Avallain Author
Avallain Author is an AI-assisted e-learning authoring tool and editorial CMS built for educational publishers, content service providers and institutions. It turns instructions, PDF or InDesign source material into interactive, accessible and standards-compliant learning activities.
What is Avallain Author?
Avallain Author is the e-learning authoring solution and editorial content management system published by Avallain AG, a Swiss company registered in St. Gallen in February 2002. It is aimed at organisations that produce digital learning material as a business: educational publishers, content service providers, schools, universities, government bodies and edupreneurs. It is not a learning management system; delivery is handled by the sibling product Avallain Magnet, to which Author publishes.
The core of the tool is a library of more than 45 activity types aligned with Bloom's taxonomy, combined with over 200 configuration options. Authors assemble multiple-choice questions, drag-and-drop exercises, maths activities, free-writing tasks, sorting exercises and pronunciation drills, then enrich them with video, audio, digital books, PDFs and embedded YouTube or Vimeo material held in a dedicated media library. Content is stored in an XML-based format kept entirely separate from the presentation layer, so the same material can be restyled through Design Packs; the responsive Mercury pack is enabled by default.
Artificial intelligence appears at several points rather than as a single feature. An AI content generator produces interactive exercises from an instruction or a source document and can offer several versions to choose between. The MosAIc tool imports PDF and InDesign files, extracts their text and images and compiles them into interactive exercises, which the publisher says cuts up to 30% from that task. Accessibility tooling generates alt text for images and transcripts and subtitles for media, addressing the European Accessibility Act. Pronunciation and speech assessment activities draw on the Speechace and Language Confidence integrations, while GeoGebra and Wiris cover mathematical notation. Avallain notes that some AI features remain in beta pending general release.
Around the authoring surface sits an enterprise editorial layer: granular roles and rights, task assignments, full stage and version control, review tools and dashboards. Output supports SCORM 1.2 and 2004, xAPI, LTI 1.x and 1.3, QTI, ePUB and HTML5. A microservices architecture with an API and full single sign-on underpins the cloud service, and the Enterprise tier adds a Product Builder that packages content as desktop, mobile, web and offline applications.
What it does
- Generate interactive exercises from a written instruction or a piece of source material
- Convert PDF and InDesign files into interactive learning objects with the MosAIc tool
- Build activities from more than 45 activity types aligned with Bloom's taxonomy
- Auto-generate alt text for images and transcripts and subtitles for audio and video
- Run an editorial workflow with roles, task assignment, version control and review
- Publish content to Avallain Magnet or to any SCORM, xAPI or LTI compatible platform
- Score spoken answers at syllable and phoneme level through speech analysis integrations
When to use Avallain Author / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Avallain Author is the right fit.
When to use Avallain Author
- Educational publishers running in-house editorial teams on large digital programmes
- Content service providers producing learning material for several publisher clients
- Schools, universities and government bodies building their own courseware
- Instructional designers and learning technologists creating interactive activities at scale
- Edupreneurs launching a commercial digital learning product
When not to use Avallain Author
- Individual teachers wanting a ready-made lesson generator, whom the publisher steers towards its separate TeacherMatic product
- Buyers looking for a learning management system, which is the sibling product Avallain Magnet rather than Author
- Teams that need to compare public prices before talking to a salesperson, since no rate is published
- Users expecting to sign up and start authoring the same day without a commercial conversation
- Small budgets seeking a free or entry-level plan, as every tier is quote-based
How to use Avallain Author
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Request a demo through the contact form, as there is no self-service sign-up
- Discuss requirements with an Avallain expert during a personalised live demonstration
- Have a trial period set up if it is agreed during that commercial conversation
