Cost to Produce Animation – and why?
If you’re considering adding an animated video to your marketing strategy, you’re on the right track.
The video makes up for over 30% of all online traffic today. After watching a video, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online.
You’re probably wondering how much that type of animation costs.
If you’ve done your research, you probably noticed that animation studios often don’t offer pricing on their websites. That’s because animated videos are tailor-made and need to be budgeted like other tailor-made products.
What Stands Behind Animation Production Costs?
Let’s start with the basics. The two most important price indicators of animated videos are length and style.
Length
Typically, animation studios start the conversation about pricing with the question about video length. That helps the studio to budget the number of designers and animators needed for the project, as well as estimate the turnaround production time and schedules.
Style
It doesn’t make sense to invest in a cookie-cutter video that generates no results.
To help you create a unique video for your brand, the animation studio should offer you a selection of styles.
Nowadays it’s better to choose from 2D cut-out animation, frame-by-frame animation, 3D renders, motion graphics, kinetic typeset, or stop motion.
How much does it cost then?
As you have seen above, it depends on many factors.
Let’s take a closer look at a standardized example that covers:
– length: 60 seconds,
– style: multi-colored flat design in cut-out technique,
– two characters,
– music, voiceover, and sound effects included,
– copyright to cover Internet, internal use, and private conferences.
Bearing in mind these factors, such animation would cost approximately 6-10,000 USD.
However, a 2D animation studio would give you a quote on a per-minute basis, and a 60-second video could land anywhere between 3,000 and 50,000 USD.
For 3D animation, the costs are much higher and thus maybe not present the best value for your marketing money. The cheapest would cost around 10,000 USD per minute for a simple video with no characters, and models bought online and adapted.
An animated branded video is an investment that helps to grow your business and showcase your brand in a completely new way.
Most importantly, animations generate measurable ROI with:
– increased SEO results,
– improvements in customer satisfaction, engagement, and awareness,
– and a serious boost to your sales and conversions.
