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Prices read 12 October 2026

Animated video cost

What one finished minute of animation costs in four styles, from Fiverr gigs to studio rate cards, with AI generators priced beside them and every sum shown.

The short answer
Motion graphics
$50 to $9,500
2D character animation
$140 to $9,000
Whiteboard
$20 to $7,500
3D
$1,067 to $40,000

per finished minute, from people and companies. AI tools are priced separately below.

Priced for: One finished minute (60 seconds) of commissioned animation in a single style, delivered as a video file for commercial use. Many packages also include a script and a voiceover, and each row says what it includes. Each style has its own range; no range mixes styles.

Prices read
81
Providers checked
63
Publish nothing
18
Key takeaways
  • 01Style is the first thing an animated video cost depends on. At the studios that publish a rate, the middle whiteboard minute is $1,998, 2D $3,748, motion graphics $4,500 and 3D $6,500.
  • 02The marketplace discount depends on the style. On the marketplaces, the middle whiteboard minute is $120 and the middle kinetic-type minute $105, a small fraction of a studio's. The middle 2D minute is $1,925, about half, and 3D $4,267, about a third off.
  • 03Published rate cards sit well below what studios quote for a custom brief. Yum Yum Videos sent one custom 60-second brief to 125 companies in July 2026: the 61 usable quotes ran from $2,800 to $27,000, with a median of $9,680, above the middle published studio rate in every style.
  • 04'Per minute' usually prices the first minute. Broadcast2World sells 60 seconds from $2,400 and adds $750 for each further 30 seconds; Ydraw charges $8,500 for a first minute of line-character animation and $2,000 for the second.
  • 05Generating a minute of AI footage works out at $6.72 to $24 on five generators' own price pages, about what Fiverr's cheapest whiteboard minute costs. It buys clips, not a studio minute: no script, no character that holds from shot to shot, and every discarded take is billed too.

Search animated video cost and none of the top five US results names a source for its prices: four studios' guides, one from 2023 that starts at $5,000 a minute, and an eleven-year-old Reddit thread whose own sum is wrong. This page prices one finished minute of animation, by style. A complete explainer, script and voiceover included, is priced on the explainer videos page.

Ask how much does animation cost and the honest reply is another question: in which style? Motion graphics, 2D character animation, whiteboard and 3D are different trades with their own rate cards, so each gets its own range below. A price that names no style, like four studio prices and the one large quote study, is shown in the evidence and kept out of every range.

Every price was read on the seller's own page or listing on 12 October 2026, in US dollars. Studio prices are per-minute rates, 60-second packages or projects divided by their length; Fiverr prices are the package nearest a minute, scaled to 60 seconds where it ran shorter or longer, with the sum beside it. Eighteen studios and platforms we checked publish no rate at all.

The price, by route

Animated video cost, route by route

Each bar runs from the cheapest to the most expensive published price we read for this route, normalised to the same spec. The dot is the middle price. The axis is logarithmic: each gridline is ten times the one before. Each tier has its own chart, because one range across them would mean nothing.

Motion graphics

Kinetic type, icons and shapes, no characters

  • Freelance marketplace

    5 prices

    $50 to $650

  • Independent specialist

    1 price

    $6,500

  • Agency or studio

    4 prices

    $2,400 to $9,500

2D character animation

Illustrated characters that move and act, in 2D

  • Freelance marketplace

    6 prices

    $140 to $4,995

  • Agency or studio

    10 prices

    $1,500 to $9,000

  • In-house hire

    computed

    $5,527 to $11,053

In-house is not sampled. It uses the salary data for special effects artists and animators (May 2025 US national median, Bureau of Labor Statistics, $102,030 base), loaded at 1.3x and divided by 1 to 2 finished minutes of 2D a month. The output is our assumption, set against two published figures: Superdoodle's rule of thumb of about four seconds of frame-by-frame animation per animator-day, roughly 15 working days for the animation alone, and Broadcast2World's 80 to 104 studio hours per whiteboard minute.

Whiteboard

Hand-drawn whiteboard style

  • Freelance marketplace

    5 prices

    $20 to $285

  • Agency or studio

    10 prices

    $1,000 to $7,500

3D

Modelled products or characters, rendered in 3D

  • Freelance marketplace

    5 prices

    $1,067 to $6,000

  • Agency or studio

    6 prices

    $1,500 to $40,000

The evidence

Every price we read

81 published prices, each read on the page it links to, in US dollars from a US view. The third column converts each one to the same spec, with the arithmetic. A price that buys something materially different is shown and left out of every range.

