Educational App Development Guide: Features, Steps, and Cost

• Mobile
• July 12, 2025

by Riddhi Patel

The demand for online education has exploded, and with it, the need for intuitive, feature-rich educational app development. But building a successful education app isn’t just about code; it’s about creating an engaging, scalable, and outcome-driven platform that stands out in a fast-growing EdTech market. In this comprehensive guide, we walk you through everything you need to know about education application development, from understanding the types of apps and must-have features to the exact steps involved in building one and the associated cost.

Strong market growth, scalable technology, diverse monetization opportunities, and a chance to make a meaningful social impact are making educational app development an opportunity for decision makers to grow in this rapidly expanding sector.

Further, let us bring numbers into the opportunity perspective for decision makers. Here is what you can capitalize on with one choice, that is, developing an education solution:

• 709 million global users
• Over $6 billion in revenue generated
• $41.6 billion projected market value by 2033
• 21.5% CAGR from 2025 to 2033

Duolingo alone has generated a revenue of $748 million in 2024, with a 40.8% increase in revenue YoY, as mentioned in the revenue and usage statistics report by Business of Apps. It has 34.1 million daily active users, with a 50% increase in the number of paid subscribers per year.

Now that we know the reason why education application development is a worthy investment for the decision makers, let’s get into understanding the fundamentals of what it takes to develop one.

What is an Educational Application?

An educational mobile app is software designed to assist students and educators in the learning and teaching processes, respectively. These apps facilitate educators in imparting knowledge through virtual platforms and learning to enhance their knowledge or abilities anywhere, anytime.

Some popular examples of educational apps are Google Classroom, Duolingo, Quizlet, and more.

Types of Educational Applications

Based on the purpose these educational applications serve in the learning process, they can be categorized into learning management systems, language learning apps, subject-specific apps, and more.

Let’s explore some of the popular types of education apps in detail.

1. Language Learning Apps

These are digital tools that offer interactive, bite-sized lessons to help users learn new languages efficiently. These types of education applications focus on teaching new languages or improving proficiency by offering lessons on vocabulary, grammar practices, pronunciation, and more.

Some of the popular language learning apps are Duolingo, Babbel, Memrise, etc.

2. Learning Management Systems (LMS)

An LMS is software that helps organizations and institutions to plan, implement, and assess learning and training programs. This comprehensive edtech platform, often developed by application development services providers, allows educators to create, deliver, manage, and track educational content, courses, and student progress.

It offers a wide range of features like course creation and management, user management, tracking and reporting, communication and collaboration, and more.

Moodle, Google Classroom, Blackboard, Coursera, and more are some of the popular LMSs.

Explore the detailed guide on learning management system development, from key features to development process and more.

3. Tutoring Platforms

These platforms are designed to connect students with expert tutors for personalized instruction, either on demand or by appointment. These online marketplaces are also designed for live video or text-based tutoring, interactive whiteboards, and screen sharing, communication, and sometimes even content management, making it easier for tutors to offer customized learning experiences and immediate academic support.

Popular examples of tutoring platforms are Chegg, Wyzant, and Preply.

4. Gamified Learning Apps

These types of education apps integrate game mechanics like points, levels, and achievements into the learning process to boost engagement. It features progress tracking, visual rewards, motivation-driven challenges, and more.

Educational applications that are offering gamified learning experiences are Duolingo, Kahoot, Classcraft, etc.

5. Subject-Specific Apps

These apps concentrate on one area of study, offering deep and focused content rather than a broad curriculum, like Photomath for achieving excellence in mathematics or Duolingo for learning languages.

6. Educational Games and Quizzes Apps

These educational mobile apps are designed to make the learning process fun and engaging through interactive games, puzzles, and quizzes. These apps offer engaging visual storytelling, challenge-based learning, progress tracking, collaborative play modes, and more.No matter where the learner is in their learning journey, there’s a mobile app that can help make the process more efficient, engaging, and even enjoyable. Explore 30+ educational app ideas in detail that you can consider developing.

