# What one training course costs to build, line by line The cost of a course is the hours each person spends on it, priced at what that hour costs you, plus outside costs and the upkeep after launch. This post is for owners and managers who need to price one training course before they build or buy it. It gives a worksheet with three separate totals and no assumed figures, because your own hours are the only honest input. ## Why is there no honest average price? Course costs swing with length, media, how ready your sources are and how many people review. A course built by a training team for a large company has little in common with a lesson an owner makes from a checklist. An average from someone else's course tells you almost nothing about yours. So this post gives a form, not a figure. You bring the hours, the rates and the outside costs, and the form keeps you from leaving any of them out. Be wary of any quote that gives a price per finished minute or per hour of course without asking about your sources. It is pricing a product, not your training. ## Who works on a course? Write down every person who touches it, even briefly. The list is usually longer than the owner expects, and every name on it is paid time. - The expert who knows the work and explains it - Whoever writes or drafts the lessons, inside or outside the company - Whoever films, records or builds visuals, if the course has them - Every reviewer who checks facts, steps or wording, in every round - The person who assigns the course and answers questions about it - The learners themselves, whose hours on the course are paid hours ## What does an hour really cost? An hourly wage is not the cost of an hour. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in June 2026, wages and salaries made up 70.0 percent of private employers' compensation costs, and benefits the remaining 30.0 percent. So price each person's hour with benefits included, using your own payroll records. If you need a rate for a role you have not hired, the Bureau's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program publishes wage estimates by occupation, state and metro area. Keep that loaded rate for paid time only. Your expert's time away from customers can also cost you sales or slower service, but that is a different kind of cost. Note it on its own line beside the totals, and do not fold it into the hourly rate or add it to what you pay. ## How do you fill out the worksheet? Use one row per stage, and keep three totals apart: building the course, delivering it to learners and keeping it current for a year. Price paid hours at each person's loaded hourly cost and add outside costs, such as a freelancer's invoice or a tool. Leave nothing at zero just because it was nobody's job. The last row is not money you pay, so it stays out of all three totals. One-course cost worksheet with three totals | Stage | Who works on it | Paid hours (yours) | Loaded hourly cost (yours) | Outside costs (yours) | Paid cost | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Build: scope and brief | Owner or manager, expert | | | | Hours × rate, plus outside costs | | Build: collect sources | Expert, whoever gathers the files | | | | Hours × rate, plus outside costs | | Build: draft lessons, quizzes and job aids | Writer, or a drafting tool and the person running it | | | | Hours × rate, plus outside costs | | Build: record and edit media | Presenter, editor | | | | Hours × rate, plus outside costs | | Build: review and correct | Every reviewer | Rounds × hours per round | | | Hours × rate | | Build: approve and publish | Approver, whoever sets up access | | | | Hours × rate | | Build total | | | | | Sum of the build rows | | Delivery: learner time | Each learner | Course length × number of learners | | | Hours × rate | | Delivery: assign and answer questions | Manager | | | | Hours × rate | | Delivery total | | | | | Sum of the delivery rows | | Upkeep for one year | Course owner, reviewer | Hours per change × changes per year | | | Hours × rate, plus outside costs | | Opportunity cost, listed and not added | The expert | Hours away from customers | Not priced at the loaded rate | | Your note on what that time would have earned | ## How does upkeep change the math? A course is not a one-time purchase. Each time a step, a product or a rule changes, someone has to find the affected lessons, fix them and get them approved again. Multiply the hours per change by the changes you expect in a year, and put that on the worksheet as its own row. A course that is cheap to build but hard to edit can cost more over its life than one built from sources you can update. Ask any builder how a change is made after launch, and by whom. Video is the usual trap: a filmed step that changes means a new shoot, while a written step means one edit and one review. Keep the details most likely to change out of the hardest formats to edit. ## How do you estimate hours you have never tracked? Most owners have never timed a course, so the first estimate is a guess. Make it a careful guess. Time one small piece before you price the whole thing, then scale