Corporate training costs can quickly ramp up, and in the LMS space, there are often hidden costs you won’t budget for. We share exactly how to budget for training in 2026. 

In the UK, employers invested around £42.0bn in training each year, with an average spend of £1,530 per employee, according to government figures.

That’s a scary figure but obviously it varies on a case by case basis. 

But what does the average learning budget look like? 

Well, it depends on the type of corporate training you offer and what tools and resources you’re investing in.

⏰  TL;DR 

If you’re looking at implementing an LMS for internal corporate training then you will need to make sure to consider implementation, migration and any custom development needed in regards to budget. 

What is corporate training? 

Corporate training is a structured, strategic learning programme that is designed to improve employee skills, knowledge, and performance to meet specific business goals. 

Organisations may be assigned a corporate training budget or you may offer ongoing learning as part of your business incentives. 

Whatever it is, you need to accommodate for varying corporate training costs on a platform by platform basis.

The cost of not training employees

Training your employees might just feel like wasted spend but there are huge benefits to investing in learning. 

According to the UK L&D Report, businesses who put employee learning and development at the heart of their strategy perform better and enjoy a low staff turnover rate.

And 94% of employees say that they would stay at a company longer if it simply invested in helping them learn.

When employees stick around, it means you: 

• Have reduced turnover so spend less on hiring new employees 
• Get a happier workforce that results in higher productivity 
• Keep knowledge and skills for best practice which can impact your bottom line 

All in all, retaining staff and investing in their knowledge is a win win for you, and for them. 

Corporate training costs: Learning management systems

LMSs, or learning management systems, are a common choice in the corporate world as they allow you to create and share your own learning content. 

As opposed to sending employees off to open courses, training days, or even just enrolling them in online courses, you can share targeted, relevant training that they can complete as part of their working day. 

LMSs are most useful for those looking to: 

• Drive compliance through statutory and mandatory training
• Share onboarding training with new starters 
• Improve sales or customer service team knowledge on products etc 
• Build niche skills relevant to your organisation or industry 

Maybe you’re already sharing your own learning content with your team. 

But instead of managing it in a platform like an LMS, they instead share videos, or PDFs for learners to engage with. 

What the user is left with is varying quality training due to lack of version control, and the learning admin is left with a headache trying to manually keep training records up to date. 

An LMS solves that, but of course, it comes with a fee. 

While there is a core cost for the platform itself, there are other costs to factor in too. 

Here’s a clear breakdown of what they are: 

Users 

Most LMS vendors tend to price their platform based on the number of active users (learners, admins or both). 

While some LMSs will bundle a set number of users into the core license, many will charge additional fees as your user base grows. 

The reason for this is simple. Higher user counts often require greater investment in infrastructure, support, and maintenance, although the cost per user generally decreases as the volume of users increases (e.g., £4/user for 1–100 users vs. £2/user for 1000+ users).

Based on 500 users, with Totara, you’re looking at a base cost of £12,500 per year for 3 years. 

Make sure you check that users are only counted if ‘active’ otherwise you will have to regularly clean your LMS and ensure you check costs for higher subscription values as some LMS prices jump when moving from one user band to another. 

Contract 

LMSs are basically subscription services and so it’s no surprise that the longer you sign up for, the cheaper the price you’re likely to pay. 

With Totara partners for example, you’ll be asked to pay a 3 year contract which will be at a lower rate than if you request a 1 year contract. 

While it’s worth considering the cost benefits of subscribing for longer, you have to make sure that you’re fully happy with the platform before committing as you usually will have to pay an exit fee to terminate the contract early. 

Features and Add-ons

Of course, your core platform comes as included. 

But lots of LMSs will offer extras for more money. 

For example, Totara comes with Learn and Engage functionality as part of its core offering. The Perform add-on, which offers things like goal tracking and skills mapping, is an added extra. 

Some LMSs will also charge extra for certain features like: 

• Gamification 
• eCommerce 
• Bespoke addons like mentoring tools 

This is worth bearing in mind when choosing your LMS. 

Configuration 

Configuration refers to setting up the LMS to match your organisation’s structure and workflows, things like user roles, permission levels, learning paths, and branding elements. 

