How to Hire an Explainer Video Agency and Run the Project

James Crawford

Published September 17, 202611 min readUpdated September 17, 2026

You want one clear video that explains what you do. So you start looking for an explainer video agency, open six tabs, and every studio looks the same. Same promises, same shiny showreel, no prices anywhere.

Then the quotes land, and they are thousands of dollars apart for what sounds like the same job.

Hiring well is not about picking the prettiest portfolio. It is about the brief you write, the questions you ask, and who does what once your money changes hands.

Here is how to run the whole thing: what to prepare, what the market charges in 2026, how the work splits between you and the studio, and what to do when a draft comes back wrong.

To hire the right agency, write a one-page brief first. Then shortlist three studios whose finished work matches the style you want, and compare written proposals on scope, revision rounds, delivery date and file ownership. Price tells you the size of the bet you are placing, never the quality of the work you get.

What does an explainer video agency actually do?

An explainer video agency is a studio that takes your idea and hands back a finished short video. Most cover the script, the voiceover, the animation and a set number of revisions in one package. You are buying an outcome, not an hour of somebody's time.

Most studios run the same five stages: discovery, script, storyboard, voiceover, animation.

Discovery is the round of questions about your customers and your offer. A good studio asks who buys from you, what they worry about, and what you want a viewer to do next.

The script is where the money is won or lost. A simple explainer script has four parts: hook, problem, solution and call to action, according to Biteable's explainer video script template. A call to action (CTA) is the one thing you ask the viewer to do at the end.

Storyboard is the rough comic strip of your video, frame by frame. Voiceover is the recorded voice, human or synthetic. Animation is the last and most expensive stage, which is why every studio wants your script signed off before an animator opens a single file.

Change your mind at script stage and it costs an email. Change your mind after animation and it costs a week.

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.

What should you send an agency before you ask for a price?

Send a one-page brief. Studios price from scope, so a vague request gets a vague, padded quote, while a clear brief gets you numbers you can actually line up side by side.

Your brief needs seven lines:

The job: what the video must make a viewer do (call, book, buy, understand).
Where it runs: homepage, Facebook ad, sales email, waiting-room screen.
Who watches: your customer, in one sentence.
Length: 30, 60 or 90 seconds.
Style: whiteboard, 2D motion graphics, live action, or "show me options".
Deadline: the real date, not "as soon as possible".
Budget band: a range you will genuinely spend.

Length is the line that moves the price most. Shorter explainers of 30 to 45 seconds suit awareness campaigns and ads, while 60 to 90 seconds suits website and sales use, Yum Yum Videos reports in its 2026 guide to video length.

Length also sets your word count. Plan on about 150 spoken words per minute, so a 60-second script lands near 140 to 160 words, according to Breadnbeyond. If you cannot explain your offer in 150 words, the video is not ready to be made yet. Our guide to writing an explainer video script that sells walks through that first draft.

Style is the other big lever. Whiteboard animation is the budget-friendly workhorse for step-by-step teaching and professional services, and 2D motion graphics is the all-round style, Pexo's 2026 rundown of explainer types explains. Live action adds a real face or a real product to the screen.

A dentist explaining implants and a gym selling a six-week challenge do not need the same look, and they should not accept the same quote.

What will an agency quote you, and why do quotes differ so much?

A 60-second custom animated explainer from a North American studio typically costs $5,000 to $10,000, with premium 3D or character work above $10,000, according to Vidico's 2026 cost guide. Studios that build with artificial intelligence tools in the pipeline typically start around $1,500 to $4,000, Creamy Animation reports for 2026.

Across 45 agencies surveyed by Squideo in 2026, the average explainer video price was £2,960. The full market runs from about $99 for do-it-yourself (DIY) tools to $50,000 or more for enterprise brand films, Yum Yum Videos found in 2026.

Here is what each route buys you.

What you are buying	Typical price	Who it suits	What you give up
Full-service studio, custom animation	$5,000 to $10,000 (Vidico, 2026)	Funded startups and brands with a launch behind the video	Weeks of calls, reviews and approvals
AI-assisted studio	$1,500 to $4,000 (Creamy Animation, 2026)	Owners who want custom-looking work faster	Some hand-crafted detail and art direction
Fixed-price done-for-you package	Flat fee, set length	Local businesses with one clear message	Bespoke art choices and long strategy calls
DIY video tool plus your own hours	From about $99 (Yum Yum Videos, 2026)	Testing whether a video changes anything	Your evenings, and a home-made look

Our own 30-second explainer sits in the fixed-price row at $297 (normally $497). Script, human voiceover and animation are included, delivered in 7 days with 3 revision rounds and a money-back guarantee. We have made 14,000 videos for more than 13,500 businesses since 2013, so the process is standard rather than bespoke. That is exactly why it costs what it costs.

Five things move a quote more than anything else: length, animation style, how many custom characters get drawn, how many revision rounds are included, and whether a human writes your script. Our side-by-side comparison of explainer video pricing shows how the same brief prices out four different ways.

Who does what once the project starts?

The studio owns the craft, and you own the facts, the decisions and the approvals. No animator can invent what your customers worry about, and no studio can approve a script on your behalf.

Stage	The studio's job	Your job	What slows it down
Discovery	Ask about your customers and your offer	Answer honestly, send real prices and objections	Vague answers and "just make it look good"
Script	Write the draft and structure the story	Approve or mark up in one pass	Three people editing the same script
Storyboard	Sketch every scene in order	Check the order and the message, not the art	Notes about colours at sketch stage
Voiceover	Record the voice you picked	Choose from the voice samples	Changing the script after recording
Animation	Build the finished video	Watch it twice, then send one list of fixes	Drip-feeding fixes one message at a time
Delivery	Send the files and the cut-down versions	Ask for the sizes and formats you need	Forgetting the square and vertical cuts

The most common delay is not the animator. It is three people in your business editing the same script on different days.