up from that piece. - Ask the expert to explain one task while you time it, and use that to estimate the rest - Draft one lesson, or have one drafted, and time the review of it from start to approval - Write a low and a high figure for each row instead of a single number - Keep the worksheet and correct it after the first course, so the next estimate starts from real hours ## When is a course worth what it costs? The worksheet tells you what a course costs. It does not tell you whether that cost is worth it. For that, set the build total, plus a year of delivery and upkeep, next to what the gap costs you today, in the same hours and the same loaded rates. Count the manager hours spent answering the same questions, the remakes and refunds from a step done wrong and the shifts a new hire works before they can work alone. If you cannot name the gap in those terms, the course may be solving a problem you do not have. Fix the source or the process first. ## Which rows change when AI drafts the lessons? AI drafting shrinks one row of the worksheet: drafting. The other rows stay where they were. Someone still scopes the course and collects sources, reviewers still check every step, learners still spend their hours and every change after launch still needs a fix and an approval. A confident draft can even add review time, because a mistake that sounds right takes longer to catch. So fill out the worksheet for the AI option row by row, as you would for a writer, and do not let a short drafting row stand for the whole course. In Elvina, drafting lessons, job aids, quizzes and video lessons in Creation Studio from your sources in Company Knowledge is available now. A person's approval before anything is assigned on the Learning Platform is available now. When a source changes, a person can start a redraft for review, which is available now and helps you fill in the upkeep row honestly. Today our team does that drafting with you on the platform, and Elvina takes it on as each part is confirmed. ## What does a completed worksheet look like? A fictional tailoring shop wants a course for new counter staff on taking a fitting and writing an alterations ticket. The owner fills out the worksheet in words first, so every formula is clear before any number goes in. Each line below becomes one row. - Build: the owner's scoping hours times her loaded rate, plus the head tailor's interview hours times his loaded rate - Drafting: the freelance writer's invoice goes under outside costs, and her hours are not counted a second time - Review: the head tailor's review rounds times his hours per round times his loaded rate, so a second round shows up as its own line - Delivery: the number of new counter staff times the course length times their loaded rate, plus the manager's hours for assigning it and answering questions - Upkeep: the changes expected in a year times the hours per change, priced at the head tailor's loaded rate - Opportunity cost: the fittings the head tailor could not take while he worked on the course, noted beside the totals and kept out of them ## What we would measure After the first course, put the worksheet next to what really happened, and fix the estimate before you price the next one. - Actual hours per stage against the estimate, for each person - Review rounds before approval, and hours per round - Hours spent on upkeep in the first year, per change - Learner hours, taken from completion records - Each of the three totals against its own estimate, never merged into one figure - Cost per person who passed the check on the job, not per enrollment ## Questions people ask **Q:** What does it cost to make a course? Count it as three totals. The build cost is everyone's hours on the course, priced at a loaded hourly cost, plus outside costs. The delivery cost is mostly learner hours, and upkeep is a year of fixes. Keep the expert's time away from customers beside them as an opportunity cost, and use your own hours instead of an industry average. **Q:** Why use a loaded hourly cost instead of the wage? Because the wage is only part of what an hour costs you. Benefits such as paid leave and insurance sit on top of it, and BLS data show they are a sizable share of private employers' compensation costs. A wage-only rate undercounts every row of the worksheet. **Q:** Does an AI course builder make a course almost free to produce? No. It can shrink drafting hours, but someone still collects sources, reviews every draft and keeps the course current. Fill in the same worksheet for the AI option, including review, learner time and upkeep, and compare the totals rather than the subscription prices. ## Sources Public sources, checked on the date shown. - BLS: in June 2026, wages and salaries were 70.0 percent of private industry employer compensation costs; benefits were 30.0 percent. Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm (checked 2026-10-02). - BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics publishes annual wage estimates for about 830 occupations, nationally and by state and metro area. Source: https://www.bls.gov/oes/ (checked 2026-10-02).