An explainer video is the hardest thing in short-form video to buy well, because the buyer usually cannot tell a good script from a bad one until it is animated and expensive to change.
This is what the deliverable actually is, and what drives the price.
The four stages, and which one costs the most
Script. Forty to ninety words of narration per minute, written to be heard rather than read. This is where explainers succeed or fail, and it is usually the cheapest and most rushed stage.
Storyboard or style frames. How the thing will look: illustrated scenes, UI pans, or live action with graphics. One or two frames per beat.
Animation or production. The expensive part. Custom illustration, character animation and motion graphics are labour, billed by the minute of finished video.
Voice, music and mix. A voice artist, licensed music, and a mix that survives phone speakers.
The pattern across most quotes: animation is 50–70% of the price, script is 10% and gets the least attention. That is backwards. A brilliant script with simple motion outperforms a beautiful animation of a vague script every time.
What actually drives the price
| Driver | Effect on price | What to do about it |
|---|---|---|
| Custom illustration vs stock/template | Largest single variable | Use custom only where it carries meaning |
| Runtime | Near-linear cost | Cut to 60–75 seconds before quoting |
| Character animation | Very high | Only if the product genuinely needs a person |
| UI / product footage | Low if you have it, high if they must build it | Send real screen recordings |
| Languages | Multiplies the voice layer, not the animation | Build the master without burned-in text |
Two levers do most of the work: runtime and custom illustration. Get those two under control and quotes converge fast.
Animated vs live action vs AI production
Animated is best for abstract or invisible products: software, insurance, processes. You cannot film what does not exist.
Live action is best when a person or a place is part of the value: a clinic, a workshop, a founder.
AI-assisted production is best when the constraint is volume rather than craft. It is not competing with a bespoke animation; it is competing with having no video at all for most of your product surface.
That distinction matters commercially. A single custom explainer at several thousand dollars is right for the one page everyone visits. It is the wrong instrument for forty product pages.
The price bands, honestly
Published rates for a professional explainer typically land between a few hundred dollars for a simple template-driven build and several thousand for custom animation, with live action above that. The range is real. It reflects illustration, runtime and voice.
Per-asset AI production sits in a different band entirely: around $100 a video for SaaS and technical explainers, with base-complexity vertical video from about $70 and heavier bespoke pipelines priced higher. That is a published rate rather than a project quote, and there is no term.
What it does not do is bespoke illustration. If you need a hand-drawn character world, buy custom animation and pay for it.
What to ask before you commission
1. Can I see the script first and change it? If the answer is no, you are buying animation you cannot control.
2. How many revision rounds, and on what: storyboard, animation, or both? Changes after animation are the expensive ones.
3. Is the voice artist licensed for paid media, and for how long? Usage terms are a recurring cost surprise.
4. Will I get the master without burned-in text? Otherwise every language version is a rebuild.
5. Who writes it? An explainer script needs someone who understands the product's job, not just its features.
Where explainers fit in a content plan
One strong explainer for the homepage and sales deck. Then cut-downs for paid social, where the hook matters more than the narrative. Then per-asset volume for the long tail of product pages and feature launches, where a bespoke build per page is not defensible.
If you want the volume side priced, the rate card has the per-video rates. The SaaS localisation post covers turning one master into five languages, and the agency model covers what changes when you are producing for a client rather than yourself.
Jayesh Jain produces explainers for SaaS and technical products. Build timelines by style are in animated video production.
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