See The Full Survey Results:
In February 2018 my team and I at Wyzowl surveyed the explainer video industry. We contacted 70 explainer video production companies and asked them for ball park pricing for a 60 second explainer video. You can see all the data we gathered along with analysis here: https://www.wyzowl.com/how-much-does-an-explainer-video-cost
Example Videos:
To make sure each company we contacted was pitching on the same level of work we provided them with 3 examples. This helped them see the level of illustration and animation we required for the 60 second video we were asking them to price up. Check out the example videos here:
Example Video 1
Example Video 2
Example Video 3
Video Transcript:
Hey, I’m Matt Byrom and in this video I’m going to answer the question “How much does an explainer video cost?” Once and for all.
We Surveyed the Market
The reason I can answer this question once and for all is because my team and I at Wyzowl surveyed the market.
We contacted 70 explainer video production companies and asked for pricing and turnaround times for a 60 second explainer video.
A Fair Experiment
To make this a fair experiment we chose 3 videos that required a similar amount of work to create. I’ve included links to these videos in the description of this video so you can check them out for yourself. We used these videos as examples of the result we were trying to emulate in the email we sent each explainer video company. This meant that each company we contacted was pitching on roughly the same level of work.
Next we made sure that we didn’t influence the decision of any company. We asked for ballpark pricing and said we didn’t have time to talk this through so asked if they could send pricing by email in the first instance.
We also didn’t want to take up too much time of the companies we were contacting. After all, we didn’t intend to follow through and buy a video so we didn’t think this was fair.
Finally, we converted all prices into US dollars so that we could compare the companies using the same currency benchmark.
We received a wide range of prices from the companies we contacted.
This chart shows the lowest price we received from a company in yellow, the highest in green and the average in red.
$700 was the lowest price and $72,000 was the highest price. This made the average price of an explainer video $7,972.
Here you can see the distribution of prices for the 60 second animated explainer video. This shows that most companies we surveyed priced this type of video at between $2,500 and $10,000.
We also gathered data about the expected turnaround time from start of the project to completed video. The shortest turnaround time was 2 weeks and the longest turnaround time was 12 weeks. This meant the average time was 5 and a half weeks.
This chart shows the shortest turnaround time we received in yellow, the longest turnaround time we received in green and the average turnaround time in red. As you can see there is a big difference between the companies.
Conclusion
So there you have it. The real cost of an explainer video in 2018. It’s clear from the data that there is still a big gap in pricing between the higher priced agencies and the lower priced agencies. Obviously we have to bear in mind that there is likely to be a quality differential between these companies but on paper the price difference is stark.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments. I read and reply to every one so I’d love to her your thoughts.
If you’d like any help or further marketing advice you can email me here.
