30 Best Explainer Video Examples (and Why They Work)
Most lists of explainer video examples are the same dozen famous brand videos with a sentence under each. That’s useful up to a point. What’s more useful, when you’re about to brief your own film, is knowing what each video was asked to do and why it works.
So this list mixes 20 films we made at Animation Explainers, where we can tell you what the brief was, with 10 famous brand explainers everyone in the industry still points to. Every example has its style, its runtime and the one lesson worth taking from it.
The 30 explainer video examples at a glance
The 30 explainer video examples below are grouped by style: 2D character animation, motion graphics and software, medical and healthcare, footage hybrids, and famous brand videos. The good ones share the same few habits: one clear message, a problem the viewer recognises, visuals that show rather than decorate, and a single next step.
| # | Example | Style | Length | Why it works |
| 1 | Fonolo | 2D character animation | 1:38 | Opens on the customer’s frustration |
| 2 | Kemper | 2D character animation | 1:52 | A series with one consistent look |
| 3 | DC Risk | Stylised 2D characters | 1:23 | Turns an insurance acronym into a story |
| 4 | Deutsche Telekom | 2D in brand colours | 1:29 | Brand palette plus on-screen captions |
| 5 | DHL | 2D character animation | 1:48 | Shows the product on every device |
| 6 | Banqsoft | 2D character animation | 1:42 | Follows one customer journey end to end |
| 7 | XMA Surface Pro | 2D character animation | 0:35 | One product per film |
| 8 | Celigo | Motion graphics and UI | 0:25 | One feature, nothing else |
| 9 | Ibotta | Motion graphics | 0:30 | A whole offer in half a minute |
| 10 | Intel 471 | Motion graphics series | 2:23 | A visual system across seven films |
| 11 | APIsec | Motion graphics plus a character | 1:28 | Puts a person inside a technical topic |
| 12 | Siren | Kinetic typography and motion graphics | 3:00 | Bold type labels each capability |
| 13 | Vertech | Isometric illustration | 0:46 | Sells a method with one metaphor |
| 14 | MD3 | 2D with 3D device shots | 1:45 | Ends on a clean product sequence |
| 15 | SkinBioTherapeutics | 2D science animation | 2:17 | Shows what happens inside the body |
| 16 | Harmonic Bionics | 2D character animation | 1:42 | Makes rehabilitation robotics simple |
| 17 | Fertilily | 2D character animation, two languages | 1:40 and 1:48 | Same story, two markets |
| 18 | Luminix | Footage with animated UI | 2:28 | Puts the software where it’s used |
| 19 | ISA | Cinematic footage-led | 3:00 | Mood and pace for a security brand |
| 20 | Enbio | Stock, client footage and animation | 2:29 | Blends real footage and animation |
| 21 | Dollar Shave Club | Live action, founder-led | 1:33 | The offer and the personality, fast |
| 22 | Crazy Egg | 2D character animation | 2:38 | A mascot walks through each tool |
| 23 | Airbnb | Handmade miniature world | 1:11 | The style is the feeling |
| 24 | Ahrefs | Flat line animation | 1:31 | Starts with the viewer’s problem |
| 25 | Microsoft Azure | Motion graphics | 2:25 | Shows what happens behind the scenes |
| 26 | Asana | Minimal motion design | 1:16 | Calm visuals for a calm promise |
| 27 | Google Wifi | Motion graphics plus product | 0:49 | One feature, one idea |
| 28 | Zendesk | Shape-based motion graphics | 0:57 | Turns a brand system into a story |
| 29 | Slack | Live-action mockumentary | 2:20 | Real people, real scepticism |
| 30 | Insider Tech | Editorial animation | 3:29 | A sense of scale you can’t film |
2D character animation examples
2D character animation is the classic explainer style: illustrated people in a flat, designed world. It works when your story has a human at its centre, such as a customer, an agent or a patient, and it can be fully on-brand because every colour and shape is designed from scratch.
1. Fonolo: open on the customer’s frustration
Fonolo sells call-back technology for contact centres. The film opens on one line, “When it comes to service, customers have high standards,” then builds a split screen of frustrated callers to show how often customers give up and switch. A stylised version of the product interface shows the set-up, and the story comes full circle when the first frustrated customer gets a call back.
