Whiteboard Animation Script Template (Free, With a Filled Example)

A whiteboard animation script template on a clipboard with blank rows, next to a whiteboard with a hand drawing a snowball rolling downhill

Julian Cooper

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October 23, 2026

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This whiteboard animation script template is the one to copy when you already know your topic and want the blanks in front of you. It has two parts. The first is a short planning sheet you fill in before writing. The second is a five-section script table with sentence starters for the narration, a column for the drawing, and a word budget for each section at two lengths (a 60-second short and a 2-minute video). Below the template is a filled example, a 254-word script about saving early, with every line and its drawing written out.

If you want the reasoning behind the rules (why one idea per sentence, why abstract nouns draw badly), the guide on how to write a whiteboard animation script covers it. This page is the worksheet.

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Key takeaways

Fill in the planning sheet first. The most important field is the one sentence the viewer should remember, because the key insight section is that sentence said out loud.
The script has five sections: hook, problem, explanation, key insight and takeaway. The explanation gets the most words, 40 to 50% of the script.
A 60-second short needs about 110 to 130 words in total; a 2-minute video about 250 to 300.
Every narration line gets its own drawing in the second column. A line you can’t name a drawing for is the line to rewrite.
Pick one recurring object (a jar, a snowball, a stone block) in the planning sheet and keep it on the board from the problem section to the end.

Before you write: the planning sheet

Five minutes here saves rewriting later. The right-hand column shows how the example script further down was planned.

Before you write: the planning sheet

Field	What to write	In the example
The one thing to remember	Finish the sentence “After watching, the viewer will know ___.” One thing only.	Starting to save early beats saving more later.
Viewer	Who’s watching and what they already know. Every term they don’t know costs a sentence.	Someone in their twenties who has heard of interest but never run the numbers.
Length and format	60-second vertical short, or a 2-minute or longer horizontal video.	1 to 2 minutes, horizontal.
Word budget	About 110 to 130 words for 60 seconds, 250 to 300 for 2 minutes.	254 words.
Recurring object	One everyday thing that stands for the idea and changes as the video goes on.	A savings jar that turns into a snowball.
Numbers	Real figures the board can show. Check every one.	$200 a month, 7% a year, $24,000 against $72,000.
The one action	What the viewer should do at the end. For a business video, a single call to action.	Start saving this month, even a small amount.

The “one thing to remember” field does most of the work. If you can’t fill it with a single sentence, the video is trying to cover two topics. Split it into two videos now; after the voiceover is recorded, that costs a lot more.

The whiteboard animation script template

Copy this table into a doc or spreadsheet. Write your narration in the third column, replacing the sentence starters, and name a drawing for every sentence in the fourth. The word ranges are guides; the totals matter more than any one section.

The whiteboard animation script template

Section	Words (60 s / 2 min)	Narration to fill in	Drawing to fill in
Hook (1 to 2 sentences)	10 to 20 / 20 to 30	“Ever notice [something the viewer has seen happen]?” or “Here’s why [a surprising result].”	The viewer’s situation in one picture: [a person] with [the problem object]
Problem (2 to 4 sentences)	20 to 25 / 30 to 50	“Most people [what they do now].” “That costs them [the cost, as a number].”	The recurring object appears: [object]. The cost written on the board as a number
Explanation (3 to 4 sentences / 8 to 12)	35 to 45 / 110 to 150	“Think of [the idea] as [an everyday object].” “When [cause], [effect].” “Take [an example with real numbers].”	[The everyday object]; cause, arrow, effect; the numbers drawn as stacks or bars
Key insight (1 sentence / 2 to 3)	10 to 15 / 20 to 40	“So [the sentence from your planning sheet].”	The recurring object, changed: [how it looks now]
Takeaway (1 to 2 sentences / 2 to 4)	15 to 20 / 25 to 45	“Next time [situation], [one action].” For a business: “[Product] [does the hard step] for you. [Action] at [place].”	The action as a finished state: [a checkmark, a full jar, an open door]

Once the sections are written, split them into a line-by-line sheet with four columns: line number, section, narration (one sentence per row) and drawing. That’s the version an illustrator or a whiteboard tool works from, and it’s the format of the example below.

How to fill in each section

Hook

Write the hook last. Once the insight is written you know what the video pays off, and the hook can promise exactly that. The strongest hooks state a result that sounds wrong (“the one who saves less ends up richer”) or ask a question the viewer has already asked themselves. Leave the brand, the topic name and any greeting out of it.

