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Prices read 12 October 2026

How much does an explainer video cost?

What one finished 60 to 90 second animated explainer costs, from Fiverr gigs to studios, with the script, the drawings and the voice checked on every package before it counted.

The short answer

$75 to $15,000

per 60 to 90 second explainer, from people and companies. AI tools are priced separately below.

Freelance marketplace, middle
$140
Writing or production platform, middle
$2,248
Agency or studio, middle
$3,250

Priced for: A 60 to 90 second 2D animated explainer: script, storyboard, professional voiceover, custom illustration and animation, music and two revision rounds, delivered as a finished file. No live footage, no 3D.

Prices read
79
Providers checked
72
Publish nothing
17
Key takeaways
  • 01The answer to how much does an explainer video cost depends on who makes it more than on how long it runs: the same 60 to 90 second spec ran from $75 to $15,000 across the prices we read.
  • 02The marketplace and the studio market barely touch. The median Fiverr package that buys the spec is $140; the median published studio floor is $3,250, more than twenty times as much.
  • 03A best-selling gig can be the wrong product. The second and third best-selling 2D explainer gigs on Fiverr sell only 30-second videos, and 8 of the 23 we read had no 60-second package with both a script and a voice.
  • 04The benchmark most guides repeat is four years old. Wyzowl's $5,400 median comes from quotes collected in Q4 2022, on a page titled 2024; a July 2026 survey by another studio found a median of $9,680.
  • 05Wyzowl publishes no price for one explainer, but its subscription implies one: a 60-second animated video uses 4 of the 5 monthly credits that cost $4,995, about $3,996 a video.

Search how much does an explainer video cost and the first five US results are a Reddit thread about day rates and four studios quoting their own ranges. None of the five names a source for its figures.

So this page prices the finished deliverable: a 60 to 90 second 2D explainer with script, storyboard, professional voiceover, custom illustration and animation, music and two revision rounds. The animated videos page prices animation per finished minute, by style; here the cost of an explainer video includes the script and the voice a per-minute rate leaves out.

Each figure is the seller's cheapest package that buys that spec, read on its own page on 12 October 2026, in US dollars. Most studio explainer video pricing is a 'from' figure, so those rows are floors. A package that drops the script or uses a synthetic voice is listed in the evidence and left out of every range.

The price, by route

How much does an explainer 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.

  • Freelance marketplace

    14 prices

    $75 to $4,995

  • Writing or production platform

    2 prices

    $499 to $3,996

  • Agency or studio

    12 prices

    $1,000 to $15,000

  • Rate surveys

    3 prices

    $5,400 to $9,680

  • In-house hire

    computed

    $7,369 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 1.5 explainers a month. Studios estimate 100 to 140 hours for a basic 60-second explainer (Broadcast2World) and 150 to 200 for a typical one (Piehole), against about 173 working hours in a month. And one animator also has to write the script, cast or record the voice and draw every scene.

The evidence

Every price we read

79 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.

How the marketplace prices were drawn: Fiverr: category Video & Animation > Animated Explainers > 2D Animated Explainers (https://www.fiverr.com/categories/video-animation/animated-explainer-videos/2d), default 'Best selling' sort, currency USD, read 2026-10-12 in a real Chrome session over the DevTools Protocol because ScreenshotOne, Jina and headless Chrome all received PerimeterX blocks. Took listing positions 1 to 24 in order (6,400+ results). One skip rule: position 6 sells YouTube stickman content ('stickman videos like zenn') rather than a business explainer, so it was left out, leaving 23 gigs. For each gig I read the 'Compare packages' table (ticks read from the icon markup, cross-checked against the gig's embedded package data) and recorded the CHEAPEST package with a running time of 60 s or more that includes both script writing and voice-over (from ticks or the package's own description). If no package met that, normalisedUsd is null with the reason. 15 of 23 produced a normalised figure. Contra: five explainer listings found via search, read 2026-10-12. Upwork: the public hire pages for Explainer Video Specialists, Video Animators and Animators, whose profile cards (11 distinct) and cost-guide ranges were recorded; Upwork's own talent search requires an account.