  • Fiverr: zohra__studio

    Freelance marketplace · Whiteboard

    $20 (Basic)

    60 s, voice over, music; script writing NOT ticked on Basic; 3-day delivery

    $20

    Basic package states 60 seconds: $20 = one minute

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: ahmedali18

    Freelance marketplace · Motion graphics

    $50 (Standard)

    60 s, background music; 2-day delivery

    $50

    Standard package states 60 s: $50 = one minute

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: stickvideos

    Freelance marketplace · Motion graphics

    $50 (Basic)

    30 s, up to 50 words; voice over only on Premium; 14-day delivery

    $100

    $50 / 30 s x 60 s = $100 (linear scale; every package is 30 s and capped at 50 words)

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: motiondesign202

    Freelance marketplace · Motion graphics

    $175 (Premium)

    100 s, music, sound effects, voice over; 6-day delivery

    $105

    $175 / 100 s x 60 s = $105 (linear scale down from the only package of 60 s or more)

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: madmation_usa (whiteboard gig)

    Freelance marketplace · Whiteboard

    $120 (Standard)

    60 s, script, voice over, music; 'Full color' only ticked on Premium; 4-day delivery

    $120

    Standard package states 60 sec: $120 = one minute

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: graphicsplayer

    Freelance marketplace · Whiteboard

    $120 (Standard)

    60 s, voice over, script, music, original design; 4-day delivery

    $120

    Standard package states 60 seconds: $120 = one minute

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: madmation_usa (2D gig)

    Freelance marketplace · 2D character animation

    $140 (Standard)

    60 s, characters, voice over, script, illustrated background; 3-day delivery

    $140

    Standard package states 60 seconds: $140 = one minute

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: mr_vazzah

    Freelance marketplace · Whiteboard

    $140 (Premium)

    60 s, voice over; 7-day delivery

    $140

    Premium package states 60 seconds: $140 = one minute

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: snoutcloud

    Freelance marketplace · Whiteboard

    $285 (Basic)

    60 s; voice over NOT ticked on Basic, script only on Premium; 7-day delivery

    $285

    Basic package states 60 seconds: $285 = one minute (animation only, no voice over or script)

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: sbksynergia_

    Freelance marketplace · Motion graphics

    $400 (Premium)

    60 s, script, music, sound effects, voice over; 14-day delivery

    $400

    Premium package states 60 s: $400 = one minute

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: amineouzani

    Freelance marketplace · Motion graphics

    $650 (Standard)

    60 s, script, music, sound effects, voice over; 10-day delivery

    $650

    Standard package states 60 s: $650 = one minute

    2026-10-12

  • Fiverr: hiro_cbh

    Freelance marketplace · 3D

    $800 (Premium)

    45 s, 3D animation, editing, modeling, lighting, exploded view; 14-day delivery

    $1,067

    $800 / 45 s x 60 s = $1,067 (linear scale; longest package is 45 s)

    2026-10-12

How the marketplace prices were drawn: Fiverr, read 2026-10-12 in a real Chrome window over the DevTools protocol (Jina, ScreenshotOne and headless Chrome all hit Fiverr's PerimeterX challenge), with Fiverr's currency cookie set to USD. Four category pages at the default sort 'Best selling': 2d = /categories/video-animation/animated-explainer-videos/2d; whiteboard = /categories/video-animation/animated-explainer-videos/whiteboard; 3d = /categories/video-animation/3d-product-animation; motion-graphics = /categories/video-animation/text-animation (kinetic typography, the closest Fiverr category to 'kinetic type, icons and shapes, no characters'). Took the first five distinct gigs in listing order per category (20 listings), opened each gig and read the 'Compare packages' table, including tick/no-tick state from the markup (excluded features render a grey tick without the green class). Package chosen: the cheapest package stating exactly 60 s of running time; if none, the package nearest 60 s at or above it, scaled linearly down; if every package is under 60 s, the longest one scaled linearly up (each such case is flagged). Skip rule: a gig selling templates or overlays rather than a finished video (one skipped: blackoutmotion, lower-third templates). Sponsored 'Ad' cards were not in the category grid positions used. Plus one Upwork Project Catalog listing priced per finished second, and Upwork's published cost guides (recorded under survey).

