Pricing

At OpenCraft, nearly all of our work involves customizing the Open edX® platform, including developing custom extensions, meaning project costs can vary widely. However, we are committed to transparent pricing, so this page explains our billing process. For the most accurate estimate, please book a meeting with us. With our flat, decentralized organization, you work directly with a highly-skilled programmer, ensuring more value for your investment without extra overhead costs.
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Pricing Options

Our team members are exclusively senior engineers and designers. Our process emphasizes a holistic approach to development where our team members work directly with you to gain a deep understanding of your needs, perform all necessary tasks, and take on multiple traditional roles. This means you are guaranteed to have the most skilled professional doing the work, and someone who knows your solution from the inside out. As a result, we bill at one flat rate irrespective of the task performed. This makes calculating costs simple and predictable. An architect, a team lead, and a developer all cost the same – as they are frequently the same person.
Price
Description
€194 / hour
On-demand rate. Purchase only as many hours as you need and cancel any time.
€184 / hour
Commit to a monthly amount of hours and receive a €10 / hour discount. Cancel with three months of notice.
€174 / hour
Commit to a monthly amount of hours and receive a €20 / hour discount. Cancel with six months of notice.
These are our fixed-price offerings for common tasks. All prices assume we are performing managed hosting for your Open edX® instance. For quotes on modifying and updating an existing instance, on migrating an instance to our management, or on deploying the instance to a non-traditional environment (such as a specific datacenter not within DigitalOcean or AWS), please book a consultation.
Task Price
Description
Open edX® Instance Installation (Shared Infrastructure)
€3 880
Install your own copy of the Open edX® platform on our shared infrastructure. Save on overall hosting and maintenance. Retain full customization capabilities.

The instance will come ready to serve up to 1000 monthly active users and will have daily backups. Larger systems may require additional quoted work. Data can be exported on demand at cost for labor to perform the export. No per-user fees or license fees for the platform. 99.9% uptime SLA.
Open edX® Instance Installation (Independent Account)
€5 820
Same as above, though instead we install the Open edX® platform on your AWS or DigitalOcean account, in a datacenter/region of your choosing.

You’ll have the ability to walk away with the entire setup, all data intact at any time. This also allows outside developers to customize the infrastructure as needed.
Maintenance Contract (Small instance, Shared Infrastructure)
€1 358 / month
Maintenance contract covers Open edX® version upgrades, security patches, and other monthly maintenance tasks.
Maintenance Contract (Large Instance or Independent Installation)
€2 134 / month
Same as above but for larger scale instances (>1000) or Independent Account installations. Extremely large or complex installations may require hourly billing instead.
Theming
Included
Basic theming with your logo and colors is included with each installation. More comprehensive theming available upon request (billed hourly).
Mobile Apps
€5 820 / app
Compile a standard mobile application with basic theming and apply to the relevant app store (Android or iOS).
Single Sign-On
€1 940 setup fee
Set up Single Sign-On capability for your learners and staff. Add the ability to log in via Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Azure Active Directory, any of these providers, or a standard SAML 2.0-compatible provider.

Other providers may require additional development and setup time, to be estimated.
Hosting costs are based on usage rather than number of users or license seats. The Open edX® Platform has no license fees, and you are permitted as many users as you like! However, the hardware requirements for large numbers of users or specific workloads can vary. Here is a rough approximation of hosting:
Cost per 1000 monthly active users
Rationale
Shared Infrastructure Installation
€194
With shared infrastructure, the cost of hosting remains steady and predictable. You are billed based on how many standard-sized VMs it would take to host your instance. Calculation code here.

To keep things simple and predictable, we set the VM cost to the same amount as an hour of on-demand labor.
Independent Infrastructure Installation
€300 (estimated)
Hosting in these cases is billed directly by your hosting provider. It frequently involves multiple cost sources (storage, Kubernetes nodes, MySQL provider, MongoDB provider).

These each have to scale as you increase the number of users, and as Open edX is designed to scale horizontally, the scaling is mostly linear.

Example Scenarios and Costs

We offer a flexible pricing structure, allowing clients to leverage Open edX® in ways that best suit their unique needs. Our hands-on approach, along with our commitment to flexibility and agility, is highly valued by our clients. As such, several leading educational institutions partner with OpenCraft to collaborate with skilled experts and ensure consistent, high-quality results. 

Each project is different and will require specific estimation. However, we have prepared a few example projects and quotes based on them in this section to help you understand expected costs.
While most of our clients look to us for heavy customization, some just want a basic setup backed by the foremost experts in the Open edX platform, available to help whenever the need arises.
Task Price
Details
Installation of the Platform (Shared Infrastructure)
€3 880
To save on costs, we install this instance on our own infrastructure. This one-off cost includes basic theming and an install that handles up to 1000 users without additional hardware or configuration.
Maintenance
€1 358 / month
Since we’re using our shared infrastructure, we use our small instance maintenance tier.
Hosting
€194 / month
Covers hosting capable of serving up to 1000 monthly active users. See the ‘Hosting Costs’ section of this page for more details on how hosting costs are determined.
TOTAL ONE-OFF COSTS
€3 880
TOTAL MONTHLY COSTS
€1 552 / month
Most clients at least need the platform installed and hosted for them. Many organizations need to be able to sign into their existing enterprise accounts and want to integrate these into the platform. These teams often have a need to retain full control of the instance and data, even if OpenCraft manages its maintenance.

