So, you are here. And since you have reached this page, we are sure you have decided to ditch your traditional training methods and make the much-awaited move to E learning management system. Now, your next question might definitely revolve around the most important aspect - budget. Before we address this question, let's first get some facts straight:

A study by Karl Kapp and Robyn Defelice states that the time required for producing one hour of distance learning materials is around 90-240 hours. On the other hand, Chapman Alliance suggests that an hour of eLearning costs $10,000 to produce. Of course, these numbers are subject to change. If you include more features and media elements, the cost and time will increase.

It is true that the upfront cost of implementing eLearning seems a tad high. However, if you consider its long-term costs, you stand at a far more advantageous position as compared to deploying traditional learning modules. How? We are here to address just this question.

What is the Cost of eLearning? How Does it Affect Your Total L&D Budget?

The cost of online course design and development is heavily dependent on the instructional design model chosen. For instance, one of the most popular eLearning models used by industries is the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) model. Each stage of this structure comes with its own individual costs.

However, apart from the one-time cost involved with the instructional design model, there are several other factors you need to consider, which eventually end up slashing your long-term costs.

Travel Costs

In-person training sessions need both the trainees and trainers to reach a pre-determined location in order to attend a module. Businesses have to incur additional travel costs on behalf of their employees and pay for them from their training and development budgets. However, when you implement eLearning, you won't be having any of these expenses since the staff can tune in to the training sessions from the comfort of their home or work station.

Meal & Venue Costs

In any training session, snack and meal breaks are quite common since the hours are usually long. But you can eliminate these expenses if you conduct the sessions online. On the other hand, in-person classroom training demands a well-equipped physical space to conduct the event. And start-ups or small businesses that do have access to in-house training facilities might need to rent a separate venue to execute the training program successfully. But with eLearning, you ditch the costs incurred in all of the above activities.

Productivity & Instructor Salaries

Corporate training needs the instructor and attendees to stay absent from their workstations for hours at a stretch. As a result, this can negatively impact the business's productivity. Additionally, much time is wasted to move the staff from one spot to another. You can otherwise use this time to increase productivity, and thereby, profits. In contrast, eLearning enables employees to attend their training sessions right from their desks, which can save a lot of time and money.

Staff trainers and facilitators have to get paid. Moreover, instructors themselves will also need to be trained, which in turn requires time and money. Again, with eLearning, corporates can save several bucks on printing materials since all content can be hosted online without you needing to print them for each training session.

Wrapping it Up

In short, the long-term cost of eLearning is significantly lower as compared to in-person training because businesses can save money on employee and trainer travel, infrastructure and classroom maintenance, facilitators’ salaries, documentation, and paper costs. What's more? eLearning allows companies to reuse a set curriculum/course with multiple candidates. The only effort needed is to update the corporate learning material when required.