build 01
eLearning app development
Full-stack learning products from validation MVP to multi-tenant platform, instrumented for activation and completion from the first commit.
Ship a revenue-ready learning product →
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§ · edtech · elearning
EdTech Software Development Company
We build the learning platforms course businesses outgrow into — custom LMS builds, cohort-based course software, assessment engines, and mobile learning apps. SCORM/xAPI tooling, WCAG 2.2 accessibility, FERPA and COPPA-aware data handling, and checkout that actually converts.
On this page
§ 01 · what we build for edtech
What we build for EdTech & eLearning.
Most learning businesses do not need another Teachable clone; they need the specific system their growth is stuck behind. Sometimes that is a course player that respects the learner, sometimes an assessment engine an institution will accept, sometimes a mobile app that survives a commute with no signal. Eight builds, each scoped as its own engagement or composed into a platform.
build 02
LMS development
Custom learning management systems: chapter navigation, progress tracking, certificates, instructor dashboards, org-level admin rollups.
Build the LMS your courses deserve →build 03
Course platform development
Hybrid architectures that keep best-in-class checkout and billing while a custom platform owns delivery, community, and credentials.
Escape the all-in-one ceiling →build 04
Cohort-based course software
Weekly-pacing engines, cohort channels, drop-off alerts, and re-engagement flows. Cohort pacing is the single biggest completion lever we ship.
Run cohorts that finish together →build 05
Student portal development
One clean front door for learners: enrollment, progress, certificates, billing, and support in a single accessible interface.
Design a portal learners open daily →build 06
Assessment & quiz engines
Question banks, timed assessments, auto-grading, attempt policies, and certificate gating tied to demonstrated mastery, not video watch-time.
Grade at scale without spreadsheets →build 07
SCORM/xAPI content tooling
Standards-based packaging, import pipelines, and learning-record instrumentation so your content ports across systems instead of dying in one.
Make your content portable →build 08
Mobile learning apps
React Native learning apps with offline video, push-based pacing nudges, and full parity with the web platform. Built for the commute, not the demo.
Put the course in their pocket →§ 02 · standards & integrations
Built to the standards buyers ask about.
EdTech is a standards-dense vertical. A consumer course business can ignore most of them; the moment a school district, a university, or an enterprise L&D team enters the pipeline, the security questionnaire arrives before the contract does. We architect for that day up front — compliance-aware from the first schema migration, so the paperwork is a formality rather than a rebuild.
content standards
SCORM & xAPI.
We build import and export against SCORM for legacy institutional content and xAPI for modern learning-record streams. Your content ports in from an old LMS and ports out if you ever leave ours — no lock-in by file format.
accessibility
WCAG 2.2.
Learning software has a legal and moral accessibility bar most SaaS never faces. We design against WCAG 2.2: keyboard-complete course players, captioned and transcribed video, focus-visible assessments, and contrast-checked design tokens baked into the UI/UX design system itself.
learner data
FERPA, COPPA & GDPR-aware.
Education records and minors' data carry rules general software ignores. We build FERPA-aware record handling, COPPA-aware consent flows for under-13 audiences, and GDPR-aware retention and export. Aware means architected for — audit logs, role-based access, data-subject tooling — not a certification claim; your counsel and auditors certify.
platform integrations
LTI, Stripe & video infra.
LTI-friendly integration paths into Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle for institutional sales. Stripe Billing for subscriptions, seat licensing, and dunning. Video on Mux or Cloudflare Stream for adaptive playback, per-viewer analytics, and DRM on premium catalogs.
§ 03 · challenges → how we solve them
EdTech challenges → how we solve them.
The four problems that show up in nearly every edtech scoping call, and the specific system that fixes each. None of them are marketing problems; all of them are software problems wearing a marketing costume.
challenge 01
Completion rates stuck at the industry 12-15%.
Self-paced courses leak learners silently. Low completion kills referrals, reviews, and the repeat purchase that funds the next course.
how we solve it
Cohort pacing, progress mechanics, and drop-off-triggered re-engagement. The course platform in our featured case study holds a 62% completion rate; the Boston archetype moved 38% to 71% after a cohort-pacing rebuild.
challenge 02
The all-in-one platform became the ceiling.
Teachable, Kajabi, and Thinkific bundle everything adequately and nothing excellently. At real revenue, checkout conversion, brand experience, and data access all hit walls at once.
how we solve it
Unbundle deliberately. Keep the best checkout and billing you can get, run learning on a custom platform, and sync the two with a boring, retry-safe webhook bridge. One customer identity across both systems, no all-in-one tax.
challenge 03
Institutional buyers stall on the security questionnaire.
Districts and universities ask about FERPA posture, data residency, LTI integration, and accessibility before procurement will even schedule a call.
how we solve it
Compliance-aware architecture from the start: audit logs, RBAC, encryption at rest, learner-data export tooling, LTI-friendly integration paths, and a documentation pack that pre-answers the questionnaire. In the Boston archetype this motion 5x’d the institutional pipeline in six months.
challenge 04
Video costs scale faster than revenue.
