactly “around”? It’s effortless.

How much does it cost to develop an online course?

Nov 05, 2021 · The average course price of a creator’s first online course This is what we learned about creators’ first online course sales specifically: Out of 12,818 creators, the average price of a creator’s first online course sale is $157. The median selling price of a …

What is the average cost of an online degree?

Mar 09, 2021 · How much does it cost to create an online course? Creating an online course can run between $200 at the very minimum to $5500 or more a year depending on the method you choose to create and market it. These cost account for the hosting platform, screen capture software, email service provider, domain names, to advertising cost.

How much should I charge for online personal training?

Feb 10, 2015 · In some cases you may be able to price a self-paced online course at the same rate of the ILT version, if the course is essentially the same. More often than not though, we’ve seen that self-paced training is typically 50-90% the price of its ILT counterpart. Other Formats: Your course may already be available as a DVD, eBook, or CD.

How much should I charge for an online course?

At an estimated 80 to 280 hours required to develop a 1-hour course, you can expect to pay roughly $5,850 USD to over $15,000 USD to get a fully polished course, in addition to the cost of your Instructional Designer (ID) and SME.

How much should I charge to design a course?

According to Upwork, the hourly rate of an instructional designer starts at about $50. A simple scenario with the main character and a linear plot can be written in 20 hours, so the work will cost at least $1,000.Sep 2, 2019

How much can you make selling courses online?

You can make anywhere from $500 to $50,000 and more by teaching online courses. To determine how much money you can make from online courses, all you need to know are the size of your audience, how well you can convert those people into buyers, and the price of your program.Jun 9, 2021

How much does it cost to build eLearning?

The cost of an eLearning program typically costs between $200 and $900 for every minute of completed eLearning, but depends on several factors, including: Which eLearning level you choose (Level 1, 2, or 3) Whether your eLearning has professional voiceover.

How much does it cost to develop an online course in 2021?

In 2021, 1 hour of learning content can take around 100 – 160 hours to create. In 2021, 1 hour of learning content can cost about $8,542 – $36,320 ($22,431 on average)....Wrapping Up.Year1 hour of eLearning content costs, $20218,542 – 36,320 (22,431 on average)20208,150 – 36,205 (22,178 on average)2 more rows•Jun 20, 2020

How do I create an online course?

How to create an online courseChoose the right subject matter.Test your idea.Research the topic extensively.Write a course outline.Create the course content.Bring your course online.Sell your online course.Market your content.More items...•Jun 23, 2021

How much does the average online course make?

How Much Money to Expect From an Online Course. Your skepticism is probably firmly rooted in the fact that the amount people have earned from creating online courses varies widely. Your course could literally earn anywhere from nothing to upwards of $50K a month.Aug 19, 2021

How do online courses make money?

7 Ways to Make Money Selling Online CoursesCharge up front. ... Offer the course for free, then charge for certification. ... Charge a subscription. ... Use a tiered payment system. ... Pre-sell your course. ... Sell your online course for free—then funnel it into a product or service. ... Sell course licenses.Jan 13, 2020

How do you sell an online course?

Let's recap the nine essential steps for selling your online course:Choose a subject that sells. ... Create your online course. ... Choose where to host and sell your course. ... Decide how much you will charge. ... Increase the value (and price) of your course. ... Seed launch your online course. ... Market and sell your online course.More items...

How long does it take to create an eLearning course?

A average 1-hour interactive elearning course will take 197 hours to develop. But development of a 1-hour elearning course can range between 49 hours for the low end of the range of a “basic” course to 716 hours for the high end of the range of an “advanced” course.

How long does it take to create 1 hour of eLearning?

The research gives a mid-point for medium interactivity courses of approximately 180 hours development for every 1 hour of eLearning. Therefore, by their estimates, a 20 minute course would take 60 hours of development. If you work a 40 hour week, that's about a solid week and a half of your hard labor.Jun 25, 2015

What is online course development?

Online course development is a complex process, and the price of course creation can vary depending on learning platform, course content, eLearning industry, and other factors. If you want to get a detailed cost analysis research for your eLearning project, pleasefeel free to schedule a demo. Tweet#N# .