Problem

Describe what the viewer does now, in their terms, and put a cost on it. This is where the recurring object from your planning sheet should first appear, because the viewer will follow it for the rest of the video. Two to four sentences is enough; a long problem section reads as a lecture.

Explanation

This section carries the video, so it gets the biggest budget. Use the sentence starters as a pattern: compare the idea to an everyday object, show one cause and its effect, then run a real example with numbers. For a 2-minute video, break the explanation into two or three small steps and give each one its own drawing sequence. Numbers belong here, because a number written on the board is something the hand can draw and the viewer can remember.

Key insight

Copy the sentence from the “one thing to remember” field and adjust it to sound spoken. Draw the recurring object in its final state. If the explanation worked, the viewer sees the insight on the board a second before they hear it.

Takeaway

One action, phrased for the situation where the viewer will need it (“next time a task feels too big…”). For a business explainer, this row is the call to action: one website, one button, one step. Then stop. No summary, no “thanks for watching”; the finished board already shows everything.

Filled example: a 2-minute whiteboard animation script

Here’s the template filled in for a horizontal video about why saving early matters. It’s 254 words in 23 sentences, which reads in about 1 minute 45 seconds at 150 words a minute. The jar from the planning sheet is on the board from line 1, and in line 13 it becomes the snowball that carries the rest of the video.

A whiteboard drawing of two stick figures at the top of two snowy slopes, one with a large snowball far down the hill and one with a small snowball just starting to roll

Filled example: a 2-minute whiteboard animation script

Line	Section	Narration	Drawing
1	Hook	Two friends save the same $200 a month, and the one who saves less ends up richer.	Two stick figures, each holding a jar, a question mark between them
2	Hook	Here’s how putting in less money can leave you with more.	A small jar with an arrow pointing to a much bigger jar
3	Problem	Most people think the amount you save decides how much you end up with.	A scale with a pile of coins on one side and a money bag on the other
4	Problem	So they wait for a raise, then try to save a lot at once.	A figure waiting beside a calendar, then pouring a big handful of coins into a jar
5	Problem	That wait costs more than any amount they could add later.	Calendar pages flying off, a crack forming in the jar
6	Explanation	Meet Anna and Ben, who both save $200 a month.	Two figures labeled A and B, each with an empty jar and “$200/mo”
7	Explanation	Anna starts at 25, saves for ten years, then stops for good.	A timeline from 25 to 35 under Anna, coins dropping in, then her hands lifting off
8	Explanation	She puts in $24,000 in total.	A short coin stack labeled $24,000
9	Explanation	Ben starts at 35, ten years later, and saves every month until he’s 65.	A longer timeline from 35 to 65 under Ben
10	Explanation	He puts in $72,000, three times as much as Anna.	Ben’s coin stack, three times as tall as Anna’s, labeled $72,000
11	Explanation	Say both jars grow 7% a year.	A small “+7%” tag on each jar
12	Explanation	Each year, a jar earns growth on the money inside and on last year’s growth.	A coin with a smaller coin sprouting from it, and a third sprouting from that one
13	Explanation	Think of it as a snowball rolling downhill.	Anna’s jar turning into a snowball at the top of a slope
14	Explanation	The bigger it gets, the more snow it picks up on every turn.	The snowball growing as it rolls, with small motion lines
15	Explanation	Anna stops adding snow at 35, but her snowball keeps rolling for thirty more years.	Anna stepping back while her snowball keeps rolling, a “35 to 65” label on the slope
16	Explanation	Ben’s snowball only starts rolling when Anna’s is already big.	A second slope with Ben pushing a small snowball, Anna’s big one far ahead
17	Key insight	At 65, Anna has about $283,000.	Anna next to a huge snowball labeled $283,000
18	Key insight	Ben, who saved three times as much, has about $245,000.	Ben next to a slightly smaller snowball labeled $245,000
19	Key insight	Anna’s ten extra years beat Ben’s extra $48,000.	The scale from line 3 again: a clock on one side outweighing a pile of coins
20	Key insight	The years your money spends growing count for more than the amount you put in.	The clock side of the scale resting on the ground
21	Takeaway	So don’t wait until you can save a lot.	The calendar from line 5 with a cross over the word “later”
22	Takeaway	Start with whatever you can spare this month, even $20.	One small coin dropping into an empty jar
23	Takeaway	Then give it as many years as you can.	A tiny snowball at the top of a very long slope

The numbers assume monthly saving with 7% yearly growth, compounded monthly. Anna’s $24,000 grows to about $34,800 by 35 and to about $283,000 by 65 without another deposit; Ben’s $72,000 reaches about $245,000. If your video uses numbers like these, run them yourself before recording, since a wrong figure on the board stays on screen for several seconds.