Checked, and publish no price

17 of 72 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.

  • Wyzowl (single project) · 'Simple fixed pricing. No hidden fees. Ever.' above an enquiry form; no figures (the VideoFlow subscription is priced, see samples)
  • Demo Duck · No pricing page (/pricing/ returns 404); its blog gives a market range of $1,500 to $50,000 and recommends spending 'at least $16,000'
  • Explainify · /pricing/ serves the homepage; no prices
  • Vidico · Pricing page is a quiz: 'Take a 2-minute quiz to see your creative range'
  • Ydraw · 'FILL OUT THE FORM and Get instant access to our pricing'
  • Kasra Design · Budget dropdown in the contact form only ('USD 3,000 - 5,000', 'USD 5,000 - 10,000', 'USD 10,000 - 50,000', 'Please advise')
  • IdeaRocket · No prices on site; /pricing/ returns 404
  • MotionCue · No prices on site; /pricing/ returns 404
  • Thinkmojo · No prices on site
  • Sandwich · No prices on site
  • Switch Video · No prices on site
  • Spiel Creative · GBP budget bands in a form and a '25% off your first video' offer applied to unpublished 'standard pricing'
  • Motiongility · No prices on the homepage
  • Lemonlight · Homepage says offering 'transparent, predetermined video packages' was 'revolutionary at the time' but shows no price
  • Advids · /pricing returns 404; programmatic cost pages exist (see survey sample)
  • Video Brewery · Domain now shows a website-builder parking page
  • Susannah (voice talent) · Lists 'E-Learning / Explainer' work; says 'my rates tend to be at the top end of non-union work' with no figures
What moves the price

Why one explainer video costs 200 times another

Whether the script, illustrations and voice are made for you or assembled from a library.

  1. 01

    Who writes the script

    The clearest published price of a script in this market: Gisteo's package for clients who bring their own approved script is $3,500, and the same package with discovery and script development is $4,000. Video Igniter and Blue Carrot put scriptwriting at $500 and about $400 a minute.

    Gisteo pricing
  2. 02

    Running time

    Studios price the first minute and charge less for each 30 seconds after it. Gisteo adds $500 per 30 seconds; Blue Carrot quotes $2,500 to $3,000 for 60 seconds and $3,000 to $3,700 for 90. On Fiverr, the price of extra seconds is often not shown on the gig page at all.

    Blue Carrot pricing guide
  3. 03

    Animation style

    Style sets the starting point. At Broadcast2World, the animated explainer video cost for 60 seconds starts at $2,400 in whiteboard or flat infographic, $3,500 with characters or 2D mixed media, and $5,500 in 2.5D or 3D.

    Broadcast2World tiers
  4. 04

    A human voice or a synthetic one

    Clickcode Media sells a 60-second explainer with an AI voice-over for $349. A human read on its own costs $140 for up to a minute at The Voice Realm and $350 to $450 for one to two minutes on Voicecrafters' card, so the voice alone can cost more than the cheapest finished video we read.

    The Voice Realm rates
  5. 05

    Rush delivery

    Gisteo's VIP Fast Pass costs $1,000 more than its Full-Service package for two to three weeks instead of five to six, and Epipheo's FAQ puts rush work at 25 to 50% above its standard price.

    Gisteo pricing
  6. 06

    Source files and usage

    The finished video and the files to edit it are sold apart. Gisteo sells source files as a buy-out from $500, Magic Motion includes them only in its $5,000 Pro package, and Yans Media says most studios charge 30 to 50% of the project for them.

    Magic Motion Studio pricing
Building it with AI

What the machine costs, and what it does not

Eight tools sell the software from $9 to $58 a month, on annual billing where it is offered. They buy templates, library characters and text-to-speech voices, not a finished video, and two of them, Synthesia and HeyGen, make avatar presenters rather than animation. The receipt prices one month of one tool for a single video, then the hours a person still spends on it.

What AI cannot do here
  • Know which question your buyers need answered before they book a call
  • Draw your product, your customers or your brand rather than a library's
  • Tell you whether someone who has never seen the product understands it
  • Decide where the video runs and what it should lead to

Receipt · one explainer video

  • Library characters, scenes and a text-to-speech voice$99

    Vyond Starter, $58 /mo billed annually ($699/yr); $99 /mo monthly: one month on monthly billing, for a single video. Price read 2026-10-12

Tools and model time$99
Human edit, 8 to 16 h at $64/h$510 to $1,020
Publishable$609 to $1,119

Edit hours: Our editorial estimate for writing and cutting the script, choosing a voice, fixing the scenes and timing the tool produces, and approving the cut. No survey measures it; one studio puts its own script work at six hours or more. 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

    5-6 weeks (Full-Service); 3-4 weeks (Just Animate!); 2-3 weeks (VIP Fast Pass)

    Gisteo

  2. Agency or studio

    3 to 4 weeks

    Magic Motion Studio

  3. Agency or studio

    2-3 weeks (Growth), 6-8 weeks (Premium), 8-12 weeks (Flick)

    Broadcast2World

  4. Agency or studio

    around 6 weeks

    Creamy Animation

  5. Agency or studio

    5-6 weeks (2D animation)

    Epipheo

  6. Agency or studio

    4-6 weeks

    MyPromoVideos

  7. Agency or studio

    3-4 weeks (2D Animation)

    ExpansionVideos

  8. Agency or studio

    '5 weeks or less' (header) vs '5 Weeks or more' / '7 Weeks or more' (tier cards)

    Breadnbeyond

  9. Agency or studio

    14 days available

    Studio Monday

  10. Writing or production platform

    first draft in 24 hours

    Capri Video

  11. Writing or production platform

    48 hours (AI-assisted single video)

    Video Explainers

  12. Writing or production platform

    11-15 business days for 60 s; 13-17 for 90 s

    Clickcode Media

  13. Freelance marketplace

    3 to 30 days; median 7 days

    Fiverr (15 matched packages)

  14. Rate surveys

    2 to 14 weeks; the middle company (41st of 82) at 6 weeks, read off the published chart

    Wyzowl survey (82 turnaround estimates, Q4 2022)

  15. Rate surveys

    median 7 weeks

    Yum Yum Videos research (July 2026)

  16. Rate surveys

    four to eight weeks for a 60-second animated explainer

    Upwork cost guide
Doing it yourself

What an explainer video takes to do yourself

Studios put their own labour on a 60-second explainer at 100 to 140 hours for a basic one (Broadcast2World) and 150 to 200 for a typical one (Piehole), mostly illustration and animation. Doing it yourself in a template tool skips the custom drawing, so the hours below are our estimate for that version, not for the studio spec.

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 21 to 42 hours are worth $1,339 to $2,678.

  • Decide the one thing the video must explain, and to whom2 to 4 h
  • Write the script and cut it to about 150 words4 to 8 h
  • Storyboard it scene by scene3 to 6 h
  • Build the scenes in a template tool8 to 16 h
  • Add the voice and music, and fix the timing2 to 4 h
  • Show it to colleagues, revise and export2 to 4 h

You also need

  • A template animation tool whose plan includes commercial rights
  • A voice: text-to-speech or a booked read
  • Screen recordings or screenshots, if the product is software
  • Someone outside the team to watch it cold
Who to buy it from

Agency vs freelancer vs fractional vs in-house

Cost is one row of six. I do not draw or animate, so the fractional column loses the rows about making the video and earns its place only where the question is what the video is for.