Name one decision maker before the project starts. Everyone else advises that person.

How do you hire an explainer video agency in five steps?

Work through these five steps in order, and you can go from an idea to a signed project in about a week without gambling your budget on a showreel.

Step 1: Write the one-page brief before you contact anyone

Fill in the seven lines above and save them as one page. Every studio you contact gets the same page, which is the only way two quotes become comparable.

Step 2: Shortlist three studios by finished videos, not showreels

Watch three complete videos from each studio in the style you want, start to finish. A showreel is a cut of the best two seconds of fifty projects, and it hides pacing, scripting and voice quality.

Step 3: Send the same brief to all three and ask for a written proposal

Ask each studio for a written proposal covering total price, what is included, the delivery date and the number of revision rounds. Also ask which people on their team made the video you liked, and whether those same people will work on yours.

Step 4: Buy the script first if the price makes you nervous

Ask your favourite studio to write the script as a small paid first milestone before you commit to the whole project. A weak script is obvious on page one, and you will have lost a small fee instead of a big one.

Step 5: Get five things in writing before you pay a deposit

Get the total price, the delivery date, the number of revision rounds, who owns the finished file, and what happens if you reject the video. Anything a studio will not put in writing is a thing you do not have.

How much of the work still lands on you?

You keep three jobs: the facts, the decisions and the deadline. A studio can write and animate, but it cannot decide what your business stands for or approve anything for you.

Most of your time goes into the script. Read it out loud, time it on your phone, and check it says what a customer would ask about.

A plumber should be checking whether the script names the 2am burst-pipe panic. A dentist should be checking whether it answers "will this hurt". A law firm should be checking whether it promises anything the state bar would not allow.

Collect every note into one message per round. Revision rounds are counted, not infinite, and a round spent on a comma is a round you cannot spend on the offer.

Block out two short windows in your diary: one to approve the script, one to review the first cut. Projects stall in the gap between a studio sending something and an owner opening it.

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.

What can you do if the agency's work misses the mark?

Stop at the stage where it went wrong and fix it there. Animation built on a weak script cannot be rescued with new colours, so a script problem gets fixed in the script, before anyone animates anything.

Write your feedback against the brief, not against your taste. "The first five seconds do not name the problem a patient has" gives an editor something to do. "I don't love it" does not.

Send one consolidated list, ranked, with the must-fix items at the top. Mark anything that is a preference rather than a problem, because studios solve problems faster than they guess at preferences.

If a studio refuses a fair fix, your contract is all you have left. That is why Step 5 matters: staged payments, a written number of rounds and a stated refund or exit position turn a bad week into an annoying one.

When is hiring an agency the wrong call?

Hiring a studio is the wrong call when your message is not settled, your budget sits below the market floor, or you need the video inside a week. Video production makes a clear offer travel further, and it makes a confusing offer confusing in high definition.

Test the offer first. 82% of video marketers report a positive return on video, Wyzowl's 2026 State of Video Marketing survey found. Explainers are the most common type made, with 73% of marketers having produced one. Common does not mean automatic.

Results swing on placement as much as production. In one Unbounce and Vidyard test, an explainer video in a lightbox lifted landing-page conversion from 6.5% to 13%, TapVid reports in its 2026 benchmarks.

Modern results run from a 10% drop, with the wrong video on the wrong page, to a 100% lift with the right one, Foundry CRO's 2026 landing page benchmarks show. The old 80% to 86% figures floating around sales pages come from data collected before 2020.

If you are testing whether video does anything for your business, a fixed-price package or a DIY tool answers that question for a fraction of the money. If the video carries a funding round, a product launch or a national ad buy, pay a studio properly and give them the time.

Frequently asked questions

How long does an explainer video agency take to deliver?

Most studios quote in weeks, because the script, storyboard, voiceover and animation happen in sequence and each stage waits on your approval. Fixed-price packages move faster because the steps are standardised. Ask for the delivery date in writing, and ask what happens to it if you are slow to approve.

What is a fair payment schedule for a video project?

A fair schedule ties money to stages rather than to dates: something on signing, something at script approval, and the balance on final delivery. Staged payments protect both sides, because nobody is ever owed for work the other has not seen. Pay everything up front and you have nothing left to hold back if the work slips.

Do I have to write the script myself?

No. A full-service studio writes the script, and your job is to supply the facts and approve the draft. Writing it yourself only makes sense if you already know exactly what your customers ask, and even then most studios will restructure your words to fit the timing.

Can I send a reference video I want mine to look like?

Yes, and you should. One or two reference videos tell a studio more about the look you want than a page of adjectives. Be ready for an honest answer about budget, because a reference made for a national brand cannot be matched for a local budget.

What if my quote is far above the market average?

Compare it against the published ranges before you argue. If a quote sits well above $10,000 for a straightforward 60-second explainer, ask which line items are driving it, usually custom characters, extra languages or a longer runtime. A studio that cannot itemise a quote is guessing.

The short version

Hiring an explainer video agency is a process you run, not a purchase you make. Write the one-page brief, because it turns four wildly different quotes into four comparable ones. Shortlist by finished videos instead of showreels. Ask for a written proposal, and get the price, the date, the revision rounds and the file ownership on paper before a deposit leaves your account.

Then do your half properly: one decision maker, honest answers at discovery, one consolidated list of notes per round.

The goal is not a video you like. The goal is a video that makes a stranger understand what you sell in under a minute, and then do something about it.

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.

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