Here are the top 30 explainer video examples along with the key takeaways from each.
Explainer videos mostly fail. However, those that succeed rely on three things. There needs to be a recognizable issue clearly stated within the first 10 seconds of the most explainer videos, the video must visually represent the product’s personality, and the video script must be concise enough to be read aloud in 90 seconds without sounding rushed.
This list was created after reviewing roughly 200 SaaS explainers located on Vimeo, YouTube and customer homepages. The explanations were categorized based on their structural patterns since this is how a PMM team should conceptualize a brief: identify the pattern and then find someone who will create content matching the style. The description directly under each example represents what the editor did to create that particular example, as well as what I would include in a brief for a VidPros client looking for something similar.
What is an explainer video
Great explainer videos are typically 60-90-second. They generally start by describing a problem, introduce a product as the answer to that problem, show how this product solves the problem, and end with one call-to-action. The majority reside in a “hero” section at the top of a website homepage. Many have been edited down for use in paid social media campaigns, included in onboarding processes, or played again and again when making sales calls. Any content over 2 minutes long is not an explainer, but rather likely a brand film, webinar, or feature-specific deep dive using an incorrect label. The Wistia marketing team has developed the common formula for the general structure of all explainers as follows: problem (0-20s), solution & how (20-40s), proof (40-55s), CTA (55-60s). Most examples within this document are formatted according to the Wistia marketing team’s framework regardless of whether it was intentional.
Types of high quality explainer video styles
There are five different types of strong explainer video styles that a SaaS team may reasonably consider. Choose the type based on budget constraints, brand identity, and what the product truly does on-screen.
- Animated 2D – this is the typical choice for product-based explainers. It is relatively inexpensive, highly adaptable, and works well for abstract concepts such as databases and APIs. You cannot film many of these types of concepts.
- Whiteboard – whiteboards are less expensive than other formats and convey an air of intentionality. They are suitable for educational content and unsuitable for premium B2B brands.
- Live action – uses real people. There are some of the best examples on the web of both Asana’s homepage video and GetResponse’s CMO-led explainer video. These types of marketing videos work best when the product benefit is directly related to a human outcome.
- Motion graphic – makes heavy use of motion graphics (dynamic text, icons, and UI animation). Shopify has created the classic version of this type of explainer. Motion graphics are ideal for explaining complex technical topics and how they relate to business applications.
- Hybrid – combines elements from two or more. For example, TurboTax created “Affordable Healthcare Act Explained” where they interwove live-action footage into animated infographics. This type of explainer costs more money and takes longer to produce than others. However, it provides a way to tell stories that no other type can.
A 3D character animation explainer sits inside the animated video explainer category but warrants its own conversation because the timeline for producing a 3D explainer can take 3x as long as other types. We discuss this further in our 3D explainer video breakdown page.
30 best explainer video examples
We outline each video below and what made each one successful.
Problem-solution pattern
1. Mozilla – “Why Mozilla.” The browser is trusted by the consumer so why doesn’t it have the transparency consumers deserve? Open-source is the answer. All of the images are simple line art. Quick note: mirror users’ frustrations from the first 10 seconds on screen and resolve to three identifiable fixes. Source: Column Five’s curated 35.
2. Unbabel – “ai Translations your Business can trust.” States a very specific issue (machine translation will hurt your Business’s image), then provides evidence of the new way (a side-by-side comparison of correct Translations). Quick note: show the wrong translation first.
3. Asana home video explainer. Uses live-action video of groups working through chaos and then into a structured workflow that quiets them down. This does not provide a feature list. Asana has never referred to themselves as a kanban tool. Quick note: film both before and after, without showing one single screen shot of a product demo. Keep the demo for a separate product demo video.
4. Clickup home page explainer. Uses 2D layering to present different issues faced by each type of user (project manager, developer, marketer), but ends up providing a single interface that all users work within. Almost every other company presents the same user in their professional explainer video creation and clickup does three at once while still staying focused.
5. Shopify – “sell online with an ecommerce store.” Presents online retail as accessible to non-tech savvy individuals. Quick note: visual register needs to match consumer confidence levels and not exceed those levels of the products’ ambitions.
6. Reddit mobile launch video. Uses a vector style and applies all the rules of real-motion design. Selected as “a great example of clean vector style, lots of nice motion principles” on r/MotionDesign.
