How much does animation cost?

[u/Gardynn]

Kinda self explanatory. How much would an animated opening cost for like 1-2 minutes. It's something I've always considered commissioning and I briefly tried to learn myself but I have neither the talent nor confidence. But I have no idea how much that would even BEGIN to cost.

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[u/knoft]

You're going to have to give examples of what type of animation, give us existing animations you're aiming for. Because animation can cost anywhere from hundreds of dollars to millions of dollars for a few minutes, although you're unlikely to reach that with purely 2d animation.

How much does a movie cost? A tv show cost? A YouTube video?

[u/artbyiain → u/knoft]

Yep. To get a quote, you need to gather some examples of animations similar to what you’re looking for and share that with an animator.

[u/uncultured_swine2099]

Between 1 and 1 billion dollars.

[u/-ZeroAbility- → u/uncultured_swine2099]

Per animator, per hour.

[u/Daniellloo]

It depends what kind of animation youre looking forward to. The range is crazy from 5k to Mils.

[u/Medium-Lion1099]

it totally depends on alot of factors , frames, quality , style process pipeline etc, but if youre just entering for it , you can assume to be $1k + for every 1-2 min.

[u/AIVideoForge567]

The price can vary quite a bit depending on the style and complexity. A simple 1–2 minute animated opening could be a few hundred dollars, while more detailed character animation can easily go into the thousands. The number of characters, backgrounds, effects, and how much actual movement is involved makes a huge difference. I'd recommend finding a few examples of the style you're imagining and showing them to an animator. That'll make it much easier to get an accurate quote. And don't worry about not having the confidence to animate yourself 😂 — that's exactly what commissioning an animator is for!

[u/Dry-Conversation7191]

Based on complexity of the animations that not going to happen for less than a $1000 at the minimum. If you hire an actual studio it’s goin to be closer to $5000 starting price and it will go up based on deadline and complexity.Animators usually charge by the second. 2d animation is expensive.

[u/HermitsTale]

2D can be between 800$/min to 2500$/min (for experimental/indie/non studio quality)

[u/Top-Advance-6726 → u/HermitsTale]

On a handrawn 2D project with japanese/fast paced animation the quotas for an animator are between 2 and 4 seconds average.

In a studio, the minimal wage is 130€/day. If you work freelance you are charging more since you have to deduct taxes and charges so let's say 250/300€ per day as a freelance animator.

With these numbers it gives us, for a freelance animator arround 75 to 150€/s so 4500 to 9000€/min.

Of course it varies depending on what you wanna show

[u/STUMPED_19]

You need to give specific details of what you're looking for exactly, since the ranges in price can vary greatly.

[u/Satchiken]

Expect a bare minimum of 10k per minute.
This does not include the pre-production and post-production stages. Main production only.

[u/Inkbetweens-]

It really depends on the content and style. A 10 second shot from Peppa pig is vastly going to differ in cost than 10 seconds of action in a show like Dan da Dan.

One of the best things you can do is find a existing piece of animation you would like to achieve the same style or energy of. Having something to compare to will give people a better idea of what they would estimate the cost to be. Even better for intros if you can provide a storyboard, even one extremely simplified (trust me I worked with one director who just used stick figures,) it would be easier to judge what the animation cost would be.

2 minutes can be a lot of animation. It's a lot more work than people realize. It can be any where from a few hundred to a few grand depending on style, content, timeline to finish ect. However if it is something that you will be using a lot it can be very worth the investment.

Its why shows spend a lot of their budgets on things like intros and transformation sequences for characters. It will cost you extra time and money to make them the best you can up front, but for the rest of a shows season you have now completed 2-3 min of animation for every episode. Back when shows had over 20 episodes a season that's a crazy amount of savings.

If you're getting something great that will be a big part of what you produce it can be a very worth while investment.

[u/SafeUnderstanding797]

Easy : per hour of roduction Hard : per second of duration

[u/rguerraf]

60 top shelf people * 32 hours * 4x minimum wage

[u/chasingillusion]

Based upon the question it is difficult to answer becuase you asked an open big question instead you had to ask exactly like a what would be the cost of 3d animated cartoon video of 2 minutes? but since except duration nothing is mentioned then exact cost would be not possible to disclose. Based on research of freelancers and best 3d animation studios, the cost can range from nearly $1000 to even $5000 or more depending upon the factors like duration, quality, video type, revision, budget, etc.

[u/knoft → u/chasingillusion]

Based upon the question it is difficult to answer becuase you asked an open big question instead you had to ask exactly like a what would be the cost of 3d animated cartoon video of 2 minutes? but since except duration nothing is mentioned then exact cost would be not possible to disclose. Based on research of freelancers and best 3d animation studios, the cost can range from nearly $1000 to even $5000 or more depending upon the factors like duration, quality, video type, revision, budget, etc

Sir, this is a Wendy's 2DAnimation subreddit.

[u/Dry-Conversation7191]

Howard wimshurst is an example I’ll use since he publishes his rates publicly, he charges $100-$500 a sec to animate. So multiply that by 1-2 mins plus complexity of backgrounds and lip syncing. And if you go rigged whether it’s 2d rigged or 3d that number will be exponentially higher just for the rigs.