Checked, and publish no price

18 of 63 providers checked

Not a criticism. Quoting per project is normal when the work varies. It does mean the ranges above describe the providers who publish, and the ones who do not are rarely the cheapest.

  • Vidico · Pricing page has no price, only 'Get your pricing'; a blog post elsewhere states subscriptions from $5,000/month
  • Wyzowl · Pricing page headline 'Simple fixed pricing. No hidden fees. Ever.' sits above a contact form and no price (read in Chrome; Cloudflare blocks readers)
  • Darvideo · Page titled 'Prices' lists 2D and 3D packages (Simple/Medium/Custom) with timelines but no figures; the quote is emailed. Its blog publishes market ranges of $1.5k-$15k per minute
  • Demo Duck · No price on the site; /pricing returns 404
  • Explainify · No price published
  • Thinkmojo · No price published
  • Sandwich · No price published
  • BUCK · No price published
  • Giant Ant · No price published
  • IdeaRocket · FAQ 'What is your pricing?' answers that it depends on creative approach and length; no figure
  • Epipheo · Only a project range: 'Most explainer projects cost between $5,000 and $150,000+'; no per-minute or per-style price
  • Yum Yum Videos · No rate card; an instant cost calculator behind a form, plus market ranges and one past project ($15,000/min)
  • Pixune Studios · Budget dropdown on the contact form only ('Up To $1000' to '$500,000 to $1M')
  • Studio Pigeon · Publishes market ranges and a worked example (~15-25,000 USD), no own rate card
  • MyPromoVideos · No price on the homepage; /pricing returns 404
  • Superdoodle · Prices from a day rate: 'We start with our day rate (please contact us to discuss)'
  • Design Pickle (motion and video) · Platform: 'We size your plan to what you need. You get the number on the call.'
  • Free Range · Publishes four market tiers ($5,000 to $100,000+ per finished minute) with sample videos, not a rate card of its own
What moves the price

Why one minute of animation costs 64 times another

The style: whiteboard, 2D, motion graphics and 3D are different trades with different rates.

  1. 01

    Style

    One studio's card shows it on its own: Michael Lynn Animation Studio charges $2k a minute for entry-level whiteboard, $6k for professional 2D, $9k for TV-quality 2D and $6-9k for 3D. Broadcast2World's three packages step from $2,400 to $3,500 to $5,500 as whiteboard and flat characters give way to 2.5D characters and 3D infographics.

    Michael Lynn Animation Studio pricing
  2. 02

    The first minute

    Script, design and characters are paid for once, so the first minute carries them. Broadcast2World adds $750 to $1,500 for each extra 30 seconds on first minutes of $2,400 to $5,500, and Gisteo charges $3,500 for the first 60 seconds and $500 for each further 30.

    Broadcast2World packages
  3. 03

    Detail at the same length

    Seconds are not the only unit. One Fiverr seller's three packages are all 60 seconds with characters, at $2,650, $5,650 and $10,320: the nearly fourfold spread buys detail alone.

    Fiverr 2D explainer packages
  4. 04

    Whether the 3D model exists

    The biggest swing in a 3D animation price is the model. Acoroid Studio animates from your CAD files at $1,200 to $1,800 a minute and quotes modelling separately; on Fiverr, one 3D seller includes building the model only in its $9,000 package.

    Acoroid Studio on 3D product work
  5. 05

    Number of characters

    The one marketplace listing we found priced per finished second charges $50 a second for 2D with up to two characters, and $20 more for each additional character.

    Upwork per-second 2D listing
  6. 06

    Rush delivery

    Speed is sold as an add-on. A 60-second 2D package on Fiverr adds $1,250 to cut delivery from 14 days to 10, and a kinetic-type seller charges $1,500 extra to deliver its $650 minute in 4 days instead of 10, more than three times the price.

    Fiverr kinetic-type packages
Building it with AI

What the machine costs, and what it does not

On their own price pages, a minute of kept footage works out at $6.72 to $24 across five generators: Kling, Luma, Pika, Runway and Google Veo. A generated minute is not a studio minute. The clips run five to ten seconds, discarded takes are billed too, and nothing in the price buys a script or a character that stays the same. OpenAI shut down its Sora 2 API on 24 September 2026.