7. Slack – “Work, Simplified.” Visual metaphors that fit the tone of the company. Fast pacing, but since there is always something new visually, it’s acceptable. The budget determines how many times the viewer sees surprise on screen.
8. Dropbox – “What is Dropbox?” Original from 2009. It’s still a top SaaS explainer today because it explained syncing files via cloud services without mentioning either term. A small aside: If your target audience does not know the terms of your category, develop an analogy before assigning a name to your product.
9. HubSpot – “Video Has Changed.” Tight color palette that aligns with the brand identity. Reddit reviewers were drawn to the selection of colors and color palette used in the film (r/motiondesign).
10. Hotjar product overview. Vector graphics, plain UI shots, zero character animation. Cited on r/SaaS listed as “vector graphics and animation in this one.”
11. Twilio API explainer. No faces, no eyes, just abstract characters. Reddit reviewer comments: “There isn’t a single customer character; they’re simply empty heads. You could literally use plain ones very successfully.” (r/saas) Abstract characters age much better than realistic ones do.
12. Maze product video. Relies heavily on animated UI illustration. Editing is based on user interaction rather than narrator timing, allowing for a large feature list to appear to be a narrative.
13. Deepgram explainer. Audio API demonstrated using motion graphics reacting to audio. Product demonstrations are usually catnip for explainer briefs.
14. Jasper hero video. Combination of 3d animation and live-action footage. Costly – shows it. Brief Aside: Only request 3D when you’ve committed at least $40k in budget and 12 weeks of runway.
15. Hummingbird by Hummingbird Studio. Motion that mimics the speed of web performance tool Hummingbird. Apply the meta effect only once per script – not over the course of the whole script.
Spokesperson / founder-led patterns
16. The CMO of GetResponse on camera for a quick (less than 60-second) “GetReady” plan launch video using subtle animated overlays. It will be an executive-style VO with B-Roll that wraps up in under 60 seconds as opposed to going into a full-blown webinar style clip.
17. Ellevest – “What is Ellevest?” This is a typical founder pitch around women-centric investing. When you start off by being personal and then commercializing your idea, you are able to humanize the decision to make a purchase when the decision to make a purchase is typically an emotional one.
18. A live-action explainer for the homepage of Zoom featuring only clean product UI. Commenters in the SaaS section say that although Zoom is now a multi-billion dollar company, yet they still do not use fancy animation or special effects… they keep things simple & straightforward.”
19. Wix homepage video. More aesthetic than polished. Reddit verdict: despite being irritating, Wix’s video game is extremely aesthetically appealing — font, colour palette, and graphical elements all look so clean.
Character-driven patterns
20. Dumb Ways to Die by Passion Paris. Exaggerated animated characters with absurd scenarios = instant virality. While this is a non-SaaS example (you can’t use their model directly), we are using the same lessons as they did to apply to our own SaaS business – i.e. , if you have a category that lets you show the “dangers” in an exaggerated manner, then go for it.
21. Poo-pourri – “Second Hand Stink” by A76 Productions. Uses anthropomorphic humor to create comedic relief from embarrassing odor. If your product helps fight or alleviate an embarrassment problem – name it and make fun of it.
22. Be my Eyes – “Helping Blind People.” Provides blind people access to sighted volunteers through a mobile app. Using casting for empathy instead of aspiration will be a stronger approach for nonprofit organizations and for SaaS companies who have a strong mission behind them – than it would be for aspirational brands.
23. Headspace – “Simple Meditation”. Minimalist character development + soothing flow. When developing the emotional tone of your animations, you need to develop them to reflect the emotional tone of your products.
Motion graphic walkthrough pattern
24. Next Glass by BreadnBeyond. The flow of beverage inventory from the supplier to end-user was shown with fluid graphics and motion that matched every step in the exact process. Icons representing user journeys were created prior to creating the first written frame of the script.
25. Gusto – “Payroll, benefits & Hr.” Time lapse savings animations targeting busy operation managers. Stopwatch graphic on-screen allows you to cut out or edit the line of voice over stating how long it will take.
