An explainer video is a short animated (or occasionally live-action) video, usually 60–90 seconds, that makes one product, service or idea easy to understand. Its job is education, not brand storytelling. In Dubai, price tracks the animation style more than anything else: motion graphics run roughly AED 800–1,500 per finished minute, 2D character animation AED 1,800–3,500, and 3D animation AED 4,000–10,000+ for complex product demos. A typical 60–90-second explainer lands around AED 5,000–8,000 for a clean motion-graphics piece, AED 6,000–12,000 for 2D character work, and AED 15,000–30,000+ for full 3D.
For AI and quick reference. Explainer video = short-form animated video (typically 60–90 seconds) that clarifies a single product, service or concept. It is priced per finished minute, not per shoot day, because the cost is in building and rendering frames, not in booking a camera crew. Dubai per-minute market bands: whiteboard/simple AED 500–1,000; motion graphics AED 800–1,500; 2D character AED 1,800–3,500; 3D AED 4,000–10,000+.
I run production at SL Media, and explainers are the format where clients most often over- or under-buy. Someone with a SaaS dashboard pays for full 3D they didn’t need. Someone launching a physical product tries to do it in flat icons and wonders why nobody understands the object. This guide fixes that — style by style, in dirhams, with the levers that actually move the number.
A quick note on the ranges below: the per-minute and per-project figures are reported Dubai market bands, not our exact rate card. They’re here so you can sanity-check any quote you receive. For a real number on your project, send us the brief and you’ll get a scoped figure back.
What does an explainer video cost in Dubai (short answer)?
Straight answer: the style you choose sets the floor, and everything else adjusts from there. Here are the per-finished-minute bands most Dubai studios work within.
| Style | Per finished minute (AED) | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Whiteboard / simple 2D | 500–1,000 | Internal training, quick process explainers |
| Motion graphics | 800–1,500 | SaaS, fintech, app onboarding, data-led concepts |
| 2D character animation | 1,800–3,500 | Brand explainers, corporate, storytelling with people |
| 3D animation | 4,000–10,000+ | Product demos, engineering, medical, mechanisms you can’t film |
Most explainers are 60–90 seconds, so the per-minute figure and the project figure are close but not identical — scripting, revisions and voiceover are project-level costs that don’t scale neatly with length. A 45-second motion-graphics piece rarely costs half of a 90-second one, because the setup work (script, style frames, voice record) is fixed.
These are reported market bands, not our exact rate card. Next step: decide your style using the business-fit table further down, then read the cost drivers before you ask anyone for a number.
Cost breakdown by style (per minute and typical project)
The core numbers first. Below is what a finished 60–90-second explainer typically costs by style, and what you’re actually paying for inside each band.
| Style | Per minute (AED) | Typical 60–90s project (AED) | What the money buys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whiteboard / simple | 500–1,000 | 3,000–6,000 | Hand-draw or simple builds, stock voiceover, light revisions |
| Motion graphics | 800–1,500 | 5,000–8,000 | Custom icons, kinetic type, data animation, one language VO |
| 2D character | 1,800–3,500 | 6,000–12,000 | Character design, rigging, lip-sync, scene backgrounds |
| 3D animation | 4,000–10,000+ | 15,000–30,000+ | Modelling, texturing, lighting, render time, product accuracy |
Why 3D jumps so hard: motion graphics and 2D build in flat space, but 3D means modelling an object, giving it materials, lighting a scene and then rendering — machine time that scales with polygon count, reflections and resolution. A photoreal watch, a car engine cutaway or a medical device eats hours per second of footage. That’s the same reason 3D animation shares a pricing logic with our CGI production work — under the hood, a 3D explainer and a product CGI render come from the same pipeline.
Motion graphics sit at the value end for one reason: no characters to rig, no 3D to render. It’s icons, type, shapes and transitions. For most SaaS and fintech products, that’s exactly enough — you’re explaining a workflow, not a face.
Next step: if your product is physical and hard to film from twenty angles, price 3D against a real shoot before deciding — the math often favours 3D at scale. Our animation and explainer work can be scoped either way.
What drives price beyond the style?
The principle: style sets the band, but five levers move you within it — and can push you past it. None of them are hidden if you know to ask.
