What does an e-learning software development company build?

Software for teaching and learning online: live classes, course platforms, online exams and tutoring marketplaces, plus the apps around them. We build these end-to-end; BrainCert and Scholarly were built by our team.

How much does e-learning software development cost?

An e-learning website with a virtual classroom, registration, scheduling and recording starts from $29,000. A BrainCert-class platform with web, iOS and Android apps starts from $180,000. Timelines are fixed in the estimate after a scoping call.

Should we build custom software or extend Moodle or Canvas?

Extend your LMS when standard courses and quizzes cover your model. Build custom when live classes, exams or payments are what you sell, or when your data must live where the LMS can't keep it.

Can you add live video classes to the LMS we already use?

Yes. We connect a virtual classroom to Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or Brightspace over LTI 1.3, and attendance flows back to your gradebook.

Do you build mobile apps for learners?

Yes. We ship web, iOS and Android apps, and desktop builds when a course needs them. BrainCert's branded iOS and Android apps came from the same team.

Who owns the code and the learner data?

You do. The code, the infrastructure scripts and the learner data stay in your repositories and your cloud, under your name.

Which privacy and security rules do you build for?

The ones your market sets, such as GDPR, FERPA, COPPA or HIPAA. BrainCert, which we built, is SOC 2 Type I and II, ISO/IEC 27001, HIPAA and GDPR compliant.

E-Learning Software Development Services

Proof we’ve done this

E-learning software development company that built BrainCert and Scholarly

Our e-learning software development services cover live classes, course platforms and proctored exams, built end-to-end by our team.

BrainCert

Virtual classroom LMS

500M+

real-time classroom minutes · 99.995% uptime

WebRTC HTML5 AWS

$3M ARR, 100K+ customers, 4 Brandon Hall Awards. SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR & PCI DSS certified.

Scholarly

Live class platform · Sydney

2,000

concurrent students per live class · 15K+ active users

LiveKit Next.js Kubernetes

Selected by AWS as the most innovative EdTech startup in Asia Pacific — serving Sydney, NSW and Melbourne.

VALT

Video observation · medical education

770+

U.S. organizations · 50,000+ active users

Web iOS / Android HIPAA

Sole development team for 10+ years. Used in medical education and simulation labs.

“I have been working with Fora Soft for the last 2 years. Their work is outstanding in every aspect — from designing the technical architecture to programming, they do it all for us.”

Yasin Rahim

CEO · BrainCert Inc

What our e-learning development team builds

Live classes

Video lessons with a shared whiteboard, screen sharing, breakout rooms and recording. If the classroom itself is your product, start with our virtual classroom software development page.

Course platforms

Courses, quizzes, gradebooks and certificates, with SCORM, xAPI and LTI 1.3 where you need them. When the LMS is the product, that’s custom LMS development.

Online exams and proctoring

Timed exams with webcam proctoring and an audit log for every session. We built proctored exams for BrainCert on this stack.

Tutoring marketplaces

Teacher profiles, booking, 1-on-1 lessons and payouts. On Tabsera, teachers earn on the platform and withdraw through PayPal or Waafi.

AI for teachers and learners

Course drafts generated from a topic and goals, progress tracking and next-course recommendations. BrainCert’s LMS includes AI course creation.

Apps for every screen

Web, iOS and Android apps for learners, plus desktop, smart TV and VR builds when your courses call for them.

Features

AI-powered Course Generation 📚

Provide effortless educational course generation. Teachers can simply input course focus, goals, objectives, and difficulty level. The AI will create a detailed course plan, elaborate on each topic, and generate full text and questions for assessing students' knowledge. All is left to export the course draft in the desired format with just a few clicks.

Dashboard showing course statistics with 100% course enrollments, 45% lesson completions, 85% quiz scores, and time spent on homework, lessons, fixes, and quizzes totaling 17 hours, followed by a list of recommendations for improving student performance.

AI-based Progress Tracking and Recommendations 📊

Enable teachers to track students' engagement with the platform, including course enrollments, lesson completions, quiz scores, and time spent on various activities. The system will also provide recommendations for the next courses based on students’ engagement history and course completion results.

Whiteboards ✍️

We tailor each whiteboard functionality stack to a specific case and audience: formula editor is not for language learning. The simpler the better, and the more cost-effective. Sometimes typing and drawing are just enough. We like developing custom whiteboards. Node.js and socket.io power real-time interaction in our products. But to test the concept and save time and money in the short term, we can integrate a 3rd party whiteboard component.

Virtual whiteboard with a text box containing a literary quote, handwritten algebraic equations on the right, user pointers labeled Victor Keller and Lottie Day, and a video call sidebar showing a smiling woman waving and a list of participants.

White digital pad shows handwritten mathematical expression (26-3) cubed plus 1 circled in blue with a stylus nearby.

Drawing

Fast technology socket.io makes it feel like a pen and paper — so rapidly lines follow your mouse or finger. Your handwriting is now recognizable and not ugly.

Typing

With font and size editable.

Color picker interface showing fill color options, border thickness slider, border color options, and a detailed color selection panel with hue slider.

Color and width adjustment

For drawing, typing, shapes.

Diagram showing a triangle and an oval added together to form a black 3D cone.