What AI cannot do here
  • Write the script, or decide what the minute has to explain
  • Promise a character or product that looks the same in every shot
  • Animate your real product accurately from its engineering files
  • Tell you whether the minute should be animated at all

Receipt · one minute of animation

  • Generate 60 seconds of footage$24

    Google Veo 3.1 Standard (Gemini API), $0.40 per second, 720p and 1080p, video with audio: 60 s x $0.40, kept seconds only; every discarded take is billed at the same rate. Price read 2026-10-12

Tools and model time$24
Human edit, 8 to 24 h at $64/h$510 to $1,530
Publishable$534 to $1,554

Edit hours: Our editorial estimate for prompting six to twelve clips, regenerating the ones that drift, cutting them together, adding sound and fixing what still does not match from shot to shot. No source measures it. The hourly rate is the same loaded in-house figure used for the in-house route, so the two are comparable.

How long it takes

Turnaround, as each route publishes it

From brief to first draft or delivery, in the provider's own words. Where a provider states no turnaround, it is not listed.

  1. Agency or studio

    Growth 2–3 weeks; Premium 6–8 weeks; Flick 8–12 weeks

    Broadcast2World

  2. Agency or studio

    3-4 weeks average

    Gisteo

  3. Agency or studio

    6k tier 3-4 weeks; 10k 4-5 weeks; 15k+ 5-6 weeks

    Rocketwheel

  4. Agency or studio

    Simple 3 weeks; Medium 4-5 weeks; Custom 6-10 weeks

    Darvideo

  5. Agency or studio

    five to six weeks for a typical 2D explainer

    Epipheo

  6. Agency or studio

    30-45 days

    Ydraw (Premium Whiteboard)

  7. Agency or studio

    Basic 5 weeks; Standard 4 weeks; Premium 3 weeks

    BuzzFlick

  8. Rate surveys

    median estimated production time seven weeks (61 quotes)

    Yum Yum Videos market study

  9. Freelance marketplace

    14 days (10 days for +$1,250)

    Fiverr: modjostudios (2D, 60 s)

  10. Freelance marketplace

    4 days (1 day for +$80)

    Fiverr: graphicsplayer (whiteboard, 60 s)

  11. Freelance marketplace

    21 days

    Fiverr: andynewmerge (3D, 1 minute)

  12. Writing or production platform

    24 hour turnaround per request, 2 active requests

    Kimp Video

  13. Writing or production platform

    Tier 1 1-2 days to Tier 6 2-3 weeks

    Animate & Create
Doing it yourself

What a minute of animation takes to do yourself

Broadcast2World publishes the hours behind four named whiteboard projects: 80 to 104 production hours per finished minute, for a studio team. Superdoodle's rule of thumb for frame-by-frame 2D is about four seconds per animator-day. The list is our estimate for one 2D minute made by someone who can already animate. Template tools such as Vyond, at $99 a month billed monthly, cut the hours and give you a template look.

Editorial estimate

No independent survey measures this, so the hours are our editorial estimate.

At the same loaded rate as an in-house hire ($64 an hour), your 90 to 180 hours are worth $5,739 to $11,478.

  • Write and time the script3 to 6 h
  • Storyboard every shot6 to 12 h
  • Design the characters and backgrounds12 to 24 h
  • Animate the 60 seconds60 to 120 h
  • Voiceover, music and sound3 to 6 h
  • Revisions and export6 to 12 h

You also need

  • Animation software, and the skill to use it
  • A voiceover artist or a good microphone
  • Licensed music and sound effects
  • A signed-off script before any drawing starts
Who to buy it from

Agency vs freelancer vs fractional vs in-house

Cost is one row of six. The fractional column is not an animation studio: it decides what the minute is for and briefs whoever makes it, so it loses the rows about making it.

Agency
Freelancer or marketplace
Fractional lead
In-house hire
Cost: 2D character animation
$1,500 to $9,000
$140 to $4,995
Not an animation studio, so no price per minute. From $5,000 a month to decide what the animation is for and brief whoever makes it; the animation is bought separately
$5,527 to $11,053, with a monthly commitment of $11,053
Who animates
A studio team: design, animation and sound
One animator, sometimes with a voice artist
Not me. I brief a studio or a freelancer and review the cuts
The hire, in the styles they can do
Who decides what the minute explains
You, or the studio's writer from your notes
You, usually as a finished script
I do, from customer research and where the video will run
The hire, with whoever owns marketing
Range of styles
Several, often on one rate card
Usually the one in their portfolio
Any, by briefing the right specialist for each
Whatever the hire can draw
Smallest commitment
One video, often with a 60-second floor
One clip, priced per second or per package
A month, with the animation bought on top
A salary
Best when
You need a finished minute in a style nobody on staff can make
The style is simple and the script is signed off
Nobody has decided what the animation is for or where it runs
You ship animation every month, in one style

Agency and freelancer costs are the published ranges above. The fractional column is busyless, priced as it is sold. In-house uses the salary data for special effects artists and animators, loaded and divided by monthly output.