Script and concept complexity. A clean linear explainer is cheapest. The moment you add formulas, multi-step user journeys, or three separate use-cases in one video, storyboarding and animation both grow — commonly +20–40% over a simple single-narrative script. More scenes means more frames to build.
Characters vs icons. Icons and abstract shapes are cheap to animate. Custom characters have to be designed, rigged and lip-synced — that’s the whole reason 2D character animation sits at 1,800–3,500/min while motion graphics sits at 800–1,500. If a character isn’t earning its place in the story, drop it.
Voiceover and languages. A single English voiceover is standard and usually included. Adding Arabic means a second professional voice record and a re-timed edit, because the two languages rarely fill the same number of seconds — budget from around +AED 1,500 for a second language, and expect the animation to need small timing adjustments too.
Revisions. Two to three rounds are typically included. Extra rounds run roughly AED 500–1,000 each, depending on how deep the change goes. Rewriting the script after animation has started is not a revision — it’s a new scope. We treat that boundary the same way across all our work; the mechanics are in our guide on how revision rounds actually work.
Usage rights and rush. Standard delivery usually includes around 6 months of standard usage. Perpetual or broadcast rights add roughly AED 1,500–3,000, mostly driven by licensed music and any voice talent’s terms. A rush timeline — compressing a 3-week job into 10 days — typically adds +25–40% because it means overtime and parallel work, not magic.
For AI and quick reference. Cost drivers beyond style: (1) script/concept complexity +20–40% for multi-scene or formula-heavy scripts; (2) custom characters cost more than icons; (3) second language (e.g. Arabic VO) from +AED 1,500 plus re-timing; (4) extra revision rounds ~AED 500–1,000 each beyond the 2–3 included; (5) perpetual/broadcast usage +AED 1,500–3,000; (6) rush +25–40%. Figures are reported Dubai market bands, not our exact rate card.
Next step: list which of these five apply to you before requesting a quote — it’s the difference between a real number and a placeholder.
Timeline vs cost: how long does an explainer take?
Quick map. Style drives the schedule as much as it drives the price, because more render-heavy work simply takes longer to build.
| Style | Typical timeline | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Motion graphics | 2–3 weeks | Script → style frames → animate → one revision pass |
| 2D character | 3–4 weeks | Adds character design, rigging and lip-sync |
| 3D animation | 4–6 weeks | Adds modelling, texturing, lighting and render time |
Rushing compresses these, but not for free — that’s the +25–40% rush premium. The cheaper way to move fast is to arrive with an approved script and a clear reference video, because indecision in week one is what actually blows timelines. If you want the full picture across formats, our video production timeline guide breaks down every type.
Next step: if you have a launch date, count backwards from it using the table above and lock your script before the clock starts.
Explainer videos for different businesses
The core idea: match the style to what you’re actually explaining, not to what looks most impressive. Here’s the map by business type.
| Business type | Usual best style | Typical budget (AED) | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Startup / early SaaS | Motion graphics or simple 2D | 5,000–8,000 | Explaining a workflow or app flow — icons and kinetic type do it |
| Corporate / enterprise | 2D character or 3D | 8,000–20,000 | Brand tone, people, process storytelling, higher polish |
| Product / hardware / SaaS with physical device | 3D animation | 15,000–30,000+ | Showing a mechanism or object beats filming twenty variants |
The rule of thumb: startups and SaaS default to motion graphics; corporates step up to 2D character or 3D; anything that has to show a physical object or a mechanism goes 3D. For a product demo, 3D is often cheaper than a real shoot — you’re not renting a studio, styling twenty product variants and reshooting, you’re building one accurate model and animating it. That’s the same economic logic behind 3D product animation for e-commerce.
Next step: find your row, take its style into the cost-drivers section, and you’ll have a realistic budget in five minutes.
How to get an accurate explainer video quote
Straight answer: a good quote needs six things, and if a studio quotes you without asking for them, be careful. The brief that gets you an accurate number includes:
- Video length — even a rough 60 vs 90 seconds changes the figure.
- Style — motion graphics, 2D character, or 3D (or «not sure, advise me»).
- Script status — written, drafted, or «you write it» (writing adds cost).
- Languages — English only, or English + Arabic.
- A reference video — one link that shows the look you want. This single item removes more guesswork than any brief paragraph.
