Founders ask me this constantly, usually after collecting three quotes that differ by a factor of fifty. The spread is real and it is not arbitrary. Here is what is inside the number.
What you are actually paying for
A 60-second animated explainer is not one job. It is six:
- Script. The highest-leverage part, and the one most often skipped. A bad script animated beautifully is a bad video.
- Voice over. Human or synthetic, and the gap has narrowed a lot.
- Storyboard. Where the piece is actually designed. Changes here cost minutes; changes after animation costs days.
- Design. Every frame drawn before it moves.
- Animation. The part everyone thinks is the whole job.
- Sound design and mix. The part that decides whether it feels expensive.
Any quote that seems impossibly cheap has removed items from that list. Usually 1, 3 and 6 — which is to say, the writing, the planning and the finish.
The four real tiers
Template-based, $200–$800. Stock template, your logo, your text. Fine for internal decks. Your competitors are using the same template.
Indie / solo freelancer, $1,500–$6,000. One person doing all six jobs. This is where most seed-stage SaaS should be, and where I do most of my work. You get a custom piece and direct access to the person making it.
Small studio, $8,000–$25,000. A team: writer, designer, animator, sound. Better at scale and at complexity. Slower, and you speak to a producer rather than the animator.
Agency, $30,000+. Strategy, testing, multiple concepts, full production. Correct if this video is fronting a serious launch budget. Wasteful otherwise.
What genuinely moves the price
- Duration, but not linearly. The first 30 seconds costs the most; you have already paid for the style frames, the rig, the voice, the sound palette.
- Character animation. Roughly doubles it. Characters are the single most expensive decision in the brief.
- 3D. Depends entirely on whether it is a product render or a full scene.
- Revision rounds. Two is standard. Unlimited revisions is either a lie or already priced in.
- Speed. A genuine rush displaces other work and is normally +40%.
What does not move it as much as people think
- The number of scenes. Twelve simple scenes is often cheaper than four complicated ones.
- Your logo. It is one asset.
- Whether you have brand guidelines. Having them saves a little time. Not having them is not a surcharge; it is usually a better piece, because nobody has pre-decided what it looks like.
Why I quote per brief
I removed prices from this site deliberately. Not to hide the ball — the opposite. A price list makes you shop for the cheapest row, and the row you pick is nearly always the wrong shape for what you actually need.
Every quote I send breaks out the six items above as separate lines. You can see what each part costs, and you can cut any of them. That conversation is more useful than a number on a pricing page.
The one thing worth spending on
The script. Every single time.
I have watched a beautifully animated 90 seconds convert nothing because it explained the product instead of the problem. Fix the first ten seconds and the rest follows.
Send me what you are building and you will get a real quote with the lines broken out — not a bracket.