Guide
In-house or public training — which one does your team actually need?
The cost crossover sits around eight people. The reasons that are not about cost matter more.
Updated 10 September 2026
Public courses are scheduled by a provider, held at a hotel or training centre, and sold per seat to whoever books. In-house courses are commissioned by one employer, delivered to that employer’s own people, usually at their office, and priced per training day.
Most companies choose between them on price alone, which is a reasonable starting point and a poor finishing one. The cost arithmetic is genuinely simple. The reasons that decide whether the training works are not about cost at all.
The cost arithmetic, which takes one minute
Public courses are priced per person, so the cost scales with headcount. In-house is priced per day, so it does not. Somewhere those two lines cross, and for project management training in Malaysia that crossover sits at roughly eight participants.
Below eight, send people to a public course. Above eight, in-house is cheaper, and by twenty it is dramatically cheaper. This is not a close call in either direction and any provider who tells you otherwise at four participants is selling.
| Public course | In-house | |
|---|---|---|
| Priced | Per person | Per training day |
| Typical | RM1,500–2,500 per person, 2 days | RM5,000–8,000 per day, whole team |
| Cheaper below ~8 people | Yes | No |
| Cheaper above ~8 people | No | Yes |
| Scheduling | Provider’s calendar | Yours |
| Content | Fixed | Built around your projects |
The four reasons that are not about cost
Shared vocabulary. When a team learns together, the language sticks because everyone has to keep using it. One person returning from a public course with new terminology is usually the only person using it within three weeks. This is the single biggest practical difference and it does not show up in any quote.
Your own projects in the room. In-house training can use your live projects as the working material — your scope documents, your actual stakeholders, your real constraints. Public courses use case studies, because they must. Participants consistently report the working sessions on real projects as the most useful part, and it is the part a public course structurally cannot offer.
Confidentiality. Some of the most valuable discussion in a project management course is about what actually goes wrong in the organisation. People will not say that in a hotel ballroom in front of competitors. They will say it in their own meeting room.
Scheduling and continuity. In-house runs when it suits your delivery calendar, can be split into batches so you never stand a whole department down at once, and can be repeated for new joiners later at a lower day rate.
When a public course is genuinely the better choice
Fewer than eight people need it. The arithmetic is the arithmetic.
The requirement is a certification, particularly PMP®. Certification is per-person by nature and needs an accredited provider — see the certification guide.
You want your people to meet peers from other companies. Cross-industry exposure is a real benefit of public courses and in-house cannot replicate it.
You need it next week. Public courses have fixed dates you can book into; in-house needs scoping and scheduling.
The hybrid nobody offers
A pattern that works well and is almost never proposed: send one or two people to a public or certification course first, then run in-house training for the wider team with those people helping to shape it.
The individuals get the credential or the exposure. The team gets the shared practice. And the scoping conversation for the in-house course is much better, because someone inside the company now knows what good looks like.
It is worth asking for. Most providers sell one product and will steer you to it.
Questions
›How many people do we need for in-house to make sense?
Around eight is where the cost crossover sits against a typical public course price. Between eight and twelve it is somewhat cheaper; above twenty it is dramatically cheaper.
The non-cost reasons — shared vocabulary, your own projects, confidentiality — apply at any size above about six, so a team of eight sometimes chooses in-house even at cost parity.
›Can in-house training be delivered online?
Yes, and for geographically split teams it is often the only practical option.
For this particular course the in-person format works materially better, because much of the value is in the working sessions where a team argues about their own projects in a room together. We would recommend in-person where it is feasible and say so.
›Is in-house training HRD Corp claimable?
Normally yes, under the HRD Corp Claimable Courses (SBL-KHAS) scheme, where the training provider and the specific course are registered with HRD Corp and the employer applies for the grant before the training takes place.
The order matters: the application goes in first and is approved against a specific course, provider, date and participant list.
›Can we split a large team into batches?
Yes, and for anything above about twenty-five people it is the normal approach. It keeps group sizes workable and means you are not standing an entire department down at once.
Repeat batches are also cheaper per day than the first, because the preparation and customisation work is already done.
Get a scoped quote
Tell us the team, the timeframe and whether you pay the HRD Corp levy. We will come back with a day rate, a shape and an honest answer about whether we are the right fit.