How to Create e-Learning Application: Costs and Whole Process Overview

E-learning mobile apps development for iOS and Android is primarily due to the sudden shift of learning methods from traditional to remote. Technological advancements and post-pandemic measures forced most schools, business people, government organizations, and employees to enroll in the distance learning process and hire good E-learningApp Development Services Company.

According to recent research, By 2022, the market value for the mobile e-learning market would be worth above 257 billion USD and a steady CAGR rate of 7.5%. The cost to develop an e-learning app for Android and other mobile platforms depends on factors such as the tech stack, development team, expected features, ambitions, etc. American and European top organizations and universities use mobile apps to train their employees and students to meet the current online education demand.

However, developing e-learning app for students is very lucrative in Asia and Africa due to the high number of non-native English speakers. The top e-learning mobile apps include Duolingo, Coursera, and edX.

A Small Cloud on the Horizon: Challenges That You Should Prepare

Below is the list of challenges you should have answers to during your e-learning application development for your platform.

Underestimating competitors

The educational niche is very competitive due to increased language and skill improvement demand. This is why the product owner needs to use specific competitor and market analysis tools. Google Analytics is one of the typical analysis services mobile app developers use. Getting constructive feedback or developing expert opinions on your product can give you an extra edge over your business rivals. Risk management is also possible during the MVP stage by showing your investors, buyers, or customers the preview of your product. This helps the development team know what to improve or if the application meets the clients’ needs and targeted audience.

Security issues

Data safety and anti-plagiarism policies are essential in attracting learners and educators to your language learning platform. Two-step verification, SSL certificates, watermarking, and advanced encryption are popular ways to tighten data protection and prevent copyright infringement. Here is your answer if you are thinking about how to make an e-learning app for your website without compromising privacy or content.

Lack of professionalism

The success of any language mobile app depends on its developer’s expertise. It is advisable to hire a licensed professional to create your product from its MVP stage to completion. The benefits of  employing trained specialists for your platform include:

• Challenges anticipation is one of the unique skills of developers with vast experience in building similar applications. They can tell you about the challenges to expect and a feasible way out of them.
• Proper calculation of timeframe and e-learning app development cost for the project can be provided by app developers with a long track record of performing similarly in the past.
• Professional developers are familiar with using the latest technology and app features compared to amateur developers. This ensures that your application is up to date with the recent trends and consumer needs.
• Experts in the app development niche can offer helpful, professional advice and consultation due to their vast experience in the technology field.
• Scalability, flexibility, and fast comprehension are significant benefits of hiring experienced developers. Their right tech stack and code style give your website these benefits.

Selecting the right group of technicians is essential when deciding how to create an e-learning application for Ipad or other devices.

Poor scoping

Good planning can help you save time and money in the long run, especially if you plan to create an e-learning app for a larger audience. The admin panel, features, and management system required for learning platforms can be influenced by experienced developers to prevent unforeseen challenges that could cause restarting the app development. E-learning websites would need advanced customized features and search engine options to meet the demands of their high users.

Poor choice of method

Combining the right technology stack and method is a recipe needed to make an e-learning app. Some of the best methodology approaches for your software include Scrum and Agile. It is advisable to divide your learning applications into sprints with simple tasks and enough time for error correction. The milestone approach makes it easy to meet the strict deadline without neglecting necessary changes. Constant, uninterrupted communication can be maintained between the client and technical team using CI/CD.

Neglect of customer needs

The users of education apps have different linguistic levels, goals, and assimilation. For example, a businessman trying to learn a new language for certification would need a different learning experience than a student who learns for summer travel. This challenge can be fixed by performing a preliminary skill assessment to grade language levels. Mobile apps like Udemy get feedback from their old and new learners concerning their learning process and experiences using their competitor’s software. This is an excellent way to meet the needs of all the students and find out the real challenges they face during their learning process.

Features That Make More Value in Your eLearning App

User profile

A good e-learning app ensures that users access features that help them choose courses, teachers and check progress levels. The user account should store profile data, monitor, and improve the game characters by using purchase options within the application. One of the ways to increase the engagement of participants is to offer consistent skill assessment, purchase discounts, and graduation certificates to the e-learning mobile app users.

