How to Create an Educational App in 2024?

Online education has become a strong trend nowadays, boosted by the quarantine period during the pandemic. Right from providing online certification courses to taking online classes for school children, the online education space is growing exponentially. 

A study estimates that the online educational app market will grow to $46 billion by as early as 2024. The phenomenal market size and the newfound interest of students in online education present an excellent opportunity for entrepreneurs interested in building an education app. 

If you are one of those entrepreneurs, who is intrigued by the question of how to create an education app? Then this blog will answer all your queries. Although you can hire the best educational app development companies to build an efficient education app, you will have to understand some basics about education app development to enter the education sector.

Types of Educational Apps In 2024 for Effective Learning

Before you embark on your journey of building an education app, you will need to identify the type of education app that you will need to build. Here are some examples of educational apps:

Learning platforms 

Learning platforms are educational apps that provide students with a wide range of courses they can take. Khan Academy is an example of a learning platform. The platform can either choose to hire instructors to upload the courses, or it can choose to act as a marketplace where independent course creators upload their courses. The learning platforms can offer certificates for successful students that can aid the students in their careers. 

Learning apps for a specific subject 

Instead of offering a lot of subjects, certain learning apps focus on specific subjects. The idea behind building such an app is to appeal to an audience that wants to go in-depth in a particular subject. Duolingo is an example of such an educational app. With Duolingo, learners can learn any language. When you build a learning app for a specific subject, take care to identify a niche that has a lot of demand. Otherwise, you risk being stuck in a market where the demand is limited. 

Educational games 

In gaming-style learning apps, the idea is to gamify learning and make it fun. Successful gaming apps have a strong story and gaming scenario that motivates the users to complete different stages of the game and acquire knowledge in the process. The Chegg app is an example of an educational gaming app. You can also consider using the power of artificial intelligence in the education industry to deliver engrossing educational games.

Learning management system (LMS) apps 

Learning management apps are mainly used by large companies to provide training to their employees. An LMS allows the company to carry out the training of company employees in a single common online space. TalentLMS is an example of a learning management system app.

Classroom education apps 

Classroom apps are another popular type of educational app. The classroom education apps are used by schools, colleges and coaching classes to impart education to their students. The apps act as a space where teachers, parents, and students can observe the academic progress of the students. 

Benefits of Mobile Apps in Education

The first question that comes to mind when you think about how to create an education app? Is why people should use an education app in the first place. Building an education app requires substantial time and effort on your part. That is why it is essential to ascertain whether enough people will be interested in your offering. One way to do this is to identify the benefits of an education app. Educational apps can provide many benefits for students, teachers, and parents. Some of these benefits include:

Flexibility 

Compared to offline mode, an education app offers learners the flexibility and convenience of learning from anywhere and at any time. 

More choices 

Earlier the learning choices were limited to the courses offered by your local schools or colleges. An education app widens the choice of subjects that a student can learn.

Cost-effective 

An education app proves to be far less expensive than taking physical classes. This is because a tutor can provide education to an increased number of students and does not need to invest in infrastructure like buildings and benches. 

Efficiency 

Online learning proves to be an efficient method of learning. This is because the online learning app can provide a quicker and more organized way of learning for the students, and the students can skip commuting with online learning. 

Steps to Success: Developing Your Education App

 

Elearning app development is a complex process, and you need to take each step carefully to ensure that the end product is according to your needs. We have listed below some app development steps that will help you develop an educational app.

Define the Educational Offering

Prepare a roadmap regarding the kind of educational app that you want to offer. Deciding the kind of education app that you want to offer is important because it will help you decide upfront the type of features and functions that you want to add to your app. 

If you want to build a language learning app like Duolingo, for instance, then you will need to focus on integrating the most popular languages in your learning app. You might need to build a database of native speakers that are ready to be associated with your app as tutors. Include a function that allows the tutors to provide one-on-one training to the students. Provide a feature that allows the learners to see bite-sized videos and audio and even take tests to ingrain their learning. 

 Conduct Market Research

As an entrepreneur, you are investing a lot of time, effort, and money into education app development. You surely do not want to take a blind risk here. This is why conducting thorough market research is important, as it helps you iron out the uncertainties in the business model. 

When you conduct market research, ensure to keep the following points in mind.

• Know what your customers want from an education app
• The challenges that your users currently face
• Include the features that will solve the user’s purpose
• Identify the market trends
• Zero-in on the monetization model

To conduct market research, you can check out the app stores to find apps that are similar to your idea. Evaluate the user reviews posted on the app stores. The user reviews often reflect the needs of the users; hence, you can focus first on the negative reviews to identify the gaps in your competitor’s offering. Ensure to include features that will eliminate this gap. You could also hire a professional market research company to conduct thorough market research for your education app. 

Once these two steps are over, you will be able to decide the features that you want to include in your education app. So let’s move on to the 3rd step in building an education app. 

Outline Key Features

In-depth market research will help you identify the features that your education app needs. Listen to your potential users while designing the features of your education app. A nice way to know about the features that your users want would be to watch the comment section of educational apps in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Many app users would have shared their feedback and expectations regarding the education app in the comment section. You might also find some suggestions regarding the features the users want to see in future updates. Take a cue from these suggestions and ensure to include these apps into your education app upfront. 

You could even create a poll and ask your potential users the features they would want to see in an education app.

Here is a list of the basic and advanced features that you can consider adding to your education app. 

