Explainer Video Guide: The 7 Decisions, in Order

James Crawford

Published September 18, 202611 min readUpdated September 18, 2026

You searched for an explainer video guide and got a wall of ebooks. Every one wants your email address first. Then it sends forty pages on storyboards and frame rates, and you still do not know what to do on Monday morning.

That is backwards. You are a dentist, a plumber or a lawyer. You do not need to learn animation. You need to make about seven decisions, hand them to somebody, and get a video back.

So here is the whole thing on one page, free, with real 2026 prices and sources you can check. By the end you will have a brief you can send to any video maker, plus an honest answer on what a video will and will not do for your sales.

A good guide to explainer videos is not a long ebook about animation. It is a short list of seven decisions, made in order: the job, the page, the length, the style, the script, the voice, and the maker. Settle those seven and any video maker can build your video.

What should an explainer video guide actually cover?

An explainer video guide should cover seven decisions, not animation theory. Those seven decisions are the job, the page, the length, the style, the script, the voice and the maker.

Everything else belongs to the person you hire. Storyboards, frame rates and file types are their problem, the same way your accountant's software is theirs, not yours.

Here is the checklist in full:

The job. The one thing a stranger must understand after watching.
The page. Where the video sits and what happens next.
The length. 30, 60 or 90 seconds.
The style. Whiteboard, 2D motion graphics or live action.
The script. The exact words, in four blocks.
The voice. A recorded human, your own voice, or a synthetic read.
The maker. You, a tool, a fixed-price package, or a studio.

Seven answers is a brief. A video maker holding that brief starts on day one instead of emailing you twenty questions.

Need an explainer video? Get a 30-second explainer for $297 → We write the script, record the voiceover and animate it, delivered in 7 days.

In what order should you make the seven decisions?

Make the seven decisions in the order listed above, because each answer narrows the next one. Choose the job before the length, since a video covering two services will never fit in 30 seconds.

Decision	The question you answer	Safe default	What skipping it costs
1. The job	What must a stranger understand?	The service that earns you the most	A video that lists everything and sells nothing
2. The page	Where does it sit, and what happens next?	Your home page, beside the booking button	Views that never turn into calls
3. The length	How much do they need to hear?	30 to 45 seconds for ads, 60 to 90 for your website	A long video nobody finishes
4. The style	Do they need to see a process or a face?	2D motion graphics for most jobs	Paying 3D prices for a 2D job
5. The script	What are the exact words?	Hook, problem, solution, call to action	Rewrites during animation, the priciest place to change your mind
6. The voice	Who says it?	A recorded human voiceover	A robotic read that makes you sound cheap
7. The maker	Who builds it?	The cheapest option that still includes revisions	Small edits billed one by one

Two of those defaults come straight from published research. Yum Yum Videos' 2026 length guide puts 30 to 45 seconds with awareness campaigns and ads, and 60 to 90 seconds with website and sales pages.

On style, Pexo's 2026 breakdown of explainer types calls whiteboard animation the budget-friendly workhorse for step-by-step teaching and professional services, 2D motion graphics the all-round choice, and live action the option when you need a real face or product on screen.

What does each budget level really buy you?

Explainer videos sell at five rough price levels in 2026, from about $99 to more than $50,000. What changes between the rungs is who writes the script, how much original art you get, and how many rewrites come free.

According to Yum Yum Videos' 2026 cost guide, prices run from roughly $99 for do-it-yourself tools up to $50,000 or more for enterprise brand films.

Budget level	What you get	Typical 2026 price	Best suited to
Do-it-yourself tool	Templates and stock art. You write, record and edit.	From about $99	Testing an idea, internal training
AI-assisted studio	A studio builds it with AI tools and light human editing	$1,500 to $4,000	Startups that want speed
Fixed-price package	Script, human voiceover and animation, done for you	$297 for 30 seconds, $497 for 60	Local businesses with one thing to explain
Custom studio	Original characters and bespoke art direction	$5,000 to $10,000	Funded brands and product launches
Enterprise film	Full crews, 3D or live action, months of work	$10,000 to $50,000 and up	National advertisers

Each rung has a source behind it. Creamy Animation's 2026 cost guide puts AI-assisted studio work at $1,500 to $4,000.

