How Much does Animation Cost?
I just simply don’t know what it is about art that makes people think it’s so easy to do. Why do people think animation is cheap to produce? Is it the fact that we can all pick up a pencil? We all have ideas? We’ve seen so much of it we think we know what stuff should look like?
I don’t know… but I will tell you the average client puts no value on artwork.
None.
They can’t at the prices they expect artists to work for them.
I have had people ask me for an entire 22 minute television show and want to pay me $100 to make it. No I’m not kidding. That would take me a year to do by the way. I have had people want me to draw 300 panels of art for their children’s book for $300. That’s a dollar a drawing. I have had people want me to produce a full color 22 minute storyboard for less than $250 bucks.
I have also had people call me up and berate me when I won’t do work for these insane prices.
It takes the average artist about 2 hours to rough out a drawing of a cartoon character, and another 2 hours to color it and finesse it. Never mind the twenty notes the said client will give you wanting the art changed for no other reason than to be a part of the process.
There are 24 animation drawings per second of film. times that by 60 and you get 1,440. That’s how many drawings per minute it takes to produce animation. times that by 22 ( the average half hour show length) and you get over 30,000 drawings.
Think how long it takes you to draw just one drawing and you get a pretty good idea why animation is expensive.
To do a half hour of animation takes about 3 months with a crew of 15 and yet I have had people want that to be done for a few thousand bucks. Even less! So I should pay my people $1.50 an hour to complete their show? That’s not even legal in the U.S.!
It’s really ridiculous and highly insulting to think that what artists do is so easy that it can be done for nothing. That there’s no value to it whatsoever. That it’s so easy to do that it shouldn’t cost more than $20 to draw a portrait of their dead dog or daughter or wife.
It’s even funnier to think that they hope to make millions on their big idea if only they can get it made first. They want to gamble on their concept but don’t believe in it enough to pay decently for it.
Go figure.
A half hour animated television show costs anywhere between 150k to 600k depending on what show it is.
That’s just animation not designing it, storyboarding it and coloring it.
Just animation.
And when you approach a small studio that doesn’t have dozens of people working for them the price may go down but it’s still expensive.
For the record, unless you’re getting someone right out of school that’s desperate to get work on their reel a seven minute cartoon will cost anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000 depending on the level of detail.
Perhaps you can find someone who will do it for less but I would worry about what it looks like at the end.
Another thing to think about is content. If you have a ninja show and there is lots of fighting then it’s going to be expensive. there’s just no way around it because it takes time to pose the characters and get a sense of realism there. Similarly if you have a show with music, dancing, or any sort of choreography it’s going to be expensive. there’s research involved in the dance moves, and quick cutting makes for more scenes, more characters, more costume changes and more settings to design.
People talking and occasionally gesturing? Really easy! Great idea! That’s not so expensive.
But if your concept happens during the Boston marathon, someone has to DRAW all those people that run behind them and that takes time.
It’s going to be expensive.
Also another thing to consider is what your character looks like. If you want Pokemon style animation with no movement except jittery eyes, flapping mouths and sliding characters, that’s not so expensive, but if you’re thinking you should get Disney quality then consider that Beauty and the Beast cost millions to make.
Lastly you may have heard that Flash is cheaper than drawing on paer and it can be but it still takes time to do.
The design of the animation needs to change according ly. Look at the difference between Bugs Bunny and The Flintstones and you’ll se the animation is of different qualities. the Flintstones makes a good example of something that would work well in Flash animation, Bugs Bunny makes a poor example.
Why do I write this you say? Am I biting the hand that feeds me? No I don’t think so in this case because I physically can’t work for those rates anyway so I can’t do business with someone like that.
My hope is that people might find this on the web and realize that animation doesn’t cost a dime to do, it takes time to do just as building a house would take time. It’s NOT cheap just because it’s for kids and there is no friggin’ ANIMATE button on the computer that will spit out an entire episode of Fuzzy Lummox for you instantly and in color.