Must-Have Features in Education Application Development

With the changing learner needs and adoption of the technology, certain features are non-negotiable to build successful learning experiences, like personalized learning, recommendation engines, gamification, and more. Here are some such must-have features to consider in education mobile app development:

• Progress Tracking: Learners can use trackers like weekly/monthly reports and achievement milestones to monitor their improvements, while educators can use visual indicators and performance analytics to identify struggling learners.
• Personalized Learning: Personalizing the learning journey by offering adaptive learning paths, recommendations based on previous activity, AI-driven suggestions, customized learning goals, and customizable schedules helps learners learn at their own pace and preference.
• Interactive Content: Add-ons like rich media support, embedded quizzes, drag-and-drop exercises, in-app note-taking, simulations, and more can help keep users actively engaged, improving retention and understanding.
• Live Sessions & Video Integration: The real-time virtual classes via integrations with Zoom, Google Meet, or so, screen sharing, recording and replay options, calendar sync, and more, help build a classroom-like environment online.
• Offline Access: Learning does not have to depend on internet availability. Downloadable lessons (videos, materials, and more), local caching for auto-sync when the internet is restored, and more ensure that the learners not only have access to the material but also have their progress saved even when the learner is offline.
• Social Learning: To ensure the learning is as collaborative as in traditional systems, the social learning feature offers learners in-app discussion forums, class-specific chat groups, teacher-student messaging portals, Q&A boards for peer-to-peer support, and more.
• Gamification: Gamification adds game-like elements like points, badges, leaderboards to your app to motivate learners and make education feel less like a chore. Boosting user engagement, it encourages learners to complete modules.
• Accessibility: Features like screen reader support, adjustable font size, contrast modes, subtitles and transcripts for audio/video content, and more ensure that your app can be used by learners of all abilities, including those with visual, auditory, or cognitive impairments.
• User Profiles: Apart from the basic information about the learners, these profiles act more like avatars that serve as a base for personalizing the learning experience and managing different types of users.
• In-app Purchases: This feature helps businesses to support scalable business models (freemium, pay-per-course). As they allow the users to buy premium content, courses, or features directly within the app.
• Payment Integration: Integration with payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay, etc.), subscription models, one-time purchases, discounts, and more helps you to shape your monetization strategy and gain the support to implement business models (freemium, pay-per-course, etc.).

Well, there are just the must-have features, but there are should-have features and nice-to-have features as well that you can consider when developing a mobile app in the education sector. Explore our guide listing 30+ key mobile app features that can help you gain maximum user retention.

How to Create an Educational App in 6 Simple Steps

The foundational six steps of educational app development include idea, research, design, development, testing, and deployment. Let’s explore these steps in detail.

1. Define Your Educational App Idea and Goals

The most successful education apps begin with a laser-focused vision.

• What problem are you solving? 
• Who is your user: students, teachers, corporate learners, or parents? 
• Are you targeting K-12, higher education, professional training, or lifelong learners?

Examples:

• Are you helping high schoolers master STEM topics via gamified learning?
• Do you want to provide language learning via AI-based feedback?
• Is your goal to deliver bite-sized, mobile-first courses for professionals?

Learn more about the discovery phase in app development. 

2. Conduct Strategic Market Research

Analyze competitors like Duolingo, or Coursera. What features do users love? What gaps remain? Review user feedback in app stores, explore pricing models, and study emerging trends (e.g., microlearning, AI tutors).

Research isn’t just about others, it’s about your audience. Conduct interviews, run surveys, and build user personas. This insight will define your product-market fit and help avoid costly missteps.

3. Design the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX)

In EdTech, engagement is everything. If the user experience is confusing or uninspiring, learners will drop off fast. Great UI/UX design makes learning feel easy, interactive, and rewarding.

Start with wireframes—simple, black-and-white layouts, often sketches, that map your app’s structure, screens, and navigation. These blueprints help align teams before any coding begins. Next, build interactive prototypes using tools like Figma or InVision to simulate how the app will feel and flow. This lets you gather feedback and refine the experience early. Finally, apply high-fidelity UI design, adding your branding, visual style, and polished interface elements.