These teams might need a custom dashboard with a handful of features. Using the Platform’s existing backend, we can make a custom frontend that displays just the information they need. Many times that dashboard also needs to display information from a third party service, like a social media site that isn’t supported out of the box. Here’s what those costs may look like:
Task Price
Details
Independent Installation of the Platform (AWS or DigitalOcean)
€5 820
We install the platform on the client’s AWS or DigitalOcean account, depending on their preference. They retain full control of the instance and can lock out our access at any time if they choose.
Single Sign On
€1 940
Many common SSO Providers can be handled without extra development. We assume no custom work is needed here, and use our standard install price.
Maintenance
€2 134 / month
Since we’re using our shared infrastructure, we use our small instance maintenance tier.
Monthly Development Budget
€14 720 (80 hours @ €184 / hour)
Developing a new third party integration and creating a dashboard require a decent sized amount of development work, but isn’t going to be multiple years of development. We use the three-month time bank rate.

Increasing this number can allow the project to be completed faster. See the table below for a breakdown of costs.
TOTAL ONE-OFF COSTS
€5 820
TOTAL MONTHLY COSTS
€16 854 / month
Task Hours
Details
Discovery
10 hours
All projects of baseline complexity start with a discovery phase where we build out detailed estimates and write up a document detailing our technical approach.
Meetings and Administrative
80 hours
We assume about 2 hours of meetings each month (one one hour meeting every two weeks) and 8 hours of administrative work for the project every month (2 hours each week)

For example, if this project were to take eight months, that would be 80 hours total.
UX and UI Design of Dashboard
100 hours
Time spent on product management, User Experience (UX), and User Interface (UI) design. This includes interviews with stakeholders, writing product specification documentation, creating wireframes, and UI design using your brand guidelines.

This estimate includes a relatively simple one or two screen dashboard, with a handful of actions such as dialogs, prompts, as well as various micro-interactions.
Development of Backend API Extensions for Dashboard
50 hours
Most dashboards will require some new API endpoints to be built on the backend by our developers. In some cases, a dashboard may not require any new endpoints to be created, but usually a few will be needed.
Custom integration development
50 hours
Development needed to hook into the new social media provider’s API to get information needed for the dashboard.
Dashboard Development
300 hours
Time needed to develop the dashboard, including automated tests and documentation.
Configuration and Deployment of the Custom Dashboard to your Cluster
2 hours
Once your dashboard is ready for initial release, this covers the time spent modifying your cluster to add it in.
ESTIMATED HOURS TOTAL
592 hours
ESTIMATED DEVELOPMENT TOTAL
€108 928 (€184 / hour)
At the 80/hour a month budget above, the development would be complete in seven and a half months. Add on an additional month for setup, and the project would enter its long-term maintenance phase after eight and a half months.
If you already have your own instance of the Open edX platform, you might just need a custom exercise specific to your audience. Every exercise is different, so this is a ballpark of costs (like all estimates on this page.)
Task Hours
Details
Discovery
10 hours
Draft plans for the technical implementation and estimations for this project
UX and UI Design
50 hours
Design of the exercise’s overall behavior and appearance
Implementation
100 hours
Development of the exercise’s features, frontend and backend, with tests and documentation.
TOTAL HOURS
160 hours
TOTAL COST
€31 040 (€194 / hour)
Maybe you don’t have a big project to add. Maybe you have an instance that mostly works but you need help solving some persistent issues. In this case we recommend documenting a list of things you need, and telling us how many hours of budget you’re willing to spend. We’ll then fix as many issues as we can within the budget (taking your priority issues into account), and estimate what it would take to tackle the rest.
For some clients, a multi-year engagement involving multiple team members working at full capacity is the right choice. Creating a completely new online experience built on the Open edX® Platform might take many months for an initial release, a year or two of continued development, and an ongoing plan for maintenance and upgrades. What might that look like?
A project of this size needs a roadmap. We need to know where we’re going and what we’re building.
Task Hours
Description
Gather Initial Requirements
10 hours
A technical team member and a Product designer meet with your team and outline the main ideas and goals of the project over two or three sessions.
Build a Product Spec
50 hours
Create a detailed document describing the important functions of the product, what it should do, and what’s in scope. An initial set of wireframes may be created alongside this as a point of discussion or may be done afterward once key functionality is finalized.

This usually requires a good bit of back and forth, and may require a few more meetings as new requirements are discovered in the process.