Before you sign

Where the quote and the invoice come apart

Each of these is visible on a published price list, linked where it is.

01

A per-minute price that is really a first minute

Divide a three-minute quote by three and a studio looks cheaper than its own 60-second price. Broadcast2World's four named whiteboard projects billed $1,600 to $2,080 a minute, while its 60-second package starts at $2,400. Compare quotes at the length you will actually buy.

Broadcast2World project costs
02

One studio, three prices

Blue Carrot's own page prices one minute of 2D at $2,500 to $3,000. A competitor's comparison lists it at $4,000 to $12,000 a minute, and another company cites it as a motion graphics benchmark at about $2,500 to $3,500. Take the figure from the studio's own page, then get it in writing.

Motion The Agency's comparison
03

One vendor, two price lists

Ydraw's pricing page lists 2D at $9,000 a minute; its style-examples page lists 2D at $15,000 for up to a minute. Its premium whiteboard style is $9,000 for up to 90 seconds on one page and $12,000 for up to a minute on the other.

Ydraw style examples
04

A survey that reads like a template

Advids prints the same source line, '80 of its clients and 12 agencies', on its whiteboard, motion graphics and animation pages, with US averages of $6,570, $6,240 and $6,575. One line with three answers is a template, not a survey, so the figures are shown here and left out of every range.

Advids motion graphics page
05

Fiverr's 'From' price buys a few seconds

Gig cards lead with the smallest package, and on Fiverr's animated explainer category page they start at $5. The best-selling 3D product gig starts at $1,600 for 10 seconds and charges $5,500 for a minute. Read the running time in the package table before comparing.

Fiverr 3D product animation
06

'Unlimited' plans are a queue

No platform we checked prices a finished minute. Kimp Video sells unlimited requests, two active at a time, for $1,397 a month; Superside's minimum is $15,000 a month on an annual term, plus a $1,000 software fee. Neither says how many finished seconds a month buys.

Kimp pricing
The cost of doing nothing

What not having it costs, in your numbers rather than ours

Going without animation costs something, but only your numbers can size it. Here is where it shows up, and a sum you can do from your own calendar.

  • The same mechanism, explained live

    A product that exists only as text and stills gets explained on a call, by a person, every time. An animated minute explains the mechanism the same way on every play, without the person.

  • What a camera cannot film

    The inside of a machine, an assembly sequence or a molecular mechanism has no footage. Without animation, the buyer assembles static diagrams in their head, which is why 3D packages list exploded and X-ray views as features.

  • Every channel starts from a blank page

    Without characters and a style already built, each landing page, sales deck and onboarding screen needs its own visual made from scratch. Rate cards charge most for the first minute; after it, the assets carry over to every cut-down.

Work it out

Live walkthroughs of the same mechanism each month × hours spent explaining in each × loaded hourly cost of the person giving them

Live walkthroughs each month
Count the demo, onboarding and training calls in the calendar that explain the same thing
Hours spent explaining in each
Time the explaining in three recorded calls, not the discussion
Loaded hourly cost
Annual salary × 1.3, divided by 2,080 working hours
How I price it

Why there is no per-piece price from me

busyless runs on a retainer. A Fractional Head of Content, from $5,000 a month and month to month, owns the system: which channels we bet on, the editorial standard, customer interviews, the conversion path and the monthly report.

Production sits underneath as execution capacity, from $2,000 a month, through agents I have built or people I manage. We make as much as growth needs, so a price per piece would measure the count rather than whether it worked.

Most clients start with Discovery: two weeks and $2,500 for the diagnosis and a 90-day plan, theirs to keep either way.

See how the retainer works
Discovery, two weeks
$2,500
Fractional Head of Content
from $5,000/mo
Execution capacity
from $2,000/mo
Price per piece
None
What other pages quote

The ranges you will find elsewhere, and where they come from

The top US results when we read them on 12 October 2026. 7 of 7 name no source for the figure they give.