Gamification

One of the ways to keep adults glued to your application is to add gamification to your LMS. Specific features such as quizzes, games, and other interactive programs can motivate adult learners to use your platform. Adding gaming features is vital if you have decided to create an elearning app that stands out and is used for all age groups, including kids. This also makes monetization easy through in-app purchases.

Integrated payment system

Offering a payment method that works with bank cards and integrates well with PayPal, Apple Pay, etc., can enhance the monetization of your platform. Ease of payment can increase user engagement on your e-learning app.

Community support

Creating a tutor-learner environment is a mandatory feature for good learning software. Creating an avenue for feedback, video-conference call, chat, and sharing files with a third party is advisable. This would make the tutor learn to interact and use the application more.

Social networks integration

Accessing software can be frustrating when users click forget passwords due to too much information to remember. This is why it is valuable for your learning app, if users can access it through linked social media pages. This would make profile completion easier by using their linked social media accounts.

All these features are vital if you have decided to build an elearning app for an online course.

Keeping Up With the Times: Some Technical Aspects

Front End

React Native is the perfect solution when building a mobile learning app for Android and iOS users. It is flexible, saves time and money because of its open-source built-in library. Features such as quizzes, chat, video, and tests are compulsory features for any learning platform. React Native is the preferred choice because it is easier to use, time and cost-effective, and provides the product owners with a large range of communicative features to use.

Backend

One priority of startups, especially during the MVP stage, is a good scalable tech stack with a flexible product implementation process without causing overloading. This is precisely what Node.Js compiled with NestJs framework offers (optimal speed to flexibility ratio). Choosing the perfect scalable tech stack is most important if growth is a top priority for your product.

Database

When choosing a database, it is essential to decide your topmost priority: speed, flexibility, or data privacy. Relational databases such as PostgreSQL are preferable for information protection, while MongoDB is an example of a non-relational database known for its speed and flexibility. Select the database for your app based on what is essential for the project.

Cloud Support

AWS is the most prevalent cloud system used by startup companies. It is often utilized due to its one-year allegiance advantages for new projects. This is a good option if you have decided on how to build an e-learning app that can serve a multipurpose function. Selecting the right development company can help you maximize all the tech stacks chosen for your project.

Looking for a reasonable solution regarding scale and monetization aims? Plan a meeting with our specialists and you’ll receive free complete guidance from us.

Let’s Talk About Monetization Strategy

Donations

In case you want to keep your app free of charge as well as free of ads, you can ask your audience for voluntary support. Set up a Kickstarter campaign, a Patreon account, or simply ask for donations.

In-app purchases

It is also possible to generate money by monetizing the benefits and features within the application. Users would need to pay more for supplementary privileges such as tutor supervision and advice, additional lessons, AR learning, the possibility of having individual lessons with teachers, or unrestricted access to the platform. This would be an added advantage over general users without in-app purchases.

Subscriptions

Consistency is critical when talking about regular income. A paid subscription is a way to get monthly cash from application users. It could also be combined with other sources of funds, such as in-app purchases.

Corporate learning offers

Employee training is a good marketing strategy and an indirect way of generating cash for e-learning companies. Since most communication and workflow are remote due to the pandemic, injecting more money into workforce training than equipment is advisable. An improved workforce would lead to more income for the company. This should be considered when planning how to start an educational website for your company.

Paid certification

Placing a price on a product increases its value. It is advisable to charge for the certificates after completing the courses on your app, primarily when used by institutions. University certificates are helpful for job enrollment and can be used as a source of money by e-learning companies. Funding and income generation are crucial when deciding how to develop an e-learning mobile app.

