What actually drives the cost of an explainer video

Ask three studios what an explainer video costs and you can get three numbers that are nowhere near each other. That is not because someone is overcharging. It is because “explainer video” describes an outcome, not a specification — and the specification is where the money is.

Here is what actually moves the number, so you can read a quote properly and compare two of them fairly.

1. Length, but not the way you think

Length matters, but not linearly. A 90-second video is not three times the work of a 30-second one. The fixed costs — understanding the product, agreeing a script, establishing a visual style, building the asset library — land before a single second is animated.

What that means in practice: the first 30 seconds are disproportionately expensive, and every 30 seconds after that is cheaper than the last. If you are weighing 60 seconds against 90, the extra 30 seconds usually costs far less than you would expect. If you are weighing one 90-second video against three 30-second ones, the three are considerably more expensive, because you are paying the setup cost three times.

2. Whether the script exists

This is the single largest swing factor, and the one most often left out of a brief.

If you arrive with a finished, signed-off script, production can start. If you arrive with “we need something explaining what we do”, someone has to interrogate the product, work out which single message the video should carry, and write it — then get it approved by everyone who has an opinion. That is days of work before any animation begins, and it is the stage most likely to loop.

A quote that assumes you are supplying the script, priced against a brief where you are not, is the most common reason a project overruns.

3. Animation style

Style is the biggest driver of production hours, and the terms get used loosely. Broadly, from least to most expensive:

• Kinetic typography and simple motion graphics — text, shapes and iconography in motion. Fast to produce, very effective for data, process and feature explanations.
• Icon and flat-illustration animation — the standard SaaS explainer look. A reusable asset library makes revisions cheap once it exists.
• Custom-illustrated 2D with character animation — every asset drawn for you, characters rigged and animated. Distinctive, and several times the work of the flat style.
• Frame-by-frame animation — the most labour-intensive option by a wide margin. Rarely the right answer for a product explainer.

A studio that quotes a single price without asking which of these you want is quoting for whichever one protects their margin.

4. Voiceover and audio

Audio is routinely underestimated. A professional voiceover carries a talent fee that varies with usage rights — a voice licensed for your website costs less than the same voice licensed for paid advertising, and buying the cheaper licence then running ads is a real legal exposure.

Add licensed music, sound design, and a second language if you need one. Subtitles are cheap and worth doing regardless: most social platforms autoplay muted, so an unsubtitled video is silent for most of the people who see it.

5. How many revision rounds you get

Unlimited revisions sound generous and usually are not. In practice they either get priced defensively into the headline number, or they turn into an open-ended argument once the quote is signed.

Two named rounds at defined stages — one at script, one at first animated draft — is a healthier structure. The important detail is when the rounds fall. Changing the script after animation has begun is not a revision; it is a restart, and it should be priced as one. A good quote says so in writing.

What a quote should actually contain

Before you compare two numbers, check both of them list:

• Final duration, and what happens if it changes
• Who writes the script, and how many rounds of approval it carries
• The animation style, ideally with a reference the studio has actually produced
• Whether voiceover, music and sound design are included, and the licence scope
• The number and timing of revision rounds
• Deliverables — resolution, aspect ratios, subtitle files, and whether you receive source files
• Who owns the finished work and the assets

That last one catches people out. Confirm ownership transfers to you on final payment, and confirm whether that includes the project files or only the exported video.

Questions worth asking before you commission anything

What is the one thing a viewer should understand afterwards? If there is more than one answer, the video is already too long, and the cost is about to rise for a result that will convert worse.

Where will it actually be watched? A website hero, a conference booth and a paid social placement want different lengths, different aspect ratios and different opening seconds. Deciding after delivery means paying for a re-edit.

What happens when the product changes? Custom-illustrated work is expensive to amend. A modular asset library costs a little more up front and makes next year cheaper.

How we approach it

We scope from the goal rather than the format. Sometimes that means a shorter video than the brief asked for. Occasionally it means telling a client the video is not the problem — that the page it would sit on does not explain the product either, and a two-minute animation will not rescue it.

Our video production service covers the full pipeline in one place — script and storyboard through to final delivery — so you receive a finished piece rather than a folder of assets to assemble. If a landing page, domain or app sits at the other end of the project, we can take that on too rather than hand it to someone else.

If you have a project in mind, tell us what it needs to achieve and we will tell you what it would take.