Pricing
Explainer video pricing: what it costs in 2026
Explainer videos cost between $1,000 and $15,000 for most teams in 2026. Simple motion-graphics explainers run $1,000 to $5,000, custom 2D animated explainers run $5,000 to $15,000, and premium character animation runs $15,000 to $40,000 or more. Live-action explainers land in the $5,000 to $20,000 band. What decides your number is length, animation style, the script, and how many revisions and language versions you need.
This page breaks down the real price bands, what actually moves the cost, how animated and live-action explainers compare, and what an explainer costs when you produce them at volume with Shootsta rather than one project at a time.
The short version
A single custom animated explainer usually costs $5,000 to $15,000. That is fair for a one-off. It stops being fair once you need ten of them, because per-project pricing charges the full setup every time. If explainers are a regular output rather than a one-time film, a subscription brings the effective cost per video down sharply. Bands, cost drivers, and examples below.
How much do explainer videos cost in 2026?
Explainer pricing sorts into four bands by style and format. Here is the 2026 range for each, and the kind of work it fits.
| Type | Price band | Length | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple motion graphics | $1,000 - $5,000 | 30 - 60 sec | Social explainers, feature announcements, internal how-tos |
| Custom 2D animation | $5,000 - $15,000 | 60 - 90 sec | Product explainers, homepage videos, sales enablement |
| Premium character animation | $15,000 - $40,000+ | 60 - 120 sec | Brand films, launch centrepieces, high-stakes campaigns |
| Live-action explainer | $5,000 - $20,000 | 60 - 120 sec | Founder or team explainers, service walkthroughs, demos |
Simple motion graphics
$1,000 - $5,000Template-driven or light custom motion graphics: kinetic text, icons, stock footage, a voiceover track. Fast to produce and the cheapest way to get a clear explainer live. This is where most high-volume explainer programs sit.
Custom 2D animation
$5,000 - $15,000Bespoke illustration, a scripted narrative, custom characters or a branded visual system, and a professional voiceover. The band most B2B teams choose for a hero product explainer that has to carry the message on a landing page.
Premium character animation
$15,000 - $40,000+Full character animation, original artwork, sound design, and multiple review rounds. Agency territory. Right for a once-a-year flagship, hard to justify for the twentieth explainer of the quarter.
Live-action explainer
$5,000 - $20,000A person on camera explaining the product, shot on location or with a self-shoot kit, then edited with lower thirds, screen capture, and graphics. Cost is driven by crew, talent, and shoot days rather than illustration hours.
What actually moves the price of an explainer video?
Two quotes for the same 60-second explainer can differ by five times. Six factors explain almost all of the gap.
| Factor | Impact on price | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Length | High | Animation is priced per finished second. A 90-second explainer is roughly 50% more than a 60-second one at the same style, because every extra second is more illustration and animation work. |
| Animation style | High | Kinetic text and icon motion sit at the bottom of the range. Custom 2D illustration is the middle. Full character animation with a rigged cast is the top. Style is the single biggest lever on price. |
| Script and storyboard | Medium | A tight script written for you costs more than dropping your own copy into a template. It is also the difference between an explainer that converts and one that gets skipped, so it is rarely the place to cut. |
| Revisions | Medium | Most quotes include two rounds. Extra rounds, or changes after animation has started, add cost fast because reanimating a scene is not the same as tweaking a draft. Lock the script and storyboard before animation begins. |
| Voiceover and music | Low to medium | A professional voice artist runs a few hundred dollars per script. Licensed music and sound design add a bit more. Both are small next to animation, and both lift the finished result noticeably. |
| Language versions | Medium | Once the master is built, extra language versions reuse the animation and only re-record voiceover and swap on-screen text. Producing five language versions costs far less than producing five explainers from scratch. |
The pattern: animation style and length set the floor and ceiling, the script decides whether the video works, and revisions are where budgets quietly overrun. Lock the script and storyboard before animation starts and the quote holds.
Animated vs live-action explainers: which costs more?
Neither is reliably cheaper. They cost differently. An animated explainer is priced by illustration and animation hours, so a simple style is inexpensive and a complex one is not. A live-action explainer is priced by crew, talent, and shoot days, so a self-shoot piece is inexpensive and a multi-location shoot is not.
Pick by the job, not the price. Animation suits software, abstract concepts, and anything hard to film. Live-action builds trust faster and suits services, founder stories, and physical products. Many teams run both: an animated explainer for the product, a live-action piece for the people behind it. For the animation side specifically, our animated video production service covers styles, timelines, and how the work gets made.
What does an explainer video cost with Shootsta?
Shootsta prices explainers through a subscription rather than per project. You hold a set number of video credits each month and use them for explainers, product videos, social cutdowns, training, or animation. Plans start from US$1,000 per month, and the effective cost per explainer falls as your volume rises, because brand setup and workflow are built once and reused across every video.
The result at volume: 50-60% lower per-video cost vs. agencies, a 48-hour turnaround on first cuts, and a locked brand kit so every explainer looks like it came from the same studio. Across 70,000+ videos produced for 920+ brands, the teams that get the most out of this are the ones treating explainers as a steady output, not a one-time film.
If you produce one explainer a year, a project studio is a clean fit and this is not the model for you. If explainers are part of a wider video program, see the full Shootsta subscription pricing and how it compares to agency rates, or read where explainers sit inside an enterprise video production program.
What three real explainers would cost
A 60-second SaaS product explainer, custom 2D
Written script, custom illustration, one voiceover, two revision rounds. As a one-off project: roughly $8,000 to $12,000. Inside a subscription running a few videos a month: a fraction of that per video.
A 45-second feature announcement, motion graphics
Kinetic text, product screens, icons, licensed music. As a one-off: roughly $2,000 to $4,000. The kind of fast, repeatable explainer that suits a monthly credit model well.
A 90-second explainer in five language versions
One custom animated master, then five versions with new voiceover and swapped on-screen text. The master carries the cost; each extra language version is a small add, not a fresh build. This is where language versions get cheap at scale.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an explainer video cost in 2026?
How much does an animated explainer video cost?
Why are explainer video prices so different between vendors?
Is it cheaper to produce explainer videos in a subscription?
How long does it take to produce an explainer video?
What is the difference between an animated and a live-action explainer?
Keep reading
Pricing an explainer, or a year of them?
Tell us how many explainers you need and the style you are after. We will send back a clear number and the fastest way to get them made, with no agency markup.