Searched: animated video cost

  • vidico.com

    $1,000 to $15,000 per finished minute for most B2B work; template/whiteboard $150-$1,500; motion graphics $1,000-$15,000; 2D $1,500-$20,000; 3D $5,000-$50,000+

    No source
  • reddit.com

    'between 500$ and 10 million'; 'not expect anything less than 80$/100$ per second'

    No source
  • calabashanimation.com

    'a few hundred dollars per second' to 'several thousand dollars per second'

    No source
  • freerange.com

    $5,000-$9,999 up to $50,000-$100,000+ per finished minute (four tiers)

    No source
  • darvideo.tv

    Motion graphics 1,5k-4,0k USD; custom 2D 2,5k-8,0k; character 2D 4,0k-10,0k+; 3D 6,0k-15,0k+ per minute ('2026 Global Averages')

    No source

Searched: 2d animation cost per minute

  • vidico.com

    2D $1,500 to $20,000+ per minute

    No source
  • bluecarrot.io

    Freelance $50-$3,000; overseas studio $2,500-$5,000; mid-tier $3,000-$7,000; professional $8,000-$25,000; high-end $25,000+ per minute

    No source
Keep pricing

Related content types

Explainer videos

per 60 to 90 second explainer

$75 to $15k

79 prices read

See the prices

Video production

per 2 to 3 minute live-action video

$1,000 to $15k

110 prices read

See the prices

Blog posts

per 1,500-word post

$35 to $3,000

73 prices read

See the prices
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One call. Real plan, not a pitch.

30 minutes. We talk about what's already working, who owns content today, and whether a fractional Head of Content is actually the right move. If it isn't, I'll say so.

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FAQ

Frequently asked

  • What makes one animated minute cost more than another?
    The style first, then the first-minute premium, the level of detail, whether a 3D model exists and how fast you need it. At the studios that publish a rate, the middle whiteboard minute is $1,998 and the middle 3D minute $6,500. Inside one style, one Fiverr seller's three 60-second 2D packages run from $2,650 to $10,320 on detail alone.
  • How much does 2D animation cost per minute at a studio?
    Across the 10 studio prices we read for 2D character animation, one finished minute ran from $1,500 to $9,000, with the middle at $3,748. The six marketplace prices on Fiverr and Upwork ran from $140 to $4,995. Many studio prices are 60-second packages that also include a script and a voiceover, and each row in the evidence says what it includes.
  • Why does whiteboard animation cost $120 on Fiverr and $2,000 at a studio?
    They are different products sold under one name. The middle Fiverr whiteboard minute we read was $120 and the cheapest $20; studios ran from $1,000 to $7,500, with the middle at $1,998. Broadcast2World publishes 80 to 104 production hours per finished minute on four named projects. $120 cannot pay for that many hours, so ask a seller which drawings are made new for your minute.
  • Can AI generate a minute of animation more cheaply?
    The footage, yes: $6.72 to $24 a minute at list price on the five generators we priced, counting only the seconds you keep. A generated minute is not a studio minute, though. It arrives as clips of five to ten seconds with no script, and keeping a character consistent across them is the work. At the in-house rate, 8 to 24 hours of directing and fixing comes to $510 to $1,530.
  • How long does an animated video take to make?
    The 61 usable quotes in Yum Yum Videos' study, all for one custom 60-second animation, had a median production time of seven weeks. Studio packages run from two to three weeks for Broadcast2World's cheapest tier to eight to twelve weeks for its 3D infographic tier. On Fiverr, the 60-second whiteboard gigs we read deliver in three to seven days, and the best-selling 3D minute in 21.
  • Can you hire a freelance animator by the second?
    Some sell that way. One Upwork studio charges $50 per finished second of 2D, which is $3,000 a minute. Most per-second sheets online are personal commissions: one states 'For Personal Use ONLY' at $140 a second, so a business needs a commercial price in writing first. Upwork's own guide puts animators at $20 to $38 an hour, with no figure for hours per minute.
  • When does an in-house animator cost less than a studio?
    Rarely, at this pace. The US median for special effects artists and animators is $102,030, about $11,053 a month loaded, so one to two finished 2D minutes a month cost $5,527 to $11,053 each, above the middle studio 2D price of $3,748. For context, the Animation Guild's minimum for a journey animator is $64.94 an hour: a union wage floor, not a price per minute.
  • Does busyless make animated videos?
    No: busyless is not an animation studio. I decide what an animated minute is for, where it runs and what it has to explain, then brief whoever makes it, as part of a fractional engagement from $5,000 a month, with production from $2,000 a month. If you only need the animation, the routes on this page are the way to buy it.