Shapes — 2D and 3D

Square and cube, triangle and pyramid and cone, circle and sphere, parallelogram, trapeze, line.

Mathematical formula showing f(x) as a sum of A0 over 2 plus an infinite series of An cosine terms with arguments involving 2nπx over ν minus alpha n.

Math formula editor

Makes fractions 2-floor with a horizontal line and gives special symbols.

Handwritten math expression (2c + 1) cubed minus 27, with two colored pointers labeled Lottie Day and Victor Keller.

Access to the whiteboard

Could be a mess if all drew at once. So the teacher gives access individually.

Four white tags labeled Board 1, Board 2, Board 3, and Eric Kelley with close icons on a light dotted background.

Several whiteboards per class

Create as many as you need on separate tabs.

Blackboard with mathematical formulas, geometric shapes, and algebraic expressions written in white chalk.

Images

Upload and insert on the whiteboard, move, and reshape.

Smiling woman wearing glasses holding chalk in front of a blackboard with mathematical equations in a paused video player.

YouTube videos

Pin on the board.

Document titled 'Introduction to Molecular Physics' by Pr. Brenton displaying a table of contents with topics on molecular-kinetic theory, equations, temperature, pressure, and Maxwell distribution for ideal gas.

Document sharing

We usually do pdf, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint but can add other. Write on top of the doc and use any other whiteboard tool.

Multiple-choice question asking to choose a right question.

Poll

Open and close questions, multiple-choice with 1 or more right answers.

Dictionary

Type a word, get a definition, examples, pictures. Among options to integrate we like Wolfram Alpha best.

Video call interface showing three women: one with headphones and glasses waving, one smiling with a pen, and one with curly hair using a laptop.

Video chats and webinars on WebRTC 💻

1-on-1 and up to 4 people video chats

1-on-1 and up to 4 people video chats are good p2p, without a media server. You don’t pay for heavy video traffic, as it goes directly from one user’s computer to the other’s.

Video call screen showing a smiling woman wearing headphones and waving, with smaller participant windows on the right and bottom.

5 and more people

Webinars and video chats for 5 or more people require a media server. Good options proven by our experience are Kurento, Janus, MediaSoup, Jitsi, Wowza. 1st four are open-source—no license fees. But Kurento has a big community and detailed documentation. So with Kurento, it is easier and quicker, therefore cheaper—and in most cases we recommend it. All have pros and cons though—when we know your needs, we know which suits you best.

Text chat ✉️

Raise hand

Webinars would be too noisy if everyone could speak. So all but the teacher are muted. Click ‘raise hand’ to signal for the teacher to unmute.

Send files

You can send files to the class or directly.

Private chat

When you do not want the whole class to read.

Computer screen showing a video call with three participants and WhatsApp messages on the desktop background.

Screen sharing 🖥

Share everything you do or just 1 application, a browser for example. Then when mom’s WhatsApp message pops up — nobody will see :)

Booking 📅

Jump on the lesson right away with the online teacher or book. Show free slots based on other bookings and teacher’s preferences.

User interface of a recordings list showing video titles, dates, times, sizes, and remaining availability days.

Lesson recording 🎬

Class is shot as a video file. Download it on your device.

Learning management systems LMS for courses 📚

Create and edit courses. Add materials: videos, presentations, excels, word, and any format you need. Carry out tests with open and closed questions, marks, and certificates. Track attendance. Collect student feedback on discussion boards and forums.

Online course editing page for 'Introduction to molecular physics' showing options for program step, course description, language, grade, subject, and availability settings.

Online booking page showing credit card payment form on the left and lesson details with tutor Mark K. and student Kate Beggs on the right.

Payment system 💰

Escrow

Student pays before the class, the teacher gets the money after the class if all is fine. Student raises a dispute if there’s a problem, then admin judges.

Split payment

% to the platform, the rest to the teacher.

Coupons and discounts like 2nd lesson 10% off

API 🔐

We can develop the API to sell the virtual classroom to others as an integrative component.

Video conference screen with four participants, a digital whiteboard showing mathematical equations, and a chat window on a mobile device.

Costs

We develop custom software. Above is what we can do but you may not need all that. We think about what functions your users need and how to make them convenient. E.g., no need to hide access to the whiteboard and mute mics in 3-5 people webinars. It means there is no way to tell the price before all functions have been planned.

Virtual classroom screen showing a female instructor with headset raising hand and two students in video call, alongside a whiteboard with handwritten math equations.

E-learning website

from $29,000

Virtual classroom: video chat and whiteboard · A simple e-learning website around it · Registration, scheduling and recording · Simple courses and quizzes · Payments for courses · …and more

E-learning platform

from $180,000

Everything in E-learning website, plus: A BrainCert-class platform · Web, iOS and Android · SSO and multi-tenant organizations · A team that stays with you · …and more

We built BrainCert from the first version

1st version, 2014

In 2014 we developed the 1st version. It was on Flash and Wowza and didn’t have all the current functions.

2nd version

We rewrote it with new technologies and added functions. It was the 1st WebRTC and HTML5 virtual classroom platform in the world.

Since then

The platform has since delivered 500M+ real-time classroom minutes across 10 datacenters at 99.995% uptime.

E-learning software development services, from live classes to online exams