- Access the tool in a browser through single sign-on, with no local installation
- Choose an activity type and configure it from the available options
- Import PDF or InDesign source files and let MosAIc extract text and images into exercises
- Enrich activities with media from the dedicated media library
- Apply a Design Pack, using the default Mercury pack or a custom one
- Organise learning objects hierarchically with the Structure Tool
- Publish to Avallain Magnet, a custom platform, or export through SCORM, xAPI or LTI
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Unusual depth of authoring options, with 45+ activity types and 200+ configuration settings
- Broad coverage of e-learning interoperability standards, which keeps content portable
- Accessibility treated as a core feature rather than an add-on, with AI assistance for alt text and subtitles
- A publisher established since 2002, with named reference customers such as Oxford University Press and National Geographic Learning
- An official training and certification programme, plus a network of certified content service providers
- Enterprise-grade editorial controls suited to teams working on large programmes
- Content stored separately from presentation, allowing restyling without reauthoring
Cons
- No public pricing at all: every one of the four plans routes to a demo request
- No self-service trial; a trial period is only set up if agreed after a sales conversation
- Some AI features are still in beta and pending general release
- No terms and conditions are published on the site, so contractual terms are not visible before contact
- API documentation sits behind a login wall on the developer portal
- The published third-party accessibility audit covers the corporate website, not the product itself
- Interface language coverage for the tool is not documented publicly
Pricing & Plans
Avallain does not publish any price for Avallain Author. There is no permanent free plan and no advertised rate for any tier: the pricing page names four plans and directs each of them to a demo request, using the wording custom pricing and on request. A free, no-obligation demo is offered, and a free trial period may be set up afterwards if agreed. Buyers should also note that optional extra Avallain Author seats, custom Design Packs, custom activity types and integrations may all carry additional fees.
- authoring tool and CMS without an LMS
- for small to mid-sized editorial teams
- with standard publishing types. Price on request
- for large editorial teams
- adding the Product Builder
- dedicated stage and production environments
- dedicated cloud or on-premise hosting
- custom publishing types and product roadmap access. Price on request
- bundles Avallain Magnet with Avallain Author for up to 10
- 000 monthly Magnet end-users
- including 3 Avallain Author seats and 3 Author user roles. Price on request
- bundles Avallain Magnet with Avallain Author above 10
- 000 monthly Magnet end-users
- including 15 Avallain Author seats and 8 Author user roles. Price on request
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Avallain Author handles your data.
GDPR overview
Every page of the site carries a GDPR compliant mention in its footer, and the privacy notice, in force since 30 July 2026, sets out data subject rights, retention and third-party recipients. The declared applicable law is primarily Swiss, with the publisher adhering to EU and UK data protection law only where and to the extent required by mandatory law. Transfers abroad are covered by EU Standard Contractual Clauses or by partner self-certification. Named third parties include the website host Digimagical GmbH in Austria, Calendly, Zoom, Google Ireland, Google Analytics, Hotjar, Zoho SalesIQ and Jira Service Desk. No EU representative under Article 27 is designated and no data protection officer is named. The notice covers the website and the company's applications; it does not describe learner data handled inside the platform.
Who owns the data?
Avallain AG, Marktplatz 22, 9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland, is the controller named in the privacy notice, which declares itself responsible for the website and the company's applications. No terms and conditions are published anywhere on the site, so the contractual position on ownership of the content produced inside Avallain Author is simply not stated publicly. What the privacy notice does grant data subjects is access, rectification, erasure, restriction and portability, plus withdrawal of consent at any time. Complaints are directed to the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner. Anyone contracting with Avallain should obtain the licence agreement directly, because the public site does not settle who owns authored content.