Some LMS vendors include basic configuration in onboarding packages and implementation, while others treat it as a separate professional service. 

Typical costs range from £1,000–£5,000, depending on complexity.

Implementation and migration

Implementation covers the broader rollout of the LMS into your organisation. 

This can include project management, system integration, data migration, and initial testing. 

While some vendors include light implementation in standard packages, larger organisations often require tailored implementations delivered as paid services. 

Implementation costs can range from £5,000 to £50,000+, depending on scale and integration needs.

Note: In most cases, we don’t charge for Totara migrations.

So if you already have a Totara LMS and wish to move to BuildEmpire, you can often save money by moving between Totara partners. 

Community

Some LMS providers charge for access to premium community resources such as user forums, learning networks, events, or expert groups. 

These communities can be valuable for sharing best practices and troubleshooting, but they are not always included in the base licence. 

Costs are usually modest compared to other LMS expenses, typically £200–£1,000 per year.

💡 Pro Tip

Totara Community access is included as standard when you choose a Totara LMS. 

Hosting 

Hosting refers to the infrastructure used to run the LMS in the cloud. 

Many modern SaaS LMS platforms bundle hosting into the subscription fee, but others may itemise it separately, especially for dedicated or high-performance environments. 

Organisations can expect hosting costs of around £1,000–£10,000 per year, depending on usage, storage, and performance requirements.

Cost is also dependent on if you choose to self-host or if your LMS provider hosts for you. 

Maintenance

Maintenance covers the ongoing technical work needed to keep the LMS stable and secure, including system monitoring, bug fixes, and backend upkeep. 

In many SaaS LMSs, this is included in the licence fee; however, self-hosted or enterprise deployments may charge separately. 

Typical maintenance costs range from 10–20% of the annual licence cost.

Upgrades

Upgrades involve moving the LMS to newer versions of the software to access new features, performance improvements, and security patches. 

SaaS platforms often include upgrades automatically, but some enterprise or on-premise LMS systems charge for major version upgrades or migration support. Organisations should budget £1,000–£10,000+ per upgrade, depending on the scope.

Support 

Support covers access to vendor help desks, troubleshooting assistance, and technical guidance. 

Basic support is often included in the licence fee, but faster response times, dedicated account managers, or 24/7 support typically come as paid tiers. 

Premium support packages generally cost 10–20% of the annual licence fee, or £1,000–£10,000 per year.

Note: BuildEmpire includes support in the cost of your platform, and the best part is, it’s unlimited. That means that you can access our support team whenever you might need it to get more out of your platform. 

Customisations 

Customisations involve modifying the LMS beyond standard configuration, such as building new features, changing workflows, or creating bespoke integrations. 

Some LMS platforms can’t offer any customisation as they’re out of the box solutions. 

But LMSs using Totara can edit the code in any way they like as it’s open source. 

Of course, the costs for such projects depend on complexity, but we have supported LMS customisations ranging from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

AI tokens 

This is increasingly important in the LMS world as more and more LMSs call themselves AI-powered or AI-first. 

While they might be offering free AI integration now, we anticipate that eventually LMS platforms will begin to charge for AI usage through “tokens.” 

Related: AI in L&D: What’s actually out there?

These tokens represent the amount of AI processing used when generating text, summaries, or analysis. Some LMS providers include a small monthly allocation, but additional usage may incur charges. 

Costs vary but organisations may pay £0.50–£10 per million tokens, depending on the underlying AI model and vendor markup.

Summing up the costs 

Transparency when considering your corporate training costs is essential. 

That’s why it’s so important to set a budget and be clear on expectations from day one. 

Related: Top red flags in LMS procurement 

At BuildEmpire, we are passionate about transparency which is why we will be upfront on our costs when we quote, and we will always itemise what is included, and how much each additional extra might be. 

Luckily, if you choose us, you’ll be able to access hosting, support, configuration and more is usually included in your base platform fees. 

Want to talk more about LMS costing? Book a demo to see our platform in action and speak to our Head of Sales, Fliss, about how we can support you with your corporate training budget.