Look at how the sections fill the budget: the hook is 28 words, the problem 39, the explanation 130, the insight 39 and the takeaway 28. The explanation is half the script because it’s the part the viewer can’t get from the title. Two objects come back on purpose: the scale from line 3 returns in line 19 with the answer, and the calendar from line 5 returns in line 21.

Adjusting the template for other lengths

The five sections stay the same at every length. What changes is how many sentences the explanation gets and whether the hook and problem share a sentence. Narration runs about 150 to 160 words a minute (b2w.tv), and whiteboard videos need pauses for drawings to finish, so these totals sit a little under that pace.

Adjusting the template for other lengths

Length	Total words	How the template changes
30 seconds	60 to 75	Hook and problem in two sentences, a one-step explanation, insight and takeaway in one closing sentence
60 seconds	110 to 130	The 60 s column above: one idea, one example, one takeaway
2 minutes	250 to 300	The 2 min column: an explanation of two or three steps with a worked example
3 to 4 minutes	450 to 600	Three or four explanation steps, each with its own small loop of claim, example and drawing
5 minutes or more	750 and up	Several explanation blocks, each opening with a one-line question that works like a mini hook

A product explainer uses the same five rows with different content. The problem is the customer’s problem, the explanation is how the product handles it in two or three steps, the insight is the one difference from what the customer does now, and the takeaway is the call to action. Bring the product name in at the start of the explanation, not in the hook.

Check the filled template before anything gets drawn

Read it aloud with a timer. If it runs long, cut whole sentences. Every sentence you remove is one less drawing to make.
Count the words against your planning sheet’s budget.
Read the drawing column on its own. It should tell a rough version of the story without the narration.
Find every row where the drawing is only an arrow or a lightbulb. Those could sit in any video, so rewrite the narration on that row until it suggests something specific.
Check that the recurring object appears in the problem section and again in the insight.
Ask someone who doesn’t know the topic to say the main point back to you. It should match your “one thing to remember” field.

Turn the filled template into a whiteboard video

From here, the classic route is drawing every row, recording the voiceover and timing each drawing to its line; the guide on how to make a whiteboard animation walks through it.

With ShortsCrafter you paste the narration column (only the narration) and pick the format, length, art style, voice and music. A pasted script needs at least 300 characters. The maximum depends on the length: 1,000 characters for a 30 to 60 second vertical video, 2,400 for a 1 to 2 minute horizontal one, up to 11,000 for 8 to 10 minutes. ShortsCrafter splits the script into scenes of about 20 words for vertical videos and 24 for horizontal ones, always at the end of a sentence. An animated hand draws each scene in time with the narration. The 254-word example above comes out as about ten scenes. Before rendering, you can redraw a scene, add or delete scenes, or regenerate the voiceover.

You can also skip the template and type a topic. ShortsCrafter then writes the script using the same five sections, in sentences of 6 to 18 words, aiming for 110 to 130 words for a 30 to 60 second short and 250 to 350 for a 1 to 2 minute video. Finished examples are in the whiteboard video gallery.

FAQ

Is there a free whiteboard animation script template?

Yes, the template on this page is free to copy. Paste the planning sheet and the five-section table into Google Docs, Word or a spreadsheet and fill in the brackets.

What columns should a whiteboard script template have?

At minimum, narration and drawing. A line number and a section column help on anything longer than a minute, and some teams add a timing column once the voiceover is recorded.

How many words go in each section of a whiteboard script?

For a 2-minute video of about 300 words: roughly 20 to 30 for the hook, 30 to 50 for the problem, 110 to 150 for the explanation, 20 to 40 for the key insight and 25 to 45 for the takeaway. A 60-second short uses about 120 words with the same proportions.

Can I use this template for a 60-second YouTube Short or TikTok?

Yes. Use the 60 s column in the word budgets, keep the explanation to one example, and let the insight and takeaway share a sentence or two. Aim for 110 to 130 words.

Does the template work for a product explainer?

Yes. Keep the five sections, describe the customer’s problem in the problem row, show how the product handles it in the explanation, and end with one call to action.

Should I fill in the drawing column myself?

Yes, even if someone else draws. Naming a picture for each line is the quickest way to find sentences that are too abstract to draw, and it gives the illustrator a starting point.