The number everyone asks for and nobody can produce on the spot. Choose a complexity level and the finished runtime, and get a defensible range of development hours and cost, broken down by project phase.
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| Phase | Share | Hours | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Analysis & kickoff | 10% | 7 | $595 |
| Design & storyboard | 20% | 15 | $1,275 |
| Development & media | 45% | 33 | $2,805 |
| QA & revisions | 20% | 14 | $1,190 |
| Project management | 5% | 4 | $340 |
| Total | 100% | 73 | $6,205 |
Phase hours split the likely estimate. Quote the range, not the midpoint, and say out loud what the number excludes: subject-matter expert time, stakeholder review cycles, translation, and the LMS work after handoff.
Turns a course length and a complexity level into a development estimate, adjusted for the things that actually drive cost: voice-over, video, simulation, branching, accessibility work. It reports a range rather than a single number, and breaks the likely figure down by project phase.
Every published benchmark for e-learning development is a spread, often a wide one, because team experience and content readiness move the figure more than complexity does. A single number invites somebody to hold you to it. Quote the range, name the assumptions, and you have a conversation instead of a commitment.
The hours-per-finished-hour bands are the industry benchmark ranges that have circulated in this field for years, and the phase splits are the conventional ones. Both are reasoned starting points rather than measurements of your team. If you have your own historical data, it beats this every time. Use these bands to sanity check your figures, not to replace them.
Subject-matter expert time, stakeholder review cycles, translation, and the LMS configuration and testing that happens after handoff. These are commonly where a project actually overruns, and they vary so widely by organization that folding them into a ratio would make the estimate less honest rather than more complete. Name them separately when you present a number.