Hours of HD course video on generic hosting means runaway bandwidth bills, piracy of premium catalogs, and buffering on the mobile networks where learners actually watch.
how we solve it
Purpose-built video infrastructure — Mux or Cloudflare Stream — with adaptive bitrate, signed playback URLs, DRM on premium tiers, and per-viewer engagement analytics that feed the completion mechanics rather than sitting in a dashboard.
§ 04 · the money question
How much does EdTech software cost?
EdTech platforms follow SaaS cost math, stage by stage. An MVP that takes a paying learner — course player, Stripe billing, basic auth, 5-10 core features — runs $30,000 to $80,000 over 10-16 weeks. A post-PMF platform with multi-tenancy, observability, and an admin panel runs $80,000 to $200,000 over 16-26 weeks. Scale-stage with SSO, RBAC, audit logs, and SOC 2 readiness runs $200,000 to $500,000 over 24-40 weeks, and enterprise multi-region builds cross $500,000 to $1M+. The full component-by-component breakdown, including the build-vs-buy table that routinely saves $150K-$410K on a scale-stage build, lives in our SaaS development cost guide.
| stage | edtech shape | timeline | market range |
|---|---|---|---|
| MVP | Course player, checkout, progress, certificates | 10-16 weeks | $30K-$80K |
| Post-PMF | Cohorts, community, instructor dashboard, multi-tenant | 16-26 weeks | $80K-$200K |
| Scale | SSO, RBAC, audit logs, LTI, SOC 2 readiness | 24-40 weeks | $200K-$500K |
| Enterprise | Multi-region, dedicated environments, custom integrations | 32-52 weeks | $500K-$1M+ |
Ranges match our SaaS development cost page — same math, edtech-shaped scope.
§ 05 · featured case study · archetype
$40K to $310K MRR on a hybrid LMS.
A course business hit the all-in-one ceiling at $40K MRR on Teachable. We unbundled: best-in-class checkout kept billing and customer records, a custom Next.js LMS ran the course player, progress, certificates, and community. Eighteen months later the platform sat at $310K MRR — 7.7x — with growth driven equally by enrollment volume (+240%) and pricing power from a new certificate tier.
MRR growth
7.7x
$40K at month 1; $310K at month 18.
completion rate
62%
Against the industry 12-15% average. Completion drives referral and repeat purchase.
churn
3.2%
Monthly, on the membership tier. Certificate-track users churn at 1.8%; course-only at 4.6%.
Read the full hybrid-LMS case study
Selling to institutions instead? See the Boston edtech SaaS archetype — $90K to $540K ARR in 18 months on FERPA-aware architecture, Canvas and Blackboard integration, and an institutional sales motion.
§ 06 · how we ship
How we ship EdTech software.
Five stages on a six-week delivery cadence. You see working software every Friday, not a status deck at the end.
- 01
Discover.
A 30-minute call, then a written scope inside 48 hours of that first call: stage assessment, build-vs-buy recommendation, fixed-fee number. Week zero, no charge.
- 02
Design.
Weeks 1-2. Learner journey maps, course-player wireframes, accessibility-checked design tokens, and the data model for courses, progress, and entitlements. Design ends when engineers stop asking questions.
- 03
Build.
Six-week cadence blocks with a working demo every Friday. Checkout and entitlements first, course player second, assessments and certificates third — revenue-critical paths always land earliest.
- 04
Launch.
Content migration, learner-account cutover with zero access loss, load-tested video delivery, and a rollback plan nobody should ever need. Launch week is planned in week one, not week last.
- 05
Optimize.
Post-launch, completion and activation data drive a monthly iteration loop: pacing experiments, assessment tuning, checkout tests. The platform compounds instead of decaying.
§ 07 · the stack
The EdTech stack we reach for.
Opinionated defaults, revisited every six months. Build the course player, the pacing engine, and the assessment logic; buy auth, billing, and video — the buy column is where budgets are saved.
Next.js
React 19
TypeScript
React Native
Postgres + Supabase
Stripe Billing
Mux
Cloudflare Stream
Inngest
PDFKit certificates
Tailwind CSS
Vercel
SCORM / xAPI tooling
§ 08 · why digital heroes
Why Digital Heroes for EdTech.
01 · senior teams
Senior engineers and designers out of the NY and Delhi HQs, honest remote-first since 2017. No fake local office, no bait-and-switch juniors after the sales call.
02 · timezone overlap
The NY-Delhi pairing gives US clients a same-day loop: decisions in your morning, built by your next one. UK teams get near-full-day coverage.
03 · six-week cadence
Every engagement runs the same six-week delivery cadence with Friday demos. Course businesses live on launch dates; so does our process.
04 · pricing transparency
Written scope and a fixed-fee number inside 48 hours of the first call. Our cost pages publish the same ranges we quote — no anchor games.
