Elucidat Review: Is it the Best Authoring Tool in 2023?

Elucidat is an eLearning authoring platform that has so far served 20+ million learners across the globe.

Best suited for large organisations, Elucidat boasts an intuitive interface and a variety of templates to produce top-notch digital learning.   

But is it perfect or are there any downsides? This Elucidat review will answer all your questions regarding content, prices and features,  helping you decide if it is worth joining or not.

What Is Elucidat and What Is It Good For?

This cloud-based authoring tool focuses on HTML5 course creation, giving eLearning professionals and big organisations the chance to develop online training materials that can boost production, streamline training processes and cut down on costs.

People-centred learning content is at the core of Elucidat. The site has many features that allow users to create customised and accessible eLearning that delivers tangible results.  

Bear in mind that Elucidat is not an LMS, like Google Classroom. However, it does allow you to add courses to your LMS without any issues.  

Who is Elucidat for?

Elucidat is specifically designed to help large companies or teams produce high-quality digital learning at scale. In fact, many of its features like easy-to-manage authoring hierarchy and collaborative approach are just some of the reasons why the platform has worked with huge organisations like Tesco, Johnson & Johnson, the Open University and many more. 

That said, smaller companies and freelancers might benefit more from some of the best Elucidat alternatives.

Features

What does Elucidat offer? 

Let’s take a look.

Authoring 

One of the highlights of Elucidat is ease of use, particularly when it comes to authoring courses. 

Unlike SmartBuilder or Gomo Learning, Elucidat’s WYSIWYG interface is sleek and modern, allowing anyone to easily add content and customise page layouts. 

You can start a project from scratch or update an existing one, which is particularly handy if you would like to use the same branding style and design throughout. 

Once you select a theme for your content and configure the page sequence for your course, you simply need to add text and images to specific pages. 

Elucidat lets you choose your project style in the beginning, adding some basic fonts and colours to get you started. You can then change these to match your brand.

Learning Accelerator

Alternatively you could use Elucidat’s Learning Accelerator—a set of 25+ professionally-designed templates that do most of the work for you. Users can pick one of these blueprints or get recommendations from the platform on the best one to choose based on project goals and requirements. According to the company, this speeds up course creation by 4 times, which is an invaluable tool for an organisation of any size. 

Another standout feature here is the multi-device slider that allows you to see how content will look across devices so you can resize and rearrange images and other elements to suit desktop or mobile screens. 

More experienced users could create their own custom themes and make changes to the design through the HTML editor. Brand integration and publishing options are the same whether you are getting started with a premade theme or your own design. 

Although the interface is exceptionally intuitive, if you want more advanced options you would have to spend a bit of time exploring the platform. If this doesn’t sound like something you’d be interested in, there are even easier tools to use, like iSpring or EasyGenerator. 

Content quality 

In addition to looking stunning, Elucidat courses also give users the chance to incorporate several elements to engage learners, starting from polls and personalised content to interactive buttons and pop-up tips. 

There is also an option to add video and audio files, animation and page transitions, as well as gamification elements through quizzes, points and badges. 

However, if you would like to focus more on video course production, TechSmith Camtasia is the platform for the job. 

Publishing 

Ease of use continues through the process of delivering eLearning content.  

Elucidat allows you to upload your course onto any SCORM-compliant LMS, or you can simply share the course’s unique URL and have anyone access it through a standard browser. Plus, thanks to the site’s Rapid Release feature courses are not only shared immediately but updated instantly as well so there is no need to re-upload modified SCORM files.

Elucidat also supports advanced xAPI (TinCan) so you are able to send data to your LRS from the platform.

Scalability & Admin Roles 

Elucidat encourages a collaborative approach to authoring. Not only can several team members work on the same project at the same time, admins can assign customised roles and levels of access to different users, facilitating delegation and streamlining the entire authoring process. 

You can even assign users to review the course and leave comments on given pages so that you can get content-specific feedback quickly. These reviewers are not considered as stakeholders in the project and as such are not part of the Elucidat pricing fee. If you want even more feedback options, take a look at Lectora and its host of features. 

All changes are updated instantly across all versions and all modifications are editable in the “master course” so you won’t waste time and effort going through different versions of the same project. 

Getting your content closer to local audiences is another aspect Elucidat helps with. By simply uploading a new language, you could translate your course and make it accessible to different parts of an international organisation. 

Analysis & Security

Elucidat gives users easy access to course performance, providing insight into the number of learners, their completion rate and even average session length. Even better, the analytics tool is built-in so you can garner the most relevant data without installing third-party apps.

In addition, the site provides secure hosting and advanced encryption protocol, as well as an extensive Disaster Recovery plan to make sure all data is restored in case of accidents. 

Elucidat support

Elucidat’s customer support is nothing short of outstanding. The company guides you throughout the entire course creation process, providing you with tips and video tutorials on how to work with the software. 

Elucidat also provides day-to-day support and personalised onboarding plans, as well as extra consultancy and coaching lessons helping your team achieve goals faster and more efficiently. 

In addition to this, the site hosts an extensive knowledge base that will give you answers on the most common issues, as well as a helpful Elucidat blog. If you require more assistance, support is available via phone and email, or you could schedule an appointment at the Elucidat Brighton office. 

How Much Does Elucidat Cost?

Elucidat has a free 14-day trial, which you have to book as a demo on the site. 

After the trial expires, there are four pricing plans to choose from, the cost of which depends on the number of users and learners your organisation has. 

The downside is that prices are not disclosed and you would have to contact the company to get a quote. 

That said, online Elucidat reviews put the starting cost at around $2,500, which is much higher than the competition. When looking at Elucidat vs Articulate, its biggest competitor, the high price tag becomes even more obvious—Articulate begins at $1,299 per user, which is almost half of Elucidat’s starting price. 

The company advises that its plans are designed for big employers, advising smaller companies to seek other alternatives like Adobe Captivate or iSpring. Individual authors who would like to market their tutorials, on the other hand, would find a better fit in an online course creation platform like Teachable. 

Is Elucidat Worth It?

Elucidat has many features large companies will love. Elucidat training creation is as simple and efficient as it gets, while authoring allows for a collaborative approach. What’s more, the platform offers outstanding support, guiding you along the way and even providing coaching and consultancy services. There is also a learning curve to using the software and designers might feel somewhat limited with the templates on offer, but these are minor issues. The biggest drawback with Elucidat is the cost. Even though not fully disclosed, the starting cost of $2,500 is still incredibly high and might tempt even the biggest employers to look elsewhere.