Vidico's 2026 cost guide puts a 60-second custom animated explainer from a North American studio at $5,000 to $10,000, with premium 3D or character work above that.

For the middle of the market, Squideo surveyed 45 agencies in 2026 and found an average explainer video price of £2,960.

The fixed-price row is ours, so treat it as disclosure rather than advice. We write the script, record a human voiceover and animate it, delivered in 7 days with 3 revision rounds and a money-back guarantee. You get less original art direction than a custom studio buys you, and that is the honest trade.

How do you turn the seven decisions into a one-page brief?

Write six short lines on a single page: the job, the page, the length, the word budget, the four script blocks, and the approval dates. Any video maker can quote from that page without a meeting.

Step 1: Write the one job in one sentence

Finish this sentence and stop: "After watching, a stranger should understand that we ..." One idea only. If you need the word "and" twice, you are describing two videos.

Step 2: Name the exact page the video will live on

Write the real web address, not "our website". The page decides the tone, the length and the button that sits underneath the player.

Step 3: Set the length, then the word budget

Choose the length first, then count backwards to words. Plan on about 150 spoken words per minute, so a 60-second script lands at roughly 140 to 160 words, according to Breadnbeyond's word-count guide.

Knowlify's 2026 explainer guide puts most explainers at 60 to 90 seconds, which works out at 150 to 225 words of voiceover. If you want the longer version of this decision, read our guide to picking 30, 60 or 90 seconds.

Step 4: Block the script into four parts

Split the words into four blocks: hook, problem, solution and call to action. Biteable's explainer script template uses those same four parts. A call to action (CTA) is the single thing you want a viewer to do next, such as tapping a booking button.

Content Beta's 60-second script guide suggests a split of 30% problem, 40% solution, 20% proof and 10% action. On a 150-word script, that is about 45 words of problem and 60 words of solution. Our walkthrough of writing an explainer video script shows the blocks filled in.

Step 5: Pick the style and the voice

Name one style and one voice on the brief, with a reason beside each. "Whiteboard, because I am teaching a five-step process" tells a maker more than three pages of mood boards.

Step 6: Put dates and one approver on the page

Write the date you want it live and the name of the one person who signs off. Two approvers is the most common reason a seven-day video takes five weeks.

What do most explainer video guides get wrong?

Most guides repeat one number: that adding a video to a landing page lifts conversions by 80 to 86%. Foundry CRO's 2026 landing page video benchmarks trace that figure back to pre-2020 data.

Their 2026 range is wider and far more honest. The wrong video on the wrong page can drop conversion by 10%. The right video in the right place can double it.

So the video is not the whole story. Placement does much of the work. In an Unbounce and Vidyard test, an explainer video in a lightbox (a small pop-up player that opens over the page) moved landing-page conversion from 6.5% to 13%, according to TapVid's 2026 benchmark roundup.

The broad picture is still good. ROI (return on investment) is the money a spend brings back. In Wyzowl's 2026 State of Video Marketing survey, 82% of video marketers reported a positive return on video, as summarised by Levitate Media.

Read that as a reason to plan carefully, not a promise. Where the video sits, and what sits under it, decides whether you land at minus 10% or plus 100%. Our notes on where to put an explainer video on your site cover the placement half.

What does the guide look like for your trade?

The seven decisions never change from trade to trade, but the answers do. Here is how five common trades fill in the same brief.

Trade	The one job	Length	Style	Opening line
Dentist	Explain what an implant appointment feels like	60 seconds	2D motion graphics	"Worried it will hurt? Here is what actually happens."
Plumber	Show what happens in the first hour of an emergency call	30 seconds	Live action on a phone	"Water coming through the ceiling at 2am?"
Lawyer	Explain the first free consultation, step by step	90 seconds	Whiteboard	"Most people call us not knowing if they even have a case."
Gym	Show a first-week plan for a nervous beginner	30 seconds	Live action	"Never used a squat rack? Week one looks like this."
Accountant	Explain how the handover from your old accountant works	60 seconds	Whiteboard	"Switching accountants sounds like a nightmare. It takes one email."

