Why would you spend more money on an elearning developer when you can put the slides together yourself?
When you use a good professional elearning developer, you are getting much more than someone who can just put your slides together. Professional elearning developers are passionate about learning and have years of experience, not just in using elearning authoring tools, but in instructional design and learning principles so they can develop elearning courses that actually work, rather than just being a painful exercise in clicking as fast as possible. It’s like the difference between having a fridge that cools and a fridge that doesn’t. They will both do the basics, like store the food, but the better one will actually cool the food and keep it longer.
Elearning that is not designed properly will give you the compliance check offs, but it won’t actually teach, so it’s more like e-CYA, not elearning. So, if all you need is a cupboard, that’s fine, but if you want to keep the beer cold, at least have a chat with a professional elearning developer.
Side note: CYA = Cover Your A*se.