In this spec, it will be determined what features the project MUST have at launch (the Minimum Viable Product or “MVP”.)
Initial Wireframes for Critical Portions
100 hours
Basic wireframe designs for the MVP. This allows the team to see how the product will operate and understand how functionality will be laid out.
UX/UI Design
50 hours
Refine the wireframes into full designs that look like the finished product.
Technical Discovery
50 hours
In-depth engineering planning to determine the technical approach needed for the MVP’s critical features, as well as what hardware and configuration work will be needed to support it.
TOTAL DISCOVERY PHASE HOURS
250 hours
HOURS PER MONTH
80 hours
HOURLY RATE
€174 / HOUR
We’re using our 6-month timebank rate since we expect this will be a long-term engagement.
REAL MONTHS
~3.5 months
DISCOVERY PHASE TOTAL
€43 500
After the discovery phase, we’ll have a solid plan, visual and technical, for making your project come to life. Of course, in a real situation, the actual costs will vary heavily and depend on the wireframes and technical discovery work performed in Phase I. Phase II is focused on getting to launch with the features critical to your business. As a reminder, these are mostly made-up figures, and don’t represent an actual project. They’re more for getting your mind wrapped around how things might play out.
Task Hours
Description
Develop Custom Plugin A
250 hours
Build a custom plugin for some new functionality.
Create dashboard A
200 hours
Create a custom dashboard for the functionality in Plugin A
Create Dashboard B
160 hours
Create another custom dashboard for a different user
Contribute upstream feature
200 hours
Contribute a major feature to the platform that your project requires. Ensure this is compatible with future releases.
Set up and Configure Kubernetes Cluster
100 hours
Set up and configure a Kubernetes cluster for your highly customized deployment.
Performance Tuning
30 hours
Performance tuning for your new Kubernetes cluster
Integration with critical external service
50 hours
Add in support for using an external service, such as a credentialing provider
Report Generators
75 hours
Add functionality to generate and display special reports
Meetings and planning work
75 hours
Meetings and planning work over the several months of development
Hosting for Staging Environment
€700
Hosting for Production environment right before launch
€4 000
How much it might cost to host something like 20,000 active users on day 1. This would be only running the last month, so we treat it as a static cost rather than a monthly one.
TOTAL MVP DEVELOPMENT HOURS
1 140 hours
HOURS PER MONTH
140 hours
HOURLY RATE
€174 / HOUR
We’re using our 6-month timebank rate since we expect this will be a long-term engagement.
REAL MONTHS
~8.5 months
MVP PHASE TOTAL
€203 130
After launching your MVP, you want to continue adding functionality that could wait until after launch, but is important to your product’s long term success. You have many such features, and you expect to keep releasing them for the foreseeable future. Rather than try to size up specific features like line items, you plan to have monthly development and design budgets to work on whatever you find you need over the course of the next year. After all, once the product is launched, you may find you need totally different things than you first expected!
Category Hours / Costs
Description
Design
30 hours / month
Designing new features or revising existing ones based on feedback
New Feature Development
70 hours / month
Developing new functionality each month.
Maintenance
30 hours / month
Upgrading components, fixing bugs, and adjusting configuration based on real world usage.
Meetings / Planning
10 hours / month
Continued work planning, meetings with demos, etc.
Hosting for Staging
€700 / month
Hosting for Production
€10 000 / month
After you’ve been running for a while, maybe the active users increases to 50,000.
TOTAL MATURATION PHASE HOURS
1 680 hours
HOURS PER MONTH
140 hours
HOURLY RATE
€174 / HOUR
We’re using our 6-month timebank rate since we expect this will be a long-term engagement.
MONTHS OF MATURATION PHASE
12 months
You could stop this whenever you like, but for the sake of example we’ll say the team keeps developing new features for a year.
MATURATION PHASE TOTAL
€496 320
Your project is essentially ‘complete’ in terms of features. You might have another feature or two you come up with later, but it’s a separate engagement. Now, you’re focused on continued maintenance, including security upgrades, bug fixes, and system stability.
Category Hours / Costs
Description
Maintenance
30 hours / month
Continued patches and updates
Hosting for Staging
€700 / month
Hosting for Production
€10 000 / month
TOTAL MAINTENANCE PHASE HOURS
360 hours
HOURS PER MONTH
30 hours
HOURLY RATE
€174 / HOUR
If the project comes to an end, you’d want to notify us six months before planned closure.
MONTHS OF MAINTENANCE PHASE
12 months
This could go on, with some occasional price increases, as long as you needed it to. For this example, we’ll pick one year.
MAINTENANCE PHASE TOTAL
€266 640
As in the other examples, this large example is a thought experiment on what a (very) large scale project might cost. We’ve done projects at this scale before (some even larger!) and if you have the ambition and the budget, we’d love to work on yours too!

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Looking for an estimate? Book a meeting with us so we can discuss your requirements and plan the best approach.
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