The article discusses methodological aspects and practical experience in designing digital services for the educational market. There are defined basic requirements for the creation of digital services, their properties and characteristics. Based on the theoretical analysis, it is proved that the most promising way of designing digital services, which determines their configuration and user capabilities, is the platform approach. The analysis of the available educational platforms is carried out, their advantages and disadvantages are shown. The authors present a digital services designing methodology of their own, worked out with the help of the progressive Agile and Waterfall methodologies. The paper gives an example of the developed methodology approbation within the project of the Citadel Education online learning platform, focused on the implementation of adaptive educational programs with the possibility of choosing individual trajectories. This research is brand new, as it systematizes theoretical ideas about the creation of digital services with specific product characteristics and develops a methodological base for the creation of customized and technological educational services that meet today’s user needs. The results of the study are of particular interest in the context of foreign educational platforms withdrawal from the Russian market and may be useful for university leaders, who solve the problems of improving educational programs competitiveness, implementing hybrid learning models, and managing the portfolio of training courses.