Respect the Pencil People!
:-)
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I love you! Brilliantly said! We’ve all had crazy people ask for crazy things and got shit on for not accepting…
Thanks! Shared.
Hi Mike!
I also do animation, mostly Flash and After Effects, but I have experienced similar frustrating moments as the ones that you describe here. I got to the conclusion that sometimes people think that because we enjoy what we do is not worth so much money.
I am so glad to have found this post so I can show people the complexity of animation explained by a professional. Basically, animation is time and time is money, period!
I love it when people say: “I want something done “Disney” or “Pixar” style and I can pay you 100$”. I guess ignorance is a bliss to the client and a curse to the artist!
Cheers!
Thank you for this. Very good stuff. How many times I have to fight with clients before I find I should have just brushed them off. I’ll just be sending them a link to this from now on.
I like this a lot, as I was bursting with pride as I read through its heart felt facts and truths…
also, I would like to write a letter to the world: Dear World, ART IS NOT CHEAP~!! Yours truly, the-guy-that-doodles~
This is really an excellent post Mike, and an extremely valuable one to have on the net, so many thanks for that.
I think one of the reasons that some people think its quick and easy- is that well done , well timed animation like any great skill,looks effortless. Its that fluidity and believability [& I dont mean realism] of line, movement, edit, character developement etc that comes together in a cohesive whole-that seems simple and is in fact an absolute tsunami of endless time consuming details-
That one little segment that lasts maybe a couple of seconds on screen, of a character making a certain gesture or unfamiliar movement, that takes days to get just right, and would be jarring and unconvincing without that exquisite attention to detail.
Being an animator encompasses so many skills –
Draughtmanship obviously, precise timing, a thorough understanding of anatomy and movement, visual design -a strong sense of rhythm -so much of animation is about rhythm.
An ability to compose-what goes where on the screen -how does one character get from a to b-and interact with another -each movement in animation is a potential problem waiting to be solved with innovative thinking.
And then of course if you make your own films/music videos -you need to write a narrative, create characters, backgrounds,storyboards, design the look of the thing-thus you must experiment with styles, ideas, mediums to work in-paint on glass, sand, hand drawn, cut out, stop motion and all its techniques etc etc-And then the literal doing of it-The complex and time consuming software you need to learn, the literally 1000s of drawings, colouring, scanning,clean up,compositing,special fx, editing -and dont forget the constant upgrading of ones skills.
And animators have to be actors-they need to imbue the characters they create with meaning and life.
I genuinely would be hard pressed to think of any job that calls on more skills than animation can.
Everything that a live action film contains is literally created out of thin air in animation.
And yes -Maysun- those who want you to do it for the ‘publicity’! – so true, it rarely pans out how you would hope – and sometimes its done in all innocence and sometimes its intentionally manipulative and exploitative.
The intense,focused and frequently solitary act of realising whole worlds of imagination,often leaves animators little energy for self promotion and the distance needed to evaluate quite how extraordinary their achievement is, in terms of creativity, technical skills and sheer hard yakka.
At its best, uniting the arts of painting/ drawing/sculpture,narration, sound,music, movement and symbolic meaning, animation in my opinion is potentially the greatest and most complete artform.
I love your Blog Mike…
You are so right. Artist, especially true artist need to be respected just like you respect a surgeon, but even more. True artist use their God given talent to produce.
When people tell me that they can do it themselves, or they can get the same quality of work else where, at a very low price, then I always tell them to do so. For I do not want them as my customers with their disrespectful low price nonsense.
I made this mistake one time and did an animation for a person for only $200. This was an introduction to her TV Show. She loved what I did, paid. Then she kept trying to come back requesting modifications after she approved of the original. When I told her that I would have to charge her extra, she flipped on me saying, “your only about money” and hung up on me…
The lesson to this story is that you should never put all of your time and head ache into a person who does not want to pay, or can not pay. 98% of people did not appreciate it when I did.