Key UI/UX considerations:

• Minimal onboarding: Show value in under 60 seconds.
• Gamification: Use rewards, badges, or progress bars to keep users motivated.
• Personalization: Adaptive learning paths based on performance or behavior.
• Accessibility: Include features like screen readers, subtitles, and high-contrast modes.

4. Develop the Education Application

You don’t have to build everything from scratch. Modern EdTech platforms often use a mix of custom code and third-party APIs (e.g., Stripe for payments, Firebase for real-time data).

Education application development can follow two main paths:

• MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
• Full-Scale Platform

Popular tech stack choices:

• Frontend: React Native or Flutter (cross-platform frameworks), Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android
• Backend: Node.js, Django
• Database: PostgreSQL, MongoDB
• Cloud: AWS, Google Cloud, Azure

5. Test the Application Thoroughly

A great education app must work seamlessly across devices, browsers, and network conditions. Testing isn’t just about fixing bugs, it’s about ensuring a smooth, frustration-free learning experience.

Types of testing to consider:

• Functional Testing: Does everything work as intended?
• Usability Testing: Are users confused, frustrated, or dropping off?
• Performance Testing: Can your app handle XXK+ users at once?
• Security Testing: Are data and credentials secure?

6. Deploy to App Stores

Deploy your educational app on app stores (iOS, Android), and set up analytics tools from day one. Watch how learners interact, where they drop off, and which features delight or frustrate them.

Post-launch priorities:

• Gather feedback continuously
• Push updates regularly
• Engage your user community
• Scale with caution, optimize before expanding

To further get into the technical details of developing a mobile app in the educational industry, along with the latest trends, mistakes to avoid, best practices, and more, explore the comprehensive guide to mobile app development.

How Much Does Education App Development Cost in 2025?

The cost of developing an education app typically ranges from $15,000 to $150,000+, depending on the complexity of the educational mobile app.

Other Key Cost Drivers

• Features & Complexity: Interactive quizzes, video streaming, AI tutors, gamification, and offline access can all drive costs.
• Platform: iOS, Android, or both (cross-platform app development services typically save 30–50%).
• Design & UX: High-quality UI/UX matters in education apps, and the cost to design an app can account for 15–25% of the total budget.
• Development Team Location: When you hire mobile app developers from the US/UK, they charge differently than the ones you hire from India, so take this into consideration as well.
• Backend Infrastructure: Cloud integration, real-time analytics, and scalability considerations add to backend development costs.

Explore the benefits of cross-platform app development in detail.

Hidden Costs to Consider

• Ongoing maintenance: ~15–20% of development cost annually
• Content licensing or development
• Third-party APIs (Zoom, payment gateways, etc.)

Last but not least, a well-planned MVP can be developed for less, helping you test the market before scaling.

There are other factors as well: the team you need for educational mobile app development, the cost of app publishing, app store optimization, app marketing, and more. We have curated a detailed guide on mobile app development cost, which you can explore to have an overview of all you need to consider while budgeting for the education app.

If you are wondering if there is any way that could help you reduce the cost of mobile app development for the education sector, well, we hear you. Learn more about how to reduce mobile app development cost.

Why MindInventory Is Your Go-To Education Application Development Partner

At MindInventory, we help education startups, institutions, and enterprises design and develop custom learning applications that are future-ready, scalable, and aligned with your strategic goals.

One of our notable works includes the business learning app, “Jetson.” It is a subject-specific educational app that is designed to help emerging entrepreneurs get mentorship from 1000+ experienced mentors.

Here’s what makes us the ideal partner for your next EdTech project: 

• More than a decade of experience in education mobile app development
• Expertise in AI, ML, NLP, cloud, and other next-gen technologies
• End-to-end services: from product strategy to deployment and beyond
• Trusted by global EdTech leaders

We help education businesses reduce time-to-market, streamline app development, and deliver robust, user-friendly experiences. Book a FREE 30-minute consultation with our EdTech specialists to discuss your app idea, timeline, and budget.

FAQs on Educational App Development