Reuse rights
The site publishes no terms and conditions, so there is no public statement on whether an end user may reuse data without asking permission. What the privacy notice describes is Avallain's own use of personal data: server log data kept for technical operation, security and internal statistics under legitimate interest, communication data processed to answer enquiries, and newsletter data processed on consent, including for lookalike audience campaigns on social media. Nothing addresses the reuse of learning content created in the tool. On the product side, Avallain Author stores content in an XML-based format and supports export through SCORM, xAPI, QTI, ePUB and HTML5, which in practice keeps authored material portable to other platforms.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Avallain does not publish a hosting location for the data handled inside Avallain Author. The only hosting disclosure on the site concerns the corporate website itself, whose privacy notice names Digimagical GmbH in Austria as the hosting provider; a technical check shows the public site is in fact served through Vercel. Those facts describe the marketing site, not the authoring platform, and should not be read as the platform's jurisdiction. On the product side, the Author Enterprise plan offers dedicated cloud-based or on-premise hosting, but no country or region is stated for it. The publisher is Swiss and declares Swiss law as primarily applicable, with EU Standard Contractual Clauses used for transfers to partners abroad. Named third-party recipients for the website include Calendly, Zoom, Google Ireland, Google Analytics, Hotjar, Zoho SalesIQ and Jira Service Desk. Institutions with data residency requirements should ask Avallain directly, since the public pages do not answer the question.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Avallain Author.
- No terms and conditions are published, so ownership and licensing of the content you author are not settled in public before you sign
- Pricing is invisible until you engage with sales, which makes budget comparison against competitors impossible up front
- The third-party accessibility audit covers Avallain's website, not the product, so the product's WCAG 2.2 AA claim rests on the vendor's own statement
- The privacy notice describes the corporate website and applications rather than learner data processed inside the platform, so schools should request platform-specific commitments
- Heavy reliance on AI generation for exercises and alt text can erode editorial judgement if outputs are published without human review, which Avallain itself frames as human oversight
- Some AI features are in beta, so behaviour may change between evaluation and rollout
- Content portability is good on paper through SCORM, xAPI and XML export, but custom Design Packs and Enterprise-only publishing types can still create practical lock-in
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Low to moderate for the end user. Avallain Author runs in a browser as a cloud service with full single sign-on support, so there is nothing to install locally. Every plan includes initial training and ongoing support, and a user guide, service desk, live chat and webinars are available. The genuine effort sits elsewhere: onboarding runs through a commercial process rather than self-service sign-up, integrating output into an existing LMS means working with SCORM, LTI or xAPI, and configuring a custom Design Pack is explicitly said to require a high level of programming knowledge.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Avallain Author
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
What is Avallain Author?
How much does Avallain Author cost?
Is there a free trial?
What is the difference between Avallain Author and Avallain Magnet?
Which e-learning standards does Avallain Author support?
Does Avallain Author offer an API?
How does Avallain Author handle accessibility?
What does the MosAIc tool do?
Who is behind Avallain Author?
Is there a certification for Avallain Author?
Should you pick Avallain Author?
Avallain Author is a specialist tool with a clear audience. It is built for organisations whose business is producing digital learning material at volume, and almost every design decision reflects that: separation of content from presentation, an editorial workflow with roles and version control, and broad support for the interoperability standards that publishers are held to. Twenty-plus years of development and reference customers such as Oxford University Press, National Geographic Learning and Difusion give it a track record that newer authoring tools cannot claim.
Its AI features are practical rather than headline-grabbing. Generating exercises from a source document, converting PDF and InDesign files through MosAIc, and producing alt text, transcripts and subtitles all target specific bottlenecks in editorial production, and the accessibility tooling answers a real regulatory deadline in the European Accessibility Act. Avallain is also candid that some of these features remain in beta.
The main friction is commercial rather than technical. No price is published for any of the four plans, there is no self-service trial, and no terms and conditions appear anywhere on the site, so a prospective buyer cannot assess cost or contractual terms without first booking a demo. Teams evaluating the tool should also be clear about scope: the published accessibility audit covers Avallain's own website rather than the product, the privacy notice describes the corporate site rather than learner data inside the platform, and buyers who need delivery as well as creation will be looking at Avallain Magnet alongside Author.
For a publisher or institution with an editorial team and a standards requirement, it is a serious candidate. For anyone wanting to try before talking to sales, it is not.
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