Now I run my business only dealing with people who pay my prices up front before they get the finish product, for my prices are not low, but they are reasonable, and competitive with the quality of work I provide. I rather have 5 people who pay me $15,000 or more each (which is still very low), then to have 50 people who only pay me $200, give me a lot of head aches, take up a lot of my time, miss use my talents, and I only made $10,000 for it.
Does anyone can help me to find out the selling price of animated series per episode world wide? My company so far has been producing animation for retail and we are in progress to produce TV series sell worldwide. The producing cost stated on above discussion is very important here so I do need the price of per episode sold on TV. Thank you very much.
Well said, Mike.
Thanks Kirk!
Yes of course.
Sorry, I just got this… There are no real ‘figures’ on making an animated series because honestly it all comes down to what someone is willing to work for.
Wow! I had no idea there were so many responses as I abandoned this blog a few years ago for Facebook which actually seemed to get responses from my posts. Anyway, I’m glad there are others out there who agree with me!
Thank you so much for posting this… you forgot to mention the cost of the equipment and art supplies, but it doesn’t stop there… the maintenance and upgrades of the equipment software, hardware, etc…. then if you are injured or have wrist or arm pain, you are expected to throw out your non-ergonomic equipment and come up with the money to buy supposedly ergonomic equipment such as voice recognition, adjustable workstations, etc.
“My hope is that people might find this on the web and realize that animation doesn’t cost a dime to do”
Thanks. I did find it on the web by searching Google and you answered the question in my mind honestly and sincerely, which is exactly what I was looking for…tbh an all too infrequent experience on the web.
Thank you.
thanks this was very nice to read as Im about to finish college soon and I was wondering about the rates and such. Im currently working on a 2d animation because its my dream to make an animation all they offered at my school was 3d modeling and 3d animation I can do those but i wanted to venture into this myself and hell practically taught myself how to do it i dint realize there would be so many drawings to make up a second so may things I wished I learned but thank you for this post you’ve raised my expectations good sir
Hi, thank you for this post. I really reassures me. Fresh out of college with an animation degree, I just set up my first animation freelance gig. The customer asked for a fixed-fee to do the project and I gave it to them. They were completely surprised at the price I gave them and said that they had budgeted to pay me LESS THEN HALF of what I was asking for. Because this is my first time doing something like this, I was really second guessing myself about the price I was asking for. I had done my research to find out what other freelancers usually charge, calculated out the drawing time it would take me personally for each frame and I had come to a (what I thought) was a very low final price. I knew I had to keep my price low because I’m not a pro yet…but still, I was very worried when I hear how much them actually wanted to pay me.
Hi Mike!,
can i share this on my Facebook?
I need to get the people in my country to understand this,
Thank you.
Mike, totally agree with all you said and I’ve been doing this stuff for (gulp) 30 years now. Anisha brings up an issue that I think is behind the totally unrealistic expectations in the marketplace these days. Flash and After Effect allow for fast & simple motion graphics and young animators love those programs and put themselves in business competing for any animation gig that comes along at rates of $50-300 per minute. When a client gets a bid at that rate and another at $3-5000 for true animation (like cell or even computer drawn cell forms), they get a completely whacked out perspective of what it takes and have no idea of the limited nature of Flash.
The danger is that soon there will be no more animation EXCEPT what is done in Flash and After Effects simply because most clients can’t understand the massive differences in what’s possible and the price differential is so great that real animators are being driven out of business (especially true outside of LA and NYC) simply because it’s impossible to compete price wise. Clients can’t fathom the process, nor do they care once they compare bids – until they get a job that totally fails to meet their expectation. In recent years since Flash has come on the market and is being taught in colleges across the country, I’ve seen my animation business plummet to about 5% of what it was just 7 or 8 years ago. To a business, animation is animation and a $100 per minute bids wins every time against any bid that represents any of the more traditional or higher end CGI forms.