Why it works: it earns attention with a problem every viewer has lived through before it names the product.
2. Kemper: a series with one consistent look
Kemper is one of a series of insurance explainers we’ve made for the brand. Clear 2D characters and short on-screen text lines carry the key points, so the message still lands if someone only half-watches.
Why it works: a series built on one design system feels like one brand, and each new film is quicker to make than the first.
3. DC Risk: turn an acronym into a story
DC Risk advises businesses on insurance solutions, and this film had to explain a Medical Expense Reimbursement Plan (MERP). The team chose a stylised, less realistic character design, and the film moves between an office, the product interface and a doctor’s visit, so the viewer sees who the plan helps and how.
Why it works: it shows what’s being said, scene by scene, so a dry acronym becomes something that happens to people.
4. Deutsche Telekom: brand colours and captions
For Deutsche Telekom Global Business, the film explains how the company designs an SD-WAN set-up around each client. It stays inside the brand’s magenta palette throughout, and the voiceover is captioned on screen.
Why it works: a technical B2B service stays recognisably on-brand, and the captions mean it still works on a muted social feed or a trade-show screen.
5. DHL: show the product on every device
This DHL Parcel UK film explains a delivery service built around the customer. It shows the service on a desktop monitor, a tablet and a laptop, uses map imagery for tracking, and keeps the yellow-and-red brand world from start to finish.
Why it works: viewers see the product in the places they’d actually use it, so ease of use is shown rather than claimed.
6. Banqsoft: follow one customer journey
Banqsoft provides financial software for asset finance and digital banking in the Nordics. Its film follows one customer financing a car from a phone, from first enquiry to the dealership and into the car.
Why it works: one journey from start to finish is easier to follow than a list of features, and every feature turns up exactly when the customer needs it.
7. XMA Surface Pro: one product per film
XMA asked for a series on the business hardware it supplies. This 35-second film covers the Microsoft Surface Pro and nothing else.
Why it works: when a series carries the wider story, each film can stay short and focused on one product.
Motion graphics and software explainer examples
Motion graphics animate shapes, icons, type and interface elements rather than characters. It’s the go-to style for software, data and security, where the product doesn’t photograph well and the buyer needs to see how a system fits together.
8. Celigo: one feature, nothing else
Celigo’s 25-second film explains a single capability, data mapping. Animated layers and connections set the idea up, and the film ends in the real product interface.
Why it works: it doesn’t try to explain the whole platform. One feature, explained well, is a better short film than ten features rushed.
9. Ibotta: a whole offer in half a minute
In 30 seconds, Ibotta’s film opens on high fuel prices, invites shoppers to earn cash back on fuel through the app and walks through the steps: follow Ibotta on Instagram or Facebook for the weekly code, open the app, enter the code.
Why it works: it was written for 30 seconds from the start, with one offer and steps simple enough to remember after one viewing.
10. Intel 471: a visual system across seven films
Intel 471 commissioned a seven-part threat-intelligence series from us, and this is the seventh. Dark, neon-lit cityscapes and server rooms give cybersecurity a look of its own.
Why it works: splitting a big subject into episodes keeps each film to one idea, and a shared visual system makes the series instantly recognisable.
11. APIsec: put a person inside a technical topic
APIsec works in API security testing. The film is built from clean motion graphics, but it adds a single human character facing the problem.
Why it works: abstract security risks feel real once there’s a person on screen dealing with them.
12. Siren: bold type for each capability
Siren makes investigative intelligence software. Large kinetic typography and motion graphics name each capability as it’s explained, such as natural language processing and entity resolution.
Why it works: at three minutes it runs longer than most explainers, so the on-screen type acts as signposts and the viewer always knows which part of the product they’re looking at.
13. Vertech: sell a method with one metaphor
Vertech builds industrial automation and plant software. In 46 seconds, the film challenges the “big bang” launch with one comparison: you wouldn’t ask a spectator how to finish a marathon. It then introduces Vertech’s iterative Momentum Method in a bright isometric world.
Why it works: one sharp metaphor sells a way of working faster than any process diagram.
Medical and healthcare explainer examples
Medical explainers have to be accurate and easy to follow at the same time. Animation lets you show what happens inside the body or inside a device, and keep it calm and clear for patients and clinicians.
