Ask five studios for a price on "a 60-second explainer" and you will get five very different numbers. That isn't because some are honest and some aren't. They are quoting different films. Once you know what drives the cost, the quotes start to make sense, and you can decide which parts you really need.
What companies reported spending
There is no reliable public price list for video, so we won't invent a market average. What we do have is what companies reported:
- Wistia's State of Video Report 2026 found that almost 40% of companies spent under $5,000 producing videos in 2025, and just over 30% spent more than $5,000. The rest had no separate video budget. Note that this is the total spent on video production over a year, not the price of one film.
- In Wyzowl's State of Video Marketing 2026, 24% of marketers who don't use video said it was too expensive, the joint biggest reason alongside "not needed".
- Marketers in the same survey disagreed about where costs are going: 38% said video was getting more expensive, 32% said it cost about the same and 30% said it was getting cheaper.
So cost is a real barrier, and budgets are modest for many teams. The good news is that the most expensive parts of video are often the ones a software company doesn't need.
What you are paying for
Almost every quote is built from the same parts. Each one moves the price.
| Cost driver | Why it moves the price |
|---|---|
| Style | Live action needs a crew, a location, sometimes actors and a shoot day. Animated or screen-based films made from your interface need none of that. In Wyzowl's 2026 survey, 51% of marketers mostly made live action, 23% animated and 19% screen-recorded video. |
| Length | Every second has to be designed, animated and timed. A 60-second film is not twice the work of a 30-second one, but it is a lot more. |
| Number of screens or scenes | Each new screen has to be prepared, cleaned of real data and laid out for motion. |
| Script | Whether the studio writes it, or you bring one. |
| Voiceover | Writing and timing a script to picture, plus the voice itself. A professional voice actor adds a fee of their own. |
| Sound | Licensed music, interface sounds, mixing. Cheap to skip, but it's a big part of what makes a film feel finished. |
| Formats | 16:9 for the website, 9:16 for phones, 1:1 or 4:5 for feeds. Each one has to be laid out again, not just cropped. |
| Revision rounds | How many rounds of changes are included, and what counts as a round. |
| Languages | Each language means new on-screen text, captions and often a new voiceover. |
| Rights | Whether you can use the film everywhere, including paid ads, and for how long. |
Questions to ask before you sign
Most surprises in video budgets come from what the first quote left out. Ask:
- Is the price fixed? Or is it a day rate times an estimate?
- What exactly is included? Length, number of screens, formats, voiceover, captions, music.
- How many revision rounds, and what is a round? One list of changes in one email is a clear definition. "Unlimited" usually has a limit somewhere.
- What do extras cost? An extra format, an extra round, another language, a rush.
- What can I use it for? Website, social media, paid ads, events. And what is the music licence?
- When is it paid? A common split is half when you confirm and half on delivery.
- Do I get the source files? Often they're extra, and you may not need them.
How to keep the cost down without hurting the film
- Decide where it will run first. A homepage loop and a launch film with voiceover are different jobs at different prices.
- Make it shorter. Most product videos work best at 30 to 60 seconds or less anyway. See how long a product video should be.
- Show fewer screens. One job done well beats a tour of every menu.
- Send clean screens. Real screenshots or a test account with sample data save hours of preparation.
- Approve the script before animation. Changing words on paper is cheap. Changing animated scenes is not.
- Collect feedback into one list. Ten emails from five people turn one revision round into three.
- Plan a series. If you'll need a clip every month, a monthly arrangement with a fixed look usually costs less per clip than one-off films.
Fixed price or day rate?
A day rate is fair when the scope is genuinely unknown, like an open-ended campaign. For a defined product video, a fixed price is easier for both sides: you know the cost before you start, and the studio has a reason to keep the process tight. What matters is that the scope behind the fixed price is written down, so both sides know what "included" means.
What this means for you
- Compare quotes line by line: style, length, screens, voiceover, sound, formats, rounds, rights. Different prices usually mean different films.
- For software, a film built from your own interface avoids the most expensive parts of production: the shoot, the crew and the actors.
- Ask for a fixed price with a written scope, and ask what each extra costs before you need it.
- The cheapest film is the one that is short, has one job and gets its feedback in one list.
Before you spend anything, it is worth reading what the studies say about whether product videos increase sales.
Sources
- Wistia (2026). State of Video Report 2026. wistia.com/learn/marketing/video-marketing-statistics
- Wyzowl (2026). State of Video Marketing 2026. wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics