The buyer's benchmark

What done-for-you e-learning really costs.

Most production vendors publish nothing, which leaves buyers negotiating blind against quotes between $5,000 and $50,000 for what sounds like the same thing. This benchmark assembles every published rate we could verify — normalized, cited, and explained.

• Every published 2024–2026 vendor rate, normalized to cost per finished minute — with sources
• The four cost drivers that explain the 6× spread between the floor and boutique rates
• A vendor-evaluation checklist: the questions that expose padding before you sign
• Anatomy of a good SOW — what a fixed, itemised statement of work must contain
• Regional notes, including the Indonesian local-market picture

The headline numbers stay free on our open cost guide — the benchmark adds the full tables and the checklists.