Again this is down to time, in general, the more time your animator spends, the better the quality of the final piece.
A cheaper (quicker to produce) animation will generally be flat and move less, and there will be fewer scenes. And elements within scenes or whole scenes will be reused.
A low budget animation will also have very basic transitions from scene to scene (one thing exits, and another enters). High-quality animations tend to have more thought out transitions so that the video flows more seamlessly.
Reusing of assets, fewer scenes and fewer elements on screen at one time all saves time, and it may get the job done, but it won’t be exciting, it’s less relevant, and it’ll be less stimulating.
So there is a balance to be struck. Most animation studios will be able to show or demonstrate a few levels of animation quality so that you can see the difference for yourself.
The cheaper sites offer template style make your own video, so you pick from some (often poorly) pre-designed and and pre-animated elements that you can pop together into a story.
It’s cheap, but of course, it’s massively limited and who knows how many other people are using the same elements in their video?
It’s also unlikely to fit with your brand very closely.
And of course some lower-end studios will be using templates in their work without telling you.
You can see a lot of the cost comes down to custom assets, length of video and time taken. So, in general, a higher cost animation is simply a higher quality product. Hopefully, this helps for next time you need an animated video for your business, and you can see what you’re paying for clearly.
To see a range of animated explainer video styles head to our portfolio, or to read more about what we do and what goes into our work, see the animated video production page and if you have an idea you want to chat about, contact us!