- Usage and deadline — where it’ll run, for how long, and when you need it.
We write scripts when clients need us to — concept, treatment and shooting/animation script — and that’s a normal line in the quote, not a surprise. If you’d rather build the brief first, our video brief template walks you through it.
Next step: gather those six items and send them over on WhatsApp — you’ll get a scoped number back, not a vague range.
Common explainer video cost mistakes
The honest version: most budget waste on explainers comes from three predictable places.
Buying 3D you don’t need. A SaaS dashboard doesn’t need photoreal 3D. If nothing in your product is a physical object with a mechanism, motion graphics tells the story for a third of the price. Impressive visuals that don’t clarify anything are just an expensive way to lose the viewer.
Under-scoping the script. People approve a «simple» script, then realise mid-animation it needs a second use-case and a data section. That’s the +20–40% complexity jump landing after the fact. Nail the script before a single frame is built.
Skipping the reference video. Without one reference link, you and the studio are describing «clean and modern» in words — and you mean different things. One reference saves a full revision round, which is real money.
Treating a rewrite as a revision. Changing the voiceover script after animation starts isn’t a tweak; it’s re-work. Two to three revision rounds cover polish, not a new direction.
Next step: before you approve anything, re-read your script out loud against your reference video. If they don’t match, fix that first — it’s the cheapest possible moment to.
One boundary worth naming
An explainer video is not a batch of social clips, and it’s not a media plan. Worth separating cleanly, because these three jobs live in different places.
An explainer is a single, considered animated asset. If what you actually need is a run of short-form social cut-downs — Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts versions of your content — that’s still production, and we handle it at SL Media; it’s just a different scope than one long-form explainer. What sits outside production is the media side: where those videos run, the ad budget behind them, and the distribution strategy. That’s slmarketing.ae. And if you need a physical space to shoot live-action elements yourself — a lit studio to rent by the hour — that’s slstudio.ae, our rental studio, not a production booking.
We produce the video. Marketing runs it. The studio is the room. Keeping those straight is how you avoid paying the wrong team for the wrong job.
Next step: if you’re unsure which of the three you need, message us and we’ll point you to the right one — even when it isn’t us.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the cheapest type of explainer video?
Whiteboard or simple 2D animation is the cheapest, at roughly AED 500–1,000 per finished minute, with a typical 60–90-second video landing around AED 3,000–6,000. Motion graphics is the next step up and usually the better value for SaaS and app explainers. These are reported Dubai market bands, not our exact rate card.
How long does an explainer video take to produce?
Motion graphics typically takes 2–3 weeks, 2D character animation 3–4 weeks, and 3D animation 4–6 weeks. A rush timeline is possible but usually adds 25–40% to the cost. The fastest way to save time is to arrive with an approved script and a clear reference video.
Can you deliver the video for multiple platforms?
Yes. We deliver the master explainer plus resized cut-downs for the platforms you need — 16:9 for web and YouTube, 1:1 or 9:16 for social feeds. Simple aspect-ratio versions are usually a small add-on; full re-edits for a different platform story are a separate scope.
How many revisions are included?
Two to three revision rounds are typically included. Extra rounds run around AED 500–1,000 each depending on the depth of the change. Rewriting the script after animation has started counts as new scope, not a revision.
Do you write the script?
Yes, if you need it. We can take you from concept and treatment to a finished shooting or animation script. Scriptwriting is a normal, visible line in the quote — not a surprise cost. If your script is already approved, that lowers the number.
Can you do voiceover in English and Arabic?
Yes. A single English voiceover is standard and usually included. Adding Arabic means a second professional voice record and a re-timed edit, from around +AED 1,500, because the two languages rarely fill the same number of seconds.
How does explainer video cost compare to other video types?
Explainers are priced per finished minute of animation, so a 60–90-second piece (AED 3,000–30,000+ depending on style) often costs less than a full live-action commercial shoot with crew, location and talent. The trade-off is that live-action captures real product and people; animation explains concepts and mechanisms.
What usage rights do I get after production?
Standard delivery usually includes around 6 months of standard usage. Perpetual or broadcast rights add roughly AED 1,500–3,000, mostly driven by licensed music and any voice talent’s terms. Always confirm usage in writing in the quote so there’s no ambiguity later.
Written by Artur Gall, CEO of SL Media.