Guides / How long an explainer video takes
How long a SaaS explainer video takes
Most delay in explainer production is not animation time. It is waiting for approvals. Here is the real schedule and where it slips.
The short answer
Twenty working days from kickoff to final delivery, which is about four calendar weeks.
Kickoff starts on the later of two things: cleared deposit, and a completed onboarding form with product access. Approval latency is the only thing that reliably moves the date.
The twenty-day build
| Working days | Stage | What is happening |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Onboarding | Form returned with product access and brand assets |
| Days 2–5 | Script and storyboard | Written, reviewed, approved. Nothing animates before this |
| Days 6–15 | Design and animation | The build. The longest single block |
| Days 16–20 | Delivery | Sound, masters, captions, source files |
Where projects actually slip
Not in animation. Animation is the most predictable part of the process, because by the time it starts every decision has already been made.
Projects slip at the two approval gates. A storyboard sent on a Friday and approved the following Thursday has cost six days that no amount of production speed recovers. This is why the schedule should state explicitly what happens when an approval is slow: at Aurevon, if an approval takes more than three working days, the delivery date moves by the same number of days, and that is written into the agreement rather than negotiated afterwards.
How to actually go faster
- Name one approver before you start. Approval by committee is the single largest source of delay in short-form video. One person with authority, named in the agreement.
- Send product access on day one. If the film uses real UI, no design work can begin without it.
- Do the arguing at script stage. Changes are nearly free before animation and expensive after. A script rewrite costs hours; the same change after the build costs days.
- Do not wait for the product to be finished. Films are regularly built against a staging environment or a design file.
Why twenty days and not five
Turnarounds under a week exist, and they are almost always template work: your logo and copy dropped into a pre-built animation sold to many companies. That can be the right purchase. It is a different product from a film built around your actual interface, and it is worth knowing which one you are buying.
Questions people ask
Can it be done faster than twenty days?
Sometimes, by cutting scope rather than by working faster. A shorter runtime with fewer scenes genuinely compresses the schedule. Compressing the approval gates does not, it just moves the risk.
What happens if we are slow to approve?
The delivery date moves by the same number of days. That rule is written into the agreement, so neither side is negotiating about it mid-project.
When does the clock start?
On the later of cleared deposit and a completed onboarding form with product access. Not at signature.
How much of our time does it take?
About two hours in total: an onboarding form and two written sign-offs, one on the script and one on the storyboard. There is no kickoff call.