Agency
Freelancer or marketplace
Fractional lead
In-house hire
Cost, per 60 to 90 second explainer
$1,000 to $15,000
$75 to $4,995
Not an animation studio, so no production price. From $5,000 a month to decide what the explainer is for and brief whoever makes it; the video is bought separately
$7,369 to $11,053, with a monthly commitment of $11,053
Who writes the script
Their writer, after a discovery call, usually included
Often only on the dearer packages, sometimes not at all
I write the brief and sign off the script against what buyers ask
The animator, unless someone else writes
Who draws and animates it
Their illustrators and animators
One person or a small team, methods rarely stated
Not me. I brief a studio or freelancer and review each stage
The hire, who also scripts, voices and illustrates
Editing it next year
Source files are often extra; Gisteo's buy-out starts at $500
Ask for the project files in writing before you pay
Source files written into the brief before work starts
Easiest: the files are already yours
Smallest commitment
One video, at the studio's floor
One video
A month, with the video made by someone else
A salary
Best when
The explainer is central to the sale and the budget covers custom work
You can write the script yourself and judge the animation
Nobody has decided what the video must explain or where it will run
Animation work arrives every week, not once a year

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

The 'from' price buys 30 seconds

The headline explainer video price on a best-selling Fiverr gig can buy the wrong product. The second and third best-sellers show 'From $400' and 'From $590', and every package they sell is 30 seconds long. Of the 23 gigs we read, 8 had no package that reached 60 seconds with both a script and a voice.

Fiverr 2D explainer category
02

A 2022 survey on a 2026 page

Wyzowl's survey is the figure most guides repeat. Its quotes were collected in Q4 2022, its title says 2024, the page says it was last updated in September 2026, and it concludes that the 2024 average is $8,457. Yum Yum's July 2026 survey found a median 79% above Wyzowl's.

Wyzowl survey
03

AI voices priced beside human ones

Clickcode's $349 video uses an AI voice-over, Video Explainers' $497 offers an 'AI or human-style' voice, and Creamy Animation's AI Assisted tier from $2.5K lists no voiceover at all. Each is priced like an explainer, and none lists both a professional voice and custom illustration. Read how each is made before comparing totals.

Clickcode Media pricing
04

Competitors misquoted

Creamy Animation's guide lists Demo Duck at $20,000 to $50,000 and Epipheo at $15,000 to $25,000+, citing their websites. Demo Duck's own page gives $1,500 to $50,000, and Epipheo prices 2D at $15K to $45K. Knowlify says Yum Yum starts at $7,500; Yum Yum's guide says $8,000. Check a competitor's figure on the competitor's page.

Creamy Animation guide
05

Commercial rights as an extra

One best-selling gig's FAQ says commercial rights are required for any business use, and its page data carries a $50 Commercial Rights extra that the gig page does not price. Animaker lists commercial rights only from its Pro plan, and Steve AI names them only on Enterprise. Confirm you may use the video in ads before you pay.

Fiverr gig FAQ
06

One marketplace, three ranges

Upwork's hire pages give $500 to $1,800, $800 to $2,500 and $1,000 to $4,000 for much the same explainer. The $800 to $2,500 page, for explainer specialists, lists voice-over only in the tier above, so its headline range does not buy a narrated video.

Upwork explainer specialists
The cost of doing nothing

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

Without an explainer, the explaining still happens, one person at a time. These are the places it goes, and a sum that puts your own figures on it.

  • The pitch drifts with the speaker

    Whoever is on the call explains the product live, a little differently each time, and every prospect needs a meeting or a trial before they understand what it does.

  • Onboarding leaks into support

    Users who never grasp how the product works ask support or quietly stop using it. The explanation then gets written piecemeal, in tickets and help articles, instead of once.

  • The video slots stay empty

    Product pages, onboarding emails, paid social and YouTube reward a clear short story most. Without one, those placements run empty or carry a weaker asset, and there is nothing to cut down for them.

Work it out

First calls a month × minutes of each spent explaining what the product does × loaded cost per minute of whoever is on the call

First calls a month
Your CRM's count of first meetings and demos
Minutes spent explaining
Time three recorded calls, from hello to the first question about the buyer's own case
Loaded cost per minute
Their salary × 1.3, divided by 124,800 working minutes a year
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. 9 of 10 name no source for the figure they give.