How long has Sergiy been in eLearning?

Sergiy has 18 years of experience in eLearning and management. Creating educational programs, career paths, online and offline courses he is making the educational world better as a co-founder of RG.

Is eLearning still relevant?

The eLearning market changes, new eLearning trends, and technologies rise and the course should remain relevant. As we all know, even the most popular distance learning courses might need to be adjusted over time, if new breakthroughs occur in the subject matter, new data should be added or some statistics should be updated.

How long is an online course?

Most complete online courses are at least an hour long. If you’re planning for your course to be 3 hours then you can take the 1 hour time estimate and multiple it out by 3 to give you your approximate costs. So I’ll stick with one hour of video course content for this case study.

How many people watch online courses every day?

A lot of online courses are set up like the image below: According to research, 78% of people watch online videos every week and 55% view online videos every day. Watching videos online is a popular way to consume course content.

What is the most popular format for online courses?

Video with audio is the most popular format for an online course. Most courses consist of videos with a menu to navigate the course. Sometimes there’s supplemental text or links to supplemental materials beneath the online video. A lot of online courses are set up like the image below:

How long does it take to create supplemental material?

For instance, if it takes you 5 hours to create your supplemental material the first time it may take close to that the next time. If you’re creating the supplemental material then realize that your time is valuable so it’s smart to have an estimate of how long it’ll take.

How long does it take to make a video script?

No matter which type of video you’re creating, you’ll start with the outline and script creation first. I estimate it will take 3 to 10 hours to script out 1 hour of video depending on the level of detail you’re including and your expertise of the subject matter.

How many words should I use for a 10 minute video?

It’s hard to gauge how much content you have per video. If you’ve got 10 minutes for the video, you need between 1,000 and 2,000 words. You can use that as a gauge for how much content you need.

What is online course development?

Online course development specifically includes the cost to create the course content. That's why in this article, I won't cover the costs to host and manage an online course or the costs for best online course platforms. Instead, I'll just cover the costs for developing the course itself.

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How it all adds up

A bad pun notwithstanding, these are the most important insights into our data analysis, outside of the data itself:

About the author

Lauren Cochran is the Director of Content for Podia, an all-in-one platform where online courses, digital downloads, and communities scale with their creators. Ironically, she gets tongue-tied talking about herself, and can usually be found with a to-do list in hand.

How much does it cost to create an online course?

Creating an online course can run between $200 at the very minimum to $5500 or more a year depending on the method you choose to create and market it. These cost account for the hosting platform, screen capture software, email service provider, domain names, to advertising cost. However, the cost all depends on the hosting you use, ...

How to create an opt-in offer?

The final way to create an opt-in offer is to do a webinar. A webinar is a great way to teach your audience something to live and sell them your product in the end. Doing a webinar is the only time the 5-minute rule doesn’t apply.

Can I host a course on WordPress?

Your first option is to host your course on WordPress. A lot of people like this option because it gives you the most control over your content to the hosting you decide to use. With other platforms, you are stuck with the options they provide. On top of that with WordPress, it allows you to customize your design.

1. How does the online course fit in your overall business goals?

In our experience, there are 3 different business goals for offering online training. Each goal has different implications on pricing.

2. How are alternatives to your course priced?

Your potential customers have alternatives to taking your online course. It is best to understand your positioning against the alternatives in order to price appropriately. Generally speaking, there are 3 benchmarks to consider.

3. What are your cost considerations?

When investing in an online course, it’s important to assess the potential revenue opportunity against course development costs. Creating a course involves upfront instructional design and content creation, and ongoing technology infrastructure costs.

4. What is your willingness to test different prices?

If you are willing to test different prices, we recommend pricing high and using promotional codes for different groups until you find the sweet spot which best suits your goals. One common way to do this is to slowly release the course to your email newsletter list, while A/B testing different promotion codes (and price points).

Conclusion

Pricing your online course can be a challenging task. We hope the 4 questions described above will help you determine your pricing strategy. We’ve learned that pricing an online course is much more of an art than a science, but addressing these questions can help guide you to the right outcome.

