Free eLearning Authoring: Build Courses Without the Price Tag

Slate has a Free tier. It has limits: you can create up to 5 courses, and some features like advanced export formats are on paid plans. We're upfront about that.

But within those limits, it's a real tool. Not a 14-day trial. Not a demo mode. You can build complete, professional courses and export them to your LMS indefinitely.

What Makes It Different

When you sign up for Slate, your Free account doesn't expire. No credit card required. No "upgrade now or lose your work" countdown. Your courses stay yours, and your access stays active.

We built it this way because we think eLearning authoring should be accessible to more people: freelancers testing the waters, small businesses building onboarding, teachers creating blended learning content, and instructional designers building portfolios.

What You Get

The Free tier includes everything you need to build and share professional courses:

• 5 courses: Enough to build a portfolio, run a small training program, or properly evaluate whether Slate fits your workflow.
• 1,500 AI credits/month: Generate course content, create images, translate lessons into other languages. Credits reset every month.
• All content blocks: Cards, carousels, flip cards, knowledge checks, assessments, accordions, tabs, embedded media. No feature walls.
• Custom themes: Brand your courses with your colours, fonts, and logo. Every theming feature is available on Free.
• Free stock photos & GIFs: Built-in media library so you're not hunting for assets.
• Course translations: Generate multi-language versions of your courses using AI credits.
• SCORM 1.2 export: Deploy your courses to any LMS that supports the standard.
• Preview links: Share your courses with anyone for review or demonstration.

When You Might Want More

The Free tier has real limits. Being transparent about them matters.

You can create up to 5 courses. For many people, that's plenty. If you're building at scale or managing multiple clients, you'll eventually need more.

Exports are SCORM 1.2 only. If your LMS requires SCORM 2004, xAPI, cmi5, or you want standalone HTML packages or PDF documents, those formats are on paid plans.

Preview links include "Built with Slate" branding. If you're sharing with clients and want a white-label experience, that's a Pro feature.

There's no Share & Track on Free. If you need analytics on who viewed your courses and how far they got, Standard has you covered.

When you're ready for more, Standard adds unlimited courses, all export formats, Review tool access, and significantly more AI credits. Pro increases AI limits further and removes branding from preview links. Both can be cancelled anytime.

A Note on AI Credits

AI features have real, recurring costs. Every course generation, image creation, and translation uses compute resources that we pay for. Free tiers genuinely cost us money.

We include 1,500 credits per month on Free because we want you to experience what Slate can actually do, not a watered-down version. If you run out and want more without subscribing, you can purchase credit packs directly within Slate. These are one-time purchases that don't expire.

Who This Is For

• Portfolio builders: Create polished samples to showcase in job applications. Landing an instructional design role is easier when you can show your work.
• Freelancers: Test Slate properly before recommending it to clients or committing to a subscription.
• Small teams: Build internal training without needing procurement approval or enterprise contracts.
• Small businesses: Create onboarding courses or product training without enterprise software costs.
• Educators: Create interactive course materials for students without institutional software licenses.
• Teachers: Dabble in instructional design or create supplementary content for blended learning.
• The curious: Want to see what a modern, AI-assisted eLearning authoring tool can do? Find out without any commitment.

Try It Now

Ready to start building? Sign up free and create your first course. No credit card, no trial period, no pressure. Upgrade when you're ready, or don't. The Free tier is here to stay.