Basic features to have in a mobile app for the education industry

• Sign-up/sing-in
• Add courses
• Make payment for the course availed
• Social sharing
• Mock practice tests 
• Push notifications
• Student progress dashboard

Advanced features to have in a mobile app for the education industry

• Live video-streamed classes
• Gamification
• AR and VR content
• Audio and video-based content
• One-on-one tutoring

 Select the App Development Platform

A major decision that you will need to take when you decide to commence education app development is whether you want to develop a native app for Android or iOS platforms or you want to go for cross-platform app development. A native app is an app that will run only on the platform for which it is built. For instance, a native Android app will run only on the Android platform, while an iOS native app will run only on the iOS platform. A cross-platform app, on the other hand, will run on both iOS as well as Android platforms. 

Choosing the right platform for your education app is an important decision as it will affect the overall growth of your education app. 

It is best to take the help of the mobile app development companies in this case. The app developers will assess your project and then help you choose the best platform according to your requirements. 

 Hire a Mobile App Development Company

Unless and until you have at your disposal a team of in-house app developers, you will have to hire a mobile app development company for your project. Hence the next logical step is to find a professional education app development company. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of hiring amateur developers that do not have the requisite experience in developing educational mobile apps. Do not make this mistake and hire only expert education app developers to build your education app, as not doing this will compromise the quality of your education app.

On TopDevelopers.co, you can find a team of professional education app developers who will build an efficient education app according to your requirements. We have prepared a list of the top education app developers after thorough research. In our research, we assessed the companies on various performance parameters. You can check out the total work experience, the work portfolios and other parameters of the app development companies listed on TopDevelopers.co.

Consider the following factors before selecting the app development company:

• Location of the users
• The complexity of app development
• The skill set of the developers
• App development time

Launch and Promote the App

Once your education app is developed, the next step that you need to take is to launch the app on different app stores. Ensure that whichever mobile app development company you choose to work with has enough experience and expertise in launching apps on app stores. This is because to launch an app successfully, your app must follow the app store guidelines.

Understand that launching an app on the Google Play store is different from launching it on the Apple app store. The Apple app store has significantly stringent guidelines for app submission guidelines. 

Your work of education app development is not complete once you launch your app. Once the launch is complete, you will then have to do marketing of your app. You can hire a top digital marketing company from our list to do the job for you. The digital marketing companies in our list have been tested on a wide range of quality parameters to ensure that you get to choose from the best companies in the industry. 

Ensure that your digital marketing company has knowledge about ASO (App Store Optimization) techniques. This is because, without this knowledge, your app won’t get a decent ranking on the app stores. Without a decent ranking, your app won’t reach the maximum number of users. 

What Are Effective Ways to Monetize an Educational Mobile App?

An education app can prove to be a lucrative business opportunity. Create an educational app and monetize it in the following ways.

Subscription

In the subscription model, you charge your subscribers a fixed amount on a monthly or yearly basis. Subscription happens to be one of the most popular app monetization methods for education apps. This is because the learners get the flexibility of paying a fee on a recurring basis only when they are willing to avail the services. 

ABCmouse.com is an app that provides a subscription-based service. The app’s target audience is preschool kids. 

Advertisements

You can decide to keep your app free and choose to earn money by selling advertisement slots. Many companies that sell products related to learning, like stationery retailers, school and college bag manufacturers and even credit card companies that target college-going kids, will be interested in advertising on your education app.

When choosing advertising as your preferred monetization method, you need to ensure that the ads you place on your app match the intent of your audience. Otherwise, the audience will be irritated with your ads and would leave your app in search of less annoying educational platforms. Duolingo is an app that uses advertisements as a revenue source.

In-app purchases

You can offer in-app purchases to your users to generate revenue. The paid features can include special online courses that are not available for free. You can also charge the users if they want a course completion certificate while keeping the course free. This way, you can attract both free as well as paid users.

The in-app purchases can also include buying access to one-on-one sessions with the tutors or unlocking advanced learning modules. Apps like Memrise and Brainly follow the in-app purchase revenue model.

Third-party tie-ups

You can earn significant revenue through tie-ups with third-party products and service providers related to the education field. For instance, stationary product sellers, universities, schools and coaching institutes can sell their services and products on your platform. You can earn a commission on the sales that happen on your platform. 

How Much Does it Cost to Build an Educational App?

Cost is one of the first things that come to your mind when you start thinking about creating an education app. 

Several factors influence the mobile app development cost. The complexity of the app, the number and type of third-party integrations that the app will require, the number of users that will access the app simultaneously and the UI/UX of the app are the technical factors that will affect the e-learning app development cost. 

Factors like the location of the education app developers also play an important role in determining the final cost of the education app. If your education app developers are located in developed nations like the USA and Western Europe, then they will charge around 5-6 times more per hour than the developers located in developing nations like India. 

Based on the above-mentioned factors, we can say that the cost of developing an education app varies in the range of around  $80,000-$200,000.

One must understand that this is just a ballpark range, and to know the exact cost of developing an educational app, we recommend you contact an expert team of mobile app developers. 

Taste success with an education app

In this blog, we have discussed the basic steps that will help you create an educational app. We have discussed the various types of education apps, the cost of building an education app, the benefits of using an education app for the users, and the monetization models of an education app. We hope that our comprehensive guide on Education app development will help you build your own app and enter this lucrative business. 

If you need guidance on your education startup or want to hire a leading education mobile app development company, contact us, we will help you to get in touch with the best companies that can help you with all your requirements.