Searched: how much does an explainer video cost

  • reddit.com

    No range: freelancers discuss day rates ($700/day, $800/day) for a 30-second video; one reply suggests $4,800

    No source
  • demoduck.com

    $1,500 to $50,000; 'at least $16,000' recommended

    No source
  • bluecarrot.io

    2D $2,000-$4,000 per minute; motion graphics 60 s $2,500-$3,000

    No source
  • explainervideos.ca

    $3,000-$10,000 for a professional 60 s video; premium $10,000-$25,000; enterprise $30,000+

    No source
  • epipheo.com

    $5K-$150K+; 2D $15K-$45K for 60-90 s

    No source
  • piehole.tv

    $2,500 to $30,000

    No source
  • knowlify.com

    $500 to $50,000+ across four agency tiers

    Cites a source

Searched: cost of an explainer video

  • demoduck.com

    $1,500 to $50,000

    No source
  • twine.net

    'Basic Animated Explainer Video: $5,000 to $5,000'; mid-range $5,000 to $15,000

    No source

Searched: explainer video price

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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 separates a $140 explainer video from a $4,000 one?
    Mostly who writes, draws and voices it. None of the Fiverr packages under $200 that matched our spec says how its pictures or voice are made, and two of the matched gigs describe their cheaper packages as using an AI voice or stock footage. Gisteo's $4,000 package includes discovery, a written script, a full storyboard, custom illustration, a voiceover and unlimited revisions within each stage.
  • Can you buy the voiceover for an explainer video separately?
    Yes. A human read of up to a minute costs $140 at The Voice Realm, from $320 at Voquent and $350 to $450 for one to two minutes on Voicecrafters' card, which says it is based on the GVAA rate guide. Check the usage terms: these prices cover your own website and channels, and a read for paid ads is priced differently.
  • Is a $499 explainer video service comparable with a studio?
    Sometimes, and the page will not always tell you. Capri Video's $499 covers up to two minutes with a script, animation, voiceover and a first draft in 24 hours, but does not say how the pictures or the voice are made. Clickcode's $349 uses an AI voice; Video Explainers' $497 offers an AI or human-style voice. Ask before comparing any of them with a studio floor.
  • Which explainer video survey figure should you trust?
    Treat all three as vendor research. Wyzowl's median is $5,400 from quotes collected in Q4 2022, Yans Media's undated study gives a mean of $8,746, and Yum Yum's July 2026 survey a median of $9,680. Each surveyor sells explainers and briefed studios against sample videos it chose, so the figures describe studio quotes for one brief, not what a marketplace buyer pays.
  • How long does an explainer video take from brief to delivery?
    Studios publish two to twelve weeks, most between three and six, and Yum Yum's 2026 survey found a median of seven. The matched Fiverr packages promise 3 to 30 days, with a median of seven, and two productised services a video or a first draft in 24 to 48 hours. Rush costs extra: Gisteo charges $1,000 more for two to three weeks instead of five to six.
  • What does an AI explainer video tool actually produce?
    Software output, not a finished explainer. The plans that export without a watermark cost $9 to $58 a month, on annual billing where it is offered, and buy templates, library characters and text-to-speech voices; you still write the script and assemble the scenes. Synthesia and HeyGen make avatar presenters rather than animation. With the hours priced in, one video comes to $609 to $1,119 on our estimate.
  • Should you hire an animator instead of buying explainer videos?
    Only if animation arrives every week. A special effects artist or animator at the US median, loaded for payroll and benefits, costs $11,053 a month, which works out at $7,369 to $11,053 an explainer at one to one and a half a month. That one person also has to write, voice and illustrate, work a studio splits across several people.
  • Does busyless make explainer videos?
    No. busyless is a fractional Head of Content, not an animation studio. From $5,000 a month I decide what the explainer has to explain and where it runs, write the brief and review each stage with whoever makes it; production from $2,000 a month covers the content around it, not the animation. If you only need the video, the routes on this page are the way to buy it.