How much does an explainer video cost?

An animated explainer video of one minute usually costs between 500 and 10,000 dollars. A freelancer charges 500 to 3,000 dollars a minute, a specialist animation studio 3,000 to 10,000 dollars. A full campaign with a large agency runs to 50,000 dollars and more. If you work with a template or an AI tool you pay 99 to 1,500 dollars, but then you write and direct everything yourself.

Most published price lists for animation are in dollars, because the big studios that publish them work in the United States or beyond. For Belgium and the Netherlands few public prices exist. So use the figures in this guide as ranges to hold quotes against, not as a rate card. What we do with animation is on animated video production. What an explainer video is and when it works is in our glossary.

The price by tier

Who makes your animation drives the price more than what you have made. An overview of the tiers studios publish themselves:

The difference between those tiers rarely lies in the software. It lies in the script, in how many characters and backgrounds are drawn to measure, and in how much room there is to steer.

The price by style

Not every animation takes the same work. For a 60 second video one studio names these ranges:

Motion graphics are usually the cheapest form with a professional look: moving shapes, text and screen footage without drawn characters. Once characters that talk and move come in, the price rises.

Where the money goes

A studio that opens up its quote splits one minute of 2D animation roughly like this:

• Scriptabout 400 dollars. This is where you decide what the viewer knows after a minute.
• Storyboard200 to 300 dollars. Every scene as a sketch, so you steer before anything is drawn.
• Illustration800 to 900 dollars. Characters, backgrounds and objects in your style.
• Animation800 to 1,000 dollars. Everything in motion, to the rhythm of the voice.
• Voice50 to 200 dollars for a freelance voice actor. A known voice costs many times more.
• Soundabout 250 dollars for music and effects.

Supplying the script yourself saves on the first item, but only if that script is truly finished. A half script costs more in revision rounds later than it saves. What a writer charges for a script or voiceover text is in our guide to copywriter rates.

What pushes the price up

Five things make an explainer dearer than the base price:

1. Length. Each extra 30 seconds adds 25 to 40 percent according to one studio. Another charges 750 to 1,500 dollars per half minute. A two minute video does not cost double a one minute video, but it does cost a lot more.
2. A studio script. 500 to 1,500 dollars extra if the studio writes it.
3. Revision rounds. Most studios include one or two. Each round on top costs 8 to 12 percent, and a big change to the structure 20 percent or more.
4. Rush. Delivering within three weeks carries a 30 to 50 percent premium.
5. Custom characters. Your own characters, layered backgrounds and details like particles or shadows take time per second.

The reverse holds too. A series of three or four short videos in one style is cheaper per video, because characters and backgrounds already exist. One studio names up to 20 percent off for a series.

Putting two quotes side by side

Two quotes for the same video can differ by a factor of three, and both can be fair. So do not compare them on the total, compare them on four questions. How many seconds of finished animation do you get? Who writes the script, and is it in the price? How many revision rounds are included, and when: after the storyboard or only after animation? Which formats and language versions are delivered?

A low quote without a storyboard is a risk. You only see the video when it is nearly done, and every change becomes a paid round. A higher quote with its own style, a script and three rounds can work out cheaper per usable second. Also ask for one or two earlier videos in the style you want, and check whether they still make sense without sound: that is how most people see them on social.

What fits in sixty seconds

One minute of spoken text is about 130 to 150 words. That is less than this paragraph and the next together. Every word in the script costs animation time, and every word that can go saves money. Most explainers therefore follow the same four steps:

1. The viewer's problem, in his own words. Ten seconds. If he does not recognise himself, he leaves.
2. What you do differently. Fifteen seconds. One sentence, not a list of features.
3. How it works, in three steps. Twenty to twenty five seconds. This is where animation earns its money: what you cannot film, you show.
4. What he does next. Ten seconds. A next step that suits where the video sits: book a demo, see a price, ask a question.

Write the script before you ask for quotes, even if you have it rewritten later. A studio that sees a 140 word script can give a much sharper price than one that only gets a topic. Read it aloud with a stopwatch. If it runs over a minute, cut the sentences about your company first and keep the ones about the viewer.

When animation is the better choice

Animation is strong at what you cannot film. Software that works in the background, a service without a physical product, a process with ten steps or a product still in development. If your topic changes often, animation helps too: you replace a scene instead of planning a new shoot day.

If you want to show people, your workshop or your team, film is better. Real faces build trust in a way a drawn character cannot. In that case read what corporate video involves and what corporate video costs. Many companies combine: a filmed video about who they are and an animation about how their product works.

Where you use the video

An explainer earns back its price when it sits in the right places. Put it at the top of the page where visitors decide, such as a landing page or the service page on your website. Cut a short version for Facebook and Instagram ads and for Google Ads on YouTube. Export vertical versions for social; the sizes per platform are in our guide to social media image sizes.

So do not ask the studio for one video, ask for a set of formats: 16:9 for your site and YouTube, 1:1 and 9:16 for social, and a subtitled version for people who watch without sound. Work out how big those files get with our file size calculator. Keep colours, typeface and voice in line with your brand identity, so the video is recognisably yours.