26. Awareness of Logitech’s monitoring in the cloud. A video marketing walk-through of dashboards using animated transitions and screen annotations. If 60% of your video content is going to be a screencap (i.e., a screenshot), pay a professional motion designer to do all the cursor animation and add annotations.
27. Column Five – “The Value of Data Visualization”. An infographic explainer about an infographic -they used their own product as proof.
Hybrid live action + animation pattern
28. “Turbo Tax- Affordable Healthcare Act Explained.” The use of hybrid (live-action and animated explainer videos) in explaining the affordable healthcare act is appropriate if an individual needed to read a lengthy article to gain understanding.
29. Brand video using descript. This is a very clean live-action host workflow which is overlayed with animated user interface elements. r/SaaS commenters have said: “regardless of the cost associated with Videos like this, the execution of this particular video was amazing.”
30. Intercom – Why We Exist. This uses both a strong narrative arc and expressiveness through its animation. It is premium, yet still accessible. Flagged on the same thread for “a really tight narrative arc combined with expressiveness through its animation and a feel of being premium yet also being accessible.”
If you want to dig into each style individually then please look at our Animated Explainer Videos page, Whiteboard Explainer Videos page, Live Action Explainer Videos page, SaaS Explainer Video page or B2B Explainer Video page.
Why explainer videos are beneficial in the SaaS funnel
An excellent explainer takes a Five-paragraph homepage and compresses it into 75 seconds of video and audio. According to Powtoon’s marketing analysis, video conversions for a company’s homepage are about 300% higher than those of the corresponding text-only hero section. Take this figure as indicative rather than definitive. The video will only show an increase in conversion rates when the video shows the answers to the question the visitor was looking for.
The same explainer serves several roles. Awareness traffic from social media wants the problem hook within the first few seconds of the video. Users arriving via a Google search seeking consideration-stage information want the demo, not the empathetic portion. Conversion traffic coming from sales email campaigns will be interested in the proof and the call to action. While strong explainers break down into three separate short assets, each leading off with a different portion, a company that sends out only the homepage version of an explainer limits its potential audience size to One third.
The 60-second product explainer template
When you need to provide an animated explainer for SaaS, use this basic outline:
- Problem hook (user problem — named in plain language): 0-15s. Do not include any references to the product.
- Solution hook (product — One specific feature is shown): 15-35s. Here you show the product as the answer to the user’s problem.
- Proof that the Solution works as expected (value proposition for metrics/customer logos/workflow speedup): 35-50 seconds. This provides proof of the value proposition of the solution to demonstrate what is claimed within the problem statement.
- Call to action (CTA): 50-60s. There should be only One CTA in total. “Sign up,” “book a demo,” “install,” “download.” One.
According to Wistia, these are the best structures to follow when developing an explainer. When you’ve produced One inside the template, producing the second will take about half the time as well. A 90-second version of the template adds ten seconds of category context immediately after the problem hook, plus 20 seconds for two product features instead of One. After 120 seconds, you’re into best product demo videos territory.
How to create explainer videos
There are five stages. Companies often don’t realize how long stages one and two will take them, and how expensive stages three through five will be.
The first stage is the development of the goal and script. The script should contain only one message, and only one call to action. Write the script using spoken language. It should be able to be read aloud in seventy-five seconds. If there isn’t enough room, eliminate unnecessary sentences; do not eliminate individual words.
The second stage is creating a storyboard. Map every line to an image. Remove images that contain only text. Your “stock footage” thinking (the thought process that occurs before actual animation) will show itself first as a storyboard, then later as an animated piece of content.
The third stage is casting your narrator. Look for warmth and pacing. A narrator who can hit each breath mark is preferable to a dramatic One who races through his or her lines. Costs for professional narrators range between $300 and $1500, based upon usage rights.
The fourth stage is production. Budgets vary greatly at this point. Using tools such as Heygen or Wideo allows users to create AI assisted explainer videos for $19 to $79 per month, per Tooltester’s 2025 Software Roundup. On the other hand, creating custom animations with a studio can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000 for sixty seconds. Three dimensional character animation is even more costly.
