How Much Does Whiteboard Animation Cost?
Whiteboard animation costs anywhere from about $1 to over $5,000 per finished minute, and almost all of that spread comes from who makes it. An agency charges for an illustrator, a scriptwriter, a voice actor and a few rounds of changes; an AI tool charges for compute. Below are the published prices for each option, what makes a quote go up, and what each one adds up to if you need a video every month instead of once.
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Key takeaways
- Agencies and studios quote roughly $500 to $5,000 per finished minute, with premium studios above that. A 60-second video averages about $3,185 in one 2025 agency survey.
- Freelancers range from $15 to $50 a minute for template work on marketplaces up to several thousand dollars a video for experienced animators.
- Whiteboard software costs about €165 to €350 a year (VideoScribe) or $49 a month (Doodly), plus the hours you spend building each video and the voiceover.
- An AI generator like ShortsCrafter works out to about $1 per minute of finished video and takes a few minutes per video.
- Length, custom illustration and revisions move the price most. A professional voiceover alone runs $200 to $750 a minute.
- Per-minute agency pricing makes sense for one flagship video. At one video a month or more, it adds up to tens of thousands a year.
Whiteboard animation cost at a glance
These are published prices from studios and software vendors. Most come from companies selling one of the options, so read each range as that seller’s view of the market.
Whiteboard animation cost at a glance
What an agency charges
Most agencies price per finished minute, and the minute includes everything: script, storyboard, illustration, voiceover, music and a set number of revision rounds. Broadcast2World splits its range into three tiers: $500 to $1,000 a minute for simple drawings and minimal changes, $1,000 to $2,000 for detailed illustration with a professional voice, and $2,000 to $4,000 or more for custom, frame-by-frame work with scriptwriting included.
The same article lists four of its real projects. A 2-minute B2B testimonial for Epicor cost $4,000. A 3.5-minute healthcare explainer for Fibrogen cost $7,280. Both work out to about $2,000 a minute, the middle of the market.
Advids surveyed 80 of its clients and 12 agencies in 2025 and puts the average 60-second whiteboard video at $3,185, with a range of $1,000 to $16,000. Where the studio is matters a lot: the same 60-second video averaged $6,570 in the US, $4,250 in Europe and $1,910 in Asia.
Expect three to six weeks from approved script to final file, and one to three revision rounds in the price. Extra rounds, a shorter deadline or re-recording an approved voiceover are billed on top. Motiongility also points out that short videos cost more per minute, because the setup takes the same work whether the video runs 30 seconds or three minutes. It quotes $1,500 to $4,500 for a 30-second video.
What a freelancer charges
Freelancer prices are the hardest to pin down, because “freelancer” covers two different jobs. On Fiverr and Upwork, basic whiteboard gigs often start at $15 to $50 per finished minute (Broadcast2World). At that price you get stock images from the animator’s software library, timed to a script and voiceover you supply. Many of these sellers use the same VideoScribe or Doodly libraries you could buy yourself.
Experienced freelancers who draw custom art, write the script and handle the voiceover charge closer to agency money: $750 to $5,000 per video according to Motiongility, and $500 to $2,000 per video in Advids’ table. They’re usually 30% to 70% cheaper than an agency for similar work, by Advids’ estimate.
Before you hire one, check what the quote leaves out. Script, voiceover, music licensing and revisions are often extras, and a cheap per-minute rate can double once you add them.
What it costs to make it yourself
Whiteboard software is the cheapest way to get full control, if you don’t count your time. Current prices:
- VideoScribe: €165 a year for Lite (5 downloads a month, videos up to 5 minutes), €275 for Core (30 downloads, 10 minutes, AI voiceover included) and €350 for Max (unlimited downloads, 20 minutes).
- Doodly: $49 a month, now sold as part of the Voomly Cloud bundle with a 14-day trial.
The subscription is the small part. You still write the script, pick or upload an image for every sentence, record or buy a voiceover, and time each drawing to the words by hand. A professional English voiceover costs $200 to $750 per minute (Motiongility), unless your plan includes an AI voice or you narrate it yourself. Timing is the slow step, and it’s where most of the hours go.
Our comparison of whiteboard animation software covers these tools and the others in more detail.
What an AI whiteboard generator costs
AI tools draw the scenes, record the narration and time the two together from your script, so you pay for the output instead of anyone’s hours. With ShortsCrafter, a whiteboard video costs about $1 per finished minute. A 2-minute explainer is a couple of dollars in credits, and a 10-minute lesson is around ten.