7 Steps to Create an e-Learning App

Creating a good learning app requires the right plan and resources to succeed. The steps below are essential tips:

1. Identify your targeted audience and how to meet their needs. The first step is to plan how your software would solve the challenges of your customer base. Analyze your prospective users based on sex, age, need location, or motives.
2. Formulate your idea and plan for the project. Create a draft for the significant features and strategy for the application.
3. Distribute the roles of the application participants. The learner, educator, admin, etc., should have well-explained roles and functions on the app.
4. Perform a thorough market and competitor analysis, identify the features, plan, and resources needed to compete in the education market, and perform better than your competitor.
5. Creating your MVP, design, and Prototype. This would help you receive the constructive feedback needed to bring the best out of your mobile app idea.
6. Find an experienced e-learning development company. Ensure that they have a group of developers with vast experience doing similar projects.
7. Create a reasonable pricing and marketing plan. Decide compulsory features and the budget you need to launch your eLearning startup based on what you found out during your market analysis.

Cost to Develop an e-Learning Applications

Overall, it isn’t easy to estimate the exact cost to develop your LMS or mobile app. In general, building the app’s prototype takes approximately 400-500 hours. The factors that determine the final price of the project include:

MVP Cost

The MVP stage of your software can be concluded with a budget of 20000-30000 USD depending on the project size, features, and idea. This stage could account for about half the total budget for the app.

Full-scale product cost

Developing the app to complete stage beyond the MVP could cost about 20000-100000 USD to get the product fully functional and efficient. This cost includes the budget for marketing and a complete development cycle.

Promotion

The budget for the promotion can cost about 10000 USD and be calculated separately, especially if you have a large-scale project with unique features in mind. It could include social media promotion, Google Ads, etc. An app would be more known by users if it had a good promotion campaign.

Developers’ rate

Ukraine is one of the best outsourcing locations for web development services. The price is not as important as the value of service you get for developers. An American developer works for 80-300USD hourly compared to Ukrainians that charge three times less for the same job. The best way to get a reasonable estimate for your project is to consult with a specialist.

How Can Codempire Help You in Starting Your Mobile e-Learning Project?

Codempire has vast experience creating mobile e-learning apps for different industries, including startups. Below are some of the products that we successfully created:

Avid Adventures

One of our beneficiaries is based in Singapore. The company specializes in organizing career-related programs and seminars for institutions and companies. Our goal was to develop a web application using the specification and instructions provided by the client. Our team of well-versed technicians transformed the basic idea into a finished product and created the MVP within three months. The app includes real-time features, primarily when used by many people.

Potatomath

We can also help you develop an app that attracts all age groups, including children. Codempire has experience creating informative and engaging apps for kids. One of our services was rendered to a Malaysian programming school for children. Our four software engineers developed the product and made it Android and iOS compatible. The app uses potatoes as the reward system for task completion. The MVP product was finished within four months, and the game also included a battle mode. The game is currently globally recognized with over 50 topics to its name.

Our results and experience speak for themselves. We are well equipped to help you bring your game idea to reality and offer uninterrupted support and assistance after the product implementation.

Conclusion

• Creating a mobile app can be overwhelming or more straightforward if you choose the right e-learning developers company to guide you.
• You can overcome challenges such as underestimated competitors, data protection, poor scoping, or method selection by preparing ahead and finding solutions to them before finishing the product.
• Your application needs to contain gamification, feedback system, social account integration, e.tc, to function effectively and keep users engaged.
• Choosing the right tech stack such as React Native can make your development process easier and faster.
• A donation, in-app purchase, subscriptions, and corporate learning are the best ways to monetize your platform and increase your revenue in the long term.
• The basic steps to create a learning app include: identifying your audience, planning the idea, role allocation, market and competitor analysis, MVP stage, hiring a development company, and finalizing using your marketing plan.
• It takes close to 400 - 500 hours to create your game prototype, depending on the idea, plan, and resources. The full-scale product cost can be about 20000 -100000 USD. This is why investing in Ukrainian developers who charge three times less than their American counterparts with the same quality of service is vital.
• Codempire has vast experience creating e-learning apps for different companies and age groups. Our recent work includes Avid Adventures and Potatomath for our Singapore and Malaysian clients. We have a good record of 3-4 months of creating the MVP stage and offer 24-7 support even after the product implementation.