I could I guess get a copy of Flash and compete pretty effectively against those who only do that type motion graphics but frankly, I’d rather not lower my standards and start doing work that is even in the hands of a master crappy and terribly limited at best. It’s like taking a classically concert pianist and wanting them to do a piano concerto on a 32 key toy Casio keyboard.
We’re rapidly coming to a time where the only places real animation will be done is at Disney, Pixar and in the game industry. The rest will all be Flashcrap and the TV industry will simply shift all of the rest to India and Korea and China because the skills necessary and the talented people who can do real animation will die off or go out of business.
[...] If you want some 3D animation resembling Avatar, Shrek or any Pixar film, be prepared to pay a lot. If your animation involves lots of character animation and movement, again this has a cost.The animator Mike Milo explains the reasons for the varying cost of animation styles in his blog. [...]
Really interesting write up and to the point. Yes, I agree completely and the ignorance is not limited to a geography, I run an animation company in India and am surprised when everyone thinks it is cheap. We will definitely use your blog to educate people on the reality of what animation is and the detailed effort and pain that goes behind any animated video.
I am not a full quality Artist but I do understand your message. How people thinks drawling is easy until they put there ideas on there paper and complain that it was not something they planned. I do not fully plan to go into animation and to be honest I have no idea if I will but if I do then I would be happy either way but I at least want to be good to make a as people would call a Manga. (Or in another terms a Comic Book.) and I am working hard in art work waiting for the moment I can make one. But I fully agree with this message and I hate seeing people take things as something even a pre-school kid can do. I believe in this,
“Anyone can do anything without practice but it takes a true heart to be a pro at it.”
(To those who do not understand.) It means that I will go with Art because that is what this is talking about. Anyone can drawl something like a Stick Person. But unless they really put there effort into it then they will never be any better then that. And that is what a true artist do putting in the hard effort no matter what.
I think that some clients have very little concept of how much time and expense is involved in making animation. I’m a stop-motion animator and am approached by people who have budgets that wouldn’t even cover the cost of building the set. It hurts a bit that our skills seem to be so undervalued but I mostly put it down to clients having no understanding of what is involved in the animation process.
Wow. Thank you for this — I can match you horror story for horror story about what people think your time and talent are worth – LOL… Thank you for this, YOURS was the pop-up during my Google search that gave it to me straight and answered exactly my question in a way that felt like we were chatting over coffee in some downtown watering hole and I was picking your brain ….. thanks again.
That’s exactly why I posted it too! So people would search and find it and educate themselves on it all. Seems to have worked! On a side note, I run another website called and if you’re in the animation business you might like it. We interview one animation artist per day. Check it out!
Hello Mike, I understand your grievances. I am no animator, but I am interested in doing a pilot episode or two for a T.V. show I have in my mind somewhere down the line. I definitely did not expect it to be cheap, because not only do you have to pay people for their time, but for their effort as well, and there sure as hell is a lot of that in animation.
I would like to ask you a question about certain techniques used in drawn animation to reduce budget costs if you know anything about that. I understand that Dragon Ball Z used to do it where they would use only two or three mouth flaps, and sometimes they would pan a scene to give a feeling of motion without actually drawing much of anything. Any response would be appreciated.
Very nice post, it’s exactly the same with webdesign. 1/3 of the persons who contact us think that everything can be done for less then 500$. Complet custom website design and e-commerce solution is not the same as template sold 10 times per month!
Thanks so much for your article. I searched everywhere a couple years ago to make sure I understood a fair estimate for what a project would be worth. However, may I ask you one more question? I am a small business owner and I was looking to hire an animation studio to do a promo for me. The budget looks alright, but I would like to ask a question about the location of the studio. It is rather far from where my business is, and I was wondering if it was common or required that one travel to the studio where the animation will take place and stay there during the process, or is it common these days for such transactions to be done online?
Thank you for your time. I greatly appreciate it.
Sorry it’s taken me so long to answer this question. I have a feeling it’s a moot point at this stage so I won’t waste my energy answering it. If you still need it answered feel free to let me know.