05 · we run our own software
We operate our own ERP and client portals daily. We know what post-launch software life feels like because we live it — that experience ships in your admin panel.
§ 09 · ways to work with us
Three ways to work with us.
project
Fixed-scope build
10-26 weeks
An MVP, an LMS, a platform migration off an all-in-one. Fixed fee, written scope, six-week cadence blocks, Friday demos.
for · a defined platform to ship
most picked
retainer
Product pod
monthly
A dedicated pod iterating on the live platform: pacing experiments, new course formats, assessment tuning, institutional features as the pipeline demands them.
for · a shipped platform that must compound
team extension
Embedded engineers
3+ months
Senior engineers embedded in your existing team, on your standups and your repo. Useful when the roadmap outruns your hiring.
for · in-house teams needing depth
Every shape starts with the same scoped quote inside 48 hours. Budget math first: the SaaS development cost guide shows the ranges before you ever get on a call.
§ 10 · from the journal
From the Journal.
playbook
SaaS MVP in 90 days
The scoping discipline that gets a revenue-ready product live in one quarter — the same playbook our edtech MVPs run on.
metrics
SaaS onboarding metrics
Activation math that maps one-to-one onto learner onboarding: the aha moment for a course platform is the first completed lesson.
mobile
Native vs hybrid mobile app
How to choose the right mobile approach before committing a learning-app budget to the wrong architecture.
Eight answers.
How much does EdTech software development cost?
An MVP that takes a paying learner runs $30,000-$80,000. A post-PMF platform with cohorts, community, and multi-tenancy runs $80,000-$200,000. Scale-stage with SSO, audit logs, LTI, and SOC 2 readiness runs $200,000-$500,000; enterprise multi-region crosses $500K-$1M+. The component-level math is in our SaaS development cost guide, and we send a fixed-fee scope within 48 hours of a call.
How long does it take to build an LMS or course platform?
An MVP course platform ships in 10-16 weeks; a post-PMF build with cohorts and instructor dashboards takes 16-26 weeks; scale-stage institutional platforms run 24-40 weeks. A hybrid migration off Teachable or Kajabi — checkout first, LMS second, certificates third — typically lands in 12 to 20 weeks depending on catalog depth. Everything runs on a six-week cadence with working demos every Friday.
Are you FERPA and COPPA compliant?
We build FERPA and COPPA-aware architecture — access controls, audit logs, consent flows for minors, data-retention and export tooling — which is the engineering half of compliance. Certification and legal attestation belong to your counsel and auditors; no agency can truthfully sell you "FERPA certified" software. What we deliver is a platform that passes the security questionnaire and an auditor's review without a rebuild.
What tech stack do you use for elearning platforms?
Next.js and React with TypeScript on the web, React Native for mobile learning apps, Postgres for courses, progress, and entitlements, Stripe Billing for subscriptions and seat licensing, and Mux or Cloudflare Stream for adaptive video with DRM on premium catalogs. We buy auth, billing, and video infrastructure and build the course player, pacing engine, and assessment logic — the parts that differentiate your product.
Do you support SCORM and xAPI?
Yes. SCORM import matters when institutions hand you a decade of legacy packages; xAPI matters when you want granular learning records — every video pause, quiz attempt, and discussion post — feeding your completion analytics. We build both as first-class pipelines, not bolt-ons, so your content and your data stay portable across whatever LMS ecosystem your buyers already run.
What happens after launch?
Every build includes a stabilization window, then most clients move to the product-pod retainer: a monthly iteration loop driven by completion and activation data — pacing experiments, assessment tuning, checkout tests, institutional features as the sales pipeline demands them. You own the code, the infrastructure accounts, and the data from day one; the retainer is for compounding, not hostage-keeping.
Do you work with edtech startups or enterprises?
Both, with different builds. Startups get the $30K-$80K MVP shape: prove demand before buying multi-tenancy and SSO you do not need yet. Course businesses at real revenue get the hybrid platform migration. Enterprises and institution-facing SaaS get the scale-stage shape: RBAC, audit logs, LTI integration, SOC 2 readiness. The expensive mistake at every stage is building for a different stage than the one you are in.
Should we build a custom LMS or stay on Teachable, Kajabi, or Thinkific?
Stay on the all-in-one while it is not your ceiling — it is the right first platform. Move when the walls show up together: checkout conversion trailing what a best-in-class checkout would do, no way to ship certificates or proctored assessments, community bolted on awkwardly, and your data split across four dashboards. That is usually around meaningful monthly revenue, and the hybrid unbundle — not a big-bang rebuild — is how we de-risk it.
Start with a platform audit.
A 30-minute audit call on your platform, your completion numbers, and your ceiling. You leave knowing whether the answer is an MVP, a hybrid migration, or an institutional build — and we follow up with a scoped, fixed-fee quote within 48 hours.
More from Dhruv.
Director of DevOps & Infrastructure · Delhi · 4 posts on the site
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