How long does it take to create an online course?

The amount of time that it takes to build an online course will depend on the length and detail of the course. It can take you anywhere between 25 and 500 hours to create an online course from start to finish. Short courses can take just a few days, but longer courses can take weeks or months. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

What is Skillshare course?

Skillshare. Skillshare is the perfect online course selling platform for designers, writers, photographers, bloggers, entrepreneurs, and more. If you are looking to share your skills for a fee online, Skillshare is the place to be. They feature both popular and niche subjects that target specific people.

Is selling online courses becoming more popular?

You will need to keep in mind the fact that selling online courses is becoming increasingly popular, which means that the market is saturated with the most common options. You will need to find a unique course topic in order to be the most successful and profitable.

Is basketball a lower income than sailing?

The audience for an online course teaching the basics of basketball likely has a lower income than an online course about sailing or snowmobiling. That’s just because the barrier to entry is much lower to play basketball than to go sailing.

Is selling online courses profitable?

Yes, selling online courses can be profitable, as online courses offer one of the best business models to digital entrepreneurs. The demand for online courses is only rising, and people are willing to pay for them for the convenience of being able to learn at home and in their own time.

2. How Much is This Transformation Worth?

This is much easier to price your online course if your transformation involves helping your students make more money.

4. How Much Do You Want to Make From Your Course?

This won’t be the be-all-end-all for pricing your course, but it does help put things in perspective.

5. How Much Do You Need to Charge for Your Online Course to Make A Profit?

Keep in mind that once you’ve created your course, you’ll still need to spend time marketing it, doing customer service, creating updates, etc.

7. Choose a Pricing Structure For Your Online Course

Once you’ve decided how much you’re going to charge, you have one final step: to choose your pricing structure.

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Decisions Related to Online Course Development

One-Time Costs vs Time Related Costs

  • There are a few different types of costs involved in creating online courses. The first set of costs are your one-time costs for software or equipment. You can re-use equipment or sometimes rent equipment to save money. We’ll get into the one-time costs later. Costs that are more difficult to measure are time-related costs. Obviously, if you’re pay...
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How Long to Create An Hour of video?

  • Let’s start by going through an estimate of how long it takes to create that one hour of video. But before we can get to our video time estimate, we need to consider what kind of video we’re going to create. Will it be a live-action, screen recording, or animation-style video?
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Visual Video Decisions

  • There are decisions you need to make depending on what type of video you’re creating; live-action, screen recording, or animations. I’ve got a few pathways here depending on the type of video you’re creating. What you’re doing here is deciding on the visuals for your videos.
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Voice Over vs Live Action Audio

  • Depending on what type of video you’re doing, once your visuals are ready you need to record your audio …
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Estimate Considerations

  • As you can see, live-action takes less time to do. The time can vary based on the amount of practice you do and how many breaks you need between takes. Of course, if you’re recording yourself giving a slideshow presentation, you need to create that presentation and record it live. So that will take even longer! The thing is, these estimates are just for one hour. But if your cours…
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Supplemental Material

  • As explained above, I suggest creating an add-on to go along with the video. This takes extra time, but it will greatly enhance the value of your course. You can include a quiz (even 12 questions covering 1 hour of video will work). Quizzes or assessments make the most sense when you’re covering a difficult educational concept. For each module in my course, I created a short quiz. If …
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Time Estimates For 1 Hour of Video and Supplemental Material

  • Here’s the total time estimate for both the video training and the supplemental material production: Use this to help you figure out the time it will take you and estimate the costs involved.
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Costs For One-Time Physical Equipment

  • Now here’s where everyone will start incurring costs unless you already have all this equipment. First of all, you need a computer, but it doesn’t need to be anything super fancy. Hopefully, you already have access to a computer (a desktop or laptop will work). There’s so much variety in computer costs that it’s hard to estimate. Most people already have a computer (or access to on…
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One-Time Costs For Software

  • In addition to the physical equipment, you’ll need software. Once again, it’s different whether you’re doing presentation-style videos or live action videos which I’ll cover below.
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