The fifth stage is editing, exporting, and distributing. The same rendered file used as a source will be used for the homepage version, paid social vertical version, and fifteen-second teaser. Captions are included in the final product. Use an image from within the video as your thumbnail instead of using a separate stock image.
|
Tool |
Free tier |
Starter |
Upper |
|
Arcade |
200 AI credits |
Pro $38/user (500 credits) |
Growth $350 for 5 users |
|
HeyGen |
3 videos/month, 720p |
Creator $24/month |
Pro $79/month (4K) |
|
Wideo |
None |
Basic $19/month annual |
Pro $39/month |
Sources: Arcade’s software roundup and Tooltester. Verify pricing on each vendor’s site as they change quarterly. Vidyard’s production guide provides additional detail about technical specs.
Tips for creating effective explainer videos
Our Video Production Best Practices List is longer than our list of common mistakes. When starting your project begin with listing common mistakes.
Script too long. A 60-second video limits you to 150 spoken words. A 90-second video limits you to 220 spoken words. What you need to do to make everything count is to first remove adjectives and all prepositional phrases from the script. Next, you have to remove every sentence beginning with “our platform helps.” This way your video will be more attractive to the costumers.
Product introduced too early. Users control the first 10 seconds. Brand control begins after 8 seconds. Do not put your company’s logo into a video until after 8 seconds. If your logo appears prior to the first 8 seconds, your target audience will view the video as an ad and lose interest.
Motion generic. Using stock footage backgrounds, kinetic typography templates, and royalty-free music beds are telling the audience that they could swap this video for another at random. Reddit’s motion design community has been direct: “Most clients really won’t offer creative freedom when creating an live action explainer video, but some do.” Identify one thing (color, character, music, or principle), and make it unique.
CTA hedges. “Learn more” is the fail state. Choose the one action the viewer should take: “Start a free trial”, “Book a demo”, “Download the SDK”.”
Update video when the product changes. It will cost less money to record a new voice over and add 3-4 new shots to your original video than to shoot an entirely new video. There is no question that a video stating a feature sunset two-quarters past sunset will harm your brand more than having no video at all.
Our AI explainer video page covers what makes sense for fast first-pass drafts and what sounds obviously machine-made.
Where to share explainer videos
The full 60-second version of this video needs to be featured as the main callout/hero on your homepage & key landing pages – an embedded autoplay muted video with captions enabled by default. Wistia & Vimeo are recommended platforms to host this content to enable analytics. Paid social media ad traffic requires a 15-to-30 second vertical edit that includes the initial three seconds with the problem hook (No Logo, No Music Sting) to ensure maximum engagement from users who will see it while the video is still in mute. The ROI statistics published by Explainly indicate that Facebook video post ads have generated around 35% more reach compared to standard static image-based posts. This can only occur if the edit was specifically created for silent autoplay.
A static thumbnail with a “play” button overlay linked to a specific landing page should be used within the body of each email campaign.Embedded video still breaks in the majority of email clients. In-product onboarding requires a 20-to-40 second cut focused on doing something during the first session; dismissible; triggers on first login. Sales decks receive the full 60-second video at the beginning of a demo to ensure the prospect knows what the product is before screen-sharing.
YouTube and Vimeo are good hosts for organic discovery; Wistia is the right host for conversion-tracked landing pages.
Explainer video FAQs
What does a SaaS high quality video explainer cost in 2026?
Custom-animated production from a small studio costs anywhere from $5,000-$25,000 for a 60-second video. Premium 3D or hybrid live-action productions can cost anywhere from $25,000-$100,000. According to Video Explainers’ pricing page AI-assisted production begins at approximately $497 per video. This difference in cost can be easily seen.
How long should an explainer video be?
60-90 seconds for homepage versions. 15-30 seconds for paid-social cuts. Anything over 120 seconds is no longer an explainer.
Who owns the final explainer video?
Standard contracts transfer all ownership rights to the client upon completion of payment. Review the master services agreement. Stock footage and music licensing agreements may require separate transfers.
Will AI-generated explainer videos work for my SaaS?
Yes for initial drafts, scripts, and storyboards. No for finished versions of homepage hero video. The motion feels templated and the voiceover work sounds flat and lacks prosody, which causes audiences to disengage. Disclose AI voiceover if you plan on shipping One.
Live action or animation?
Live action when the human story is the product (Asana, GetResponse). Animation when the product is either abstract or screen-based (ClickUp, Hotjar). Hybrid when budget allows and both categories are relevant.
