Why We Built OpenSCORM

We built OpenSCORM because the pricing model for SCORM hosting didn’t make sense to us.

If you run training (compliance courses, onboarding, professional development, anything packaged as SCORM), you’ve probably looked at SCORM Cloud. It’s the standard. Rustici Software built it, they maintain the SCORM specification, and they’ve been at this longer than almost anyone in the space. It works.

But it charges by the registration. Every time a learner enrolls in a course, that’s a billable event. Go over your plan’s limit, and you’re paying $3.60 per extra registration on the smaller tiers. If your training volume fluctuates, and whose doesn’t, your bill fluctuates with it.

We kept running into this with teams we worked with. A compliance deadline hits. Onboarding season spikes. Someone launches a refresher course to the whole organization. The bill doubles. Nobody planned for it, because nobody can predict exactly how many people will take training in a given month.

So we started thinking about what it would look like to take that pressure off. A platform where training teams could plan their budget in January and know what they’d spend in December. Where a spike in learner activity was good news, not a billing event.

What OpenSCORM is

OpenSCORM is a SCORM content delivery platform with flat-rate pricing. You pick a plan based on your learner count and course count. You pay the same amount every month. No per-registration tracking. No overage fees. No bill surprises.

Upload a SCORM 1.2 or xAPI course. Share an enrollment link. Track completions. That’s it.

Plans start at $30/month and go up to $900/month. There’s a free tier for evaluation. Annual prepay saves 10%.

Why open source

OpenSCORM is licensed under the AGPL v3. The code is on GitHub. You can read it, fork it, run it on your own infrastructure if you want.

We chose open source for a few reasons. First, trust. If you’re a training team evaluating a new platform, you shouldn’t have to take our word for how it handles your data or your content. You can look. Second, longevity. Open-source projects don’t disappear when a company pivots. The code exists independently. Third, honestly, it’s the kind of product we’d want to buy from someone else. Transparent pricing and transparent code.

For most teams, the hosted version is the right fit. You don’t want to manage infrastructure. For organizations with strict data residency requirements or internal IT policies, self-hosting is an option.

What we’re building toward

OpenSCORM is live today. Real teams are using it to deliver training to real learners.

We’re not done. Our roadmap is driven by what customers need, and right now that means making the platform excellent at the fundamentals: reliable delivery, clear reporting, fast setup. Standards support will grow as customers need it. Integrations will follow demand.

If you’re evaluating SCORM hosting options, we’d love for you to try it. The free tier is real: no credit card, no time limit, no sales call. If it works for your team, great. If it doesn’t, you’ll know fast.

We’ll be publishing more here: deep dives into SCORM Cloud’s pricing, guides for delivering training without an LMS, troubleshooting SCORM tracking in Moodle, and more. If you’re a training professional navigating this space, this blog is written for you.