Take the dentist row. The job is fear, not features, so the video never mentions the brand of implant. It runs 60 seconds because the viewer is already on a treatment page and wants detail, which matches the website range in Yum Yum Videos' length guide.

The style is 2D motion graphics because a friendly diagram of a jaw is kinder than footage of a real one. The call to action is one line: check availability. That is five of the seven decisions settled in a paragraph.

Want something bigger? Book a free 30-minute video call → We plan your custom video with you and send a fixed quote within 24 hours.

Do you need an ebook to get this right?

No. A one-page brief beats a forty-page ebook for almost every small business, because the brief is the thing a video maker can actually price and start from.

Gated ebooks exist mostly to collect email addresses. That is a fair trade when the content is genuinely deeper, and a waste of your morning when the same twelve tips sit on a free blog post.

An ebook earns its keep in one situation: a bigger team that needs a shared reference, so the marketing manager, the owner and the agency all argue from the same document. A solo practice does not have that problem.

If you want an explainer video guide you can act on today, copy the seven decisions into a document, answer them, and send it. That takes about twenty minutes.

How do you check the video before it goes live?

Watch the first draft on your phone with the sound off, then run a six-point check. Most problems show up in those two steps, not in a long technical review.

Your business name and your offer are clear in the first 5 seconds.
Captions are readable on a phone screen held at arm's length.
There is one call to action, not three.
Every phone number, address and price on screen is correct.
The length matches the page it will sit on.
The file plays properly on an older phone, not only your laptop.

Agree the revision rounds before you pay, not after. Two or three rounds is normal, and our own packages include 3. A maker who bills for every small fix will leave you living with a typo.

If something is wrong, describe the fix by timestamp. "At 0:14 the phone number is wrong" gets fixed in a day. "It does not feel right" starts a week of guessing.

Frequently asked questions

How long does an explainer video take to make?

A simple animated explainer usually takes one to three weeks from approved script to final file. Custom studio work with original characters often runs six to twelve weeks. Our own 30-second and 60-second packages are delivered in 7 days once the questionnaire is in.

Can I write the script myself and hire out the animation?

Yes, and it is a common way to save money. Send your script with the word count already checked, around 150 words per minute of video. Expect the animator to suggest trims, because words that read well on paper often run long once spoken aloud.

Is a free explainer video template enough?

A free template is enough for an internal or test video. Templates give you a structure and stock art, but every business using the same template looks the same. For a page that has to win customers, original art and a human voice pull more weight.

What file formats should I ask for?

Ask for an MP4 at 1080p for your website, a square or vertical cut for social media, and the captions as a separate SRT file. SRT is the subtitle file that video players and social platforms read. Also ask who owns the finished files.

How many explainer videos does a small business need?

One good explainer covering your main service is enough to start. Add a second only when you can name a different page and a different question it answers. Most owners get more from improving the placement of one video than from making three.

The short version

An explainer video guide is only useful if it ends with a decision you can send to somebody. Seven decisions do that: the job, the page, the length, the style, the script, the voice and the maker. Write them on one page and you have a brief.

Set the length first, then the words, at about 150 words a minute. Block the script into hook, problem, solution and call to action. Pick the budget rung that matches the job, from a do-it-yourself tool to a custom studio, and check the revision rounds before you pay.

Then place it properly, because placement decides whether video helps or hurts. Get those right and one short video can carry your busiest page for years. If you want a bigger custom production, that starts from $1,299 after a free planning call.

Ready to get your own video made? Order a 30-second explainer for $297 and have it in 7 days, or book a free call if you want a custom video from $1,299.

Need an explainer video?

We write the script, record the voiceover and animate it. Delivered in 7 days.

Get My Video — $297 →