You paste a script or type a topic, pick one of four art styles (minimalistic, regular, colored or stick figure), choose a voice from the library or your own cloned voice, and generate. It takes 2 to 4 minutes on average. In the preview you can redraw a scene, add or delete scenes and regenerate the voiceover before you render. Horizontal videos run from 1 to 2 minutes up to 8 to 10 minutes; vertical ones are 30 to 90 seconds for Shorts and TikTok.
Credits come with a monthly or yearly plan, and the plans table shows how many you get for each.
What you give up is custom illustration. If your video has to show your exact product or a brand character drawn the same way in every scene, an illustrator will do that better than any generator.
What drives the price of a whiteboard video
Every quote is built from the same handful of things. In rough order of how much they move the number:
- Length. Nearly everyone prices per finished minute, so a 3-minute video costs about three times a 1-minute one. Short videos are the exception, since setup costs don’t shrink.
- Illustration. Library images are cheap; custom drawings of your product or your brand characters are the biggest single cost. Motiongility estimates each added element or scene at $50 to $500.
- Script. Some studios include it, others bill it separately. Explainers for complicated products often need several rounds before anyone draws a line. Our guide to writing a whiteboard animation script helps you show up with one ready.
- Voiceover. A professional narrator costs $200 to $750 a minute, more for extra languages or specific accents.
- Revisions. Changes after the drawings are done mean re-timing everything after the change. Agencies include one to three rounds and charge for more.
- Deadline. A rush job costs more everywhere.
Smaller extras like music licensing or a vertical cut for social media each show up as their own line on an agency quote.
What a year of whiteboard videos costs
Per-video prices hide the real difference, which shows up once you make more than one. Here’s the same output priced with each option, using 2-minute videos and the middle of each published range.
What a year of whiteboard videos costs
The software column looks cheapest after AI, but it assumes you’re free. If you spend half a day on each video and your time is worth $50 an hour, 12 videos cost another $2,400 or so, and 52 cost over $10,000. On ShortsCrafter the credits come with a monthly or yearly plan, so a single video costs whatever the smallest plan does. The weekly row is where per-minute pricing stops working for most budgets.
How to keep the cost down
Whichever option you pick, these cut the bill without hurting the video:
- Finish the script before you ask for quotes. Script rounds are slow and billable, and a locked script also keeps revisions down later.
- Cut the length. A 90-second video costs about half of a 3-minute one, and most marketing explainers don’t need more.
- Use library or generated art for everything except your product and your logo.
- Ask what’s in the per-minute price. Script, voiceover, music, revisions and source files should all be on the quote or written as extras.
- Plan a batch. Agencies and freelancers discount a series because the style and characters only get set up once.
Which option to pick
Pay an agency when one video carries a lot of weight, like a homepage explainer for a funded product or a launch video that needs custom art of your product. For one or two a year, a few thousand dollars is reasonable for something you’ll use for years.
Hire a freelancer when you have a script and a voiceover and want someone else to do the timing, and you’re fine with library art.
Buy whiteboard software if you enjoy building the scenes yourself, want control over every drawing, and have the hours.
Use an AI generator when you need volume: a weekly YouTube upload, or a course with dozens of lessons. At that pace nothing else comes close on cost. You can try ShortsCrafter with your own script and see the result in a few minutes.
FAQ
How much does a 1-minute whiteboard animation cost?
At an agency, about $1,000 to $4,000, with an average of $3,185 for 60 seconds in Advids’ 2025 survey. A freelancer charges from $15 to $50 for template work up to a few thousand for custom art. An AI generator like ShortsCrafter costs about $1.
How much does whiteboard animation cost per minute?
Agencies charge roughly $500 to $5,000 per finished minute, and premium studios more. Marketplace freelancers start around $15 to $50 a minute. AI tools cost about $1 a minute of finished video.
Why is whiteboard animation so expensive?
At agencies, you pay for people: a scriptwriter, an illustrator, an animator who times every drawing to the voice, a voice actor, and a project manager for revisions. A 2-minute video can take around 200 hours of studio work by Broadcast2World’s count.
Is whiteboard animation cheaper than 2D animation?
Yes, usually. Broadcast2World puts whiteboard below 2D and 3D because scenes are simple line drawings on a plain background, which takes less work per minute than full-color 2D scenes with moving characters.
Can I make a whiteboard animation for free?
Mostly not for a finished, watermark-free video. VideoScribe’s free trial adds a watermark and allows 3 downloads, and Doodly has a 14-day trial. The cheapest way to a clean video is an AI generator or a low-tier software plan.
How long does it take to make a whiteboard animation?
An agency takes three to six weeks from approved script to delivery. Freelancers take days to a few weeks. With software, it’s hours per video; with ShortsCrafter, generation takes 2 to 4 minutes, plus whatever time you spend on edits.