14. MD3: end on a clean product sequence
MD3’s film takes a dental device from the waiting room to the chair. Most of it is 2D, and it builds to a clean sequence of the device itself, which our team animated in 3D.
Why it works: the human story makes the device relevant first, then the 3D shots show exactly how it looks and works.
15. SkinBioTherapeutics: show what happens inside the body
For SkinBioTherapeutics we produced storyboards and a plain-language script for films about a probiotic supplement that works through the gut-skin axis. The science had to be accurate to the finest detail, and the film moves from the body to skin layers to the gut.
Why it works: animation can show a process no camera can film, and it keeps complex biology readable.
16. Harmonic Bionics: make robotics simple
Harmonic Bionics makes an upper-extremity rehabilitation robot for people with movement impairments. The film uses relatable characters, from patients to therapists, and shows the robot in use.
Why it works: it takes a technology that’s hard to explain briefly and keeps the focus on the people it helps.
17. Fertilily: same story, two markets
Fertilily’s film explains the Conception Cup with warm 2D characters. We made it in English and in German: the same story, with a German voiceover, which runs 1:48 against 1:40 in English.
Why it works: one film, localised, reaches a second market without starting again.
Footage hybrid explainer examples
Some products only make sense in context: a crew on site, a security team, a launch. Footage hybrids combine real-world footage with animated interface, data and type.
18. Luminix: put the software where it’s used
Luminix is a field-operations software platform. The film shows site teams at work with the product’s interface layered over the footage.
Why it works: buyers see the software in the conditions their own teams work in.
19. ISA: mood and pace for a security brand
ISA, a computer and network security firm, has a three-minute film that’s cinematic and footage-led, mixing filmed scenes with animated data visuals.
Why it works: the tone tells the viewer this is a serious security partner before a single feature is mentioned.
20. Enbio: blend footage and animation
Enbio is a surface-engineering company working in the space sector. Its 2 minute 29 second film is built from a mix of licensed stock, client-provided footage and our own animation.
Why it works: real footage gives credibility, and animation explains the parts footage can’t.
Famous brand explainer videos
These are the explainers marketers keep coming back to. Each link opens the brand’s own upload on YouTube.
21. Dollar Shave Club: the offer and the personality, fast
Dollar Shave Club’s “Our Blades Are F***ing Great” is a 93-second, founder-led live-action film. The founder walks through a warehouse delivering a deadpan pitch while sight gags pile up around him. Watch it on Dollar Shave Club's YouTube channel.
Why it works: the offer is clear within seconds, and the humour makes a boring product memorable. Explainers don’t have to be animated.
22. Crazy Egg: a mascot walks through each tool
Crazy Egg’s 2D explainer uses a moustached egg mascot to walk through its website heat map and related tools. Watch it on Crazy Egg's YouTube channel.
Why it works: a recurring character gives a tool-by-tool walkthrough a thread to follow.
23. Airbnb: the style is the feeling
“What is Airbnb?” is set in what the brand calls a handmade world, a crafted, miniature-looking set that dramatises the feeling of travelling with Airbnb. Watch it on Airbnb's YouTube channel.
Why it works: the crafted, personal look carries the brand promise before the voiceover does.
24. Ahrefs: start with the viewer’s problem
“What is Ahrefs?” uses flat line animation. It opens on a great website with no traffic, no leads and no sales, then shows the tools that fix it. Watch it on Ahrefs' YouTube channel.
Why it works: the viewer recognises their own problem first, so the product arrives as the answer.
25. Microsoft Azure: show what happens behind the scenes
“How does Microsoft Azure work?” uses simple motion graphics, moving from the cloud icon most people picture to a map of data centres and the server racks inside them. Watch it on Microsoft Azure's YouTube channel.
Why it works: it makes an invisible service concrete without drowning the viewer in jargon.
26. Asana: calm visuals for a calm promise
“Meet Asana, your work manager. But better.” is minimal motion design on clean, light backgrounds, showing work getting organised. Watch it on Asana's YouTube channel.
Why it works: the look itself feels organised, which is exactly what the product promises.
27. Google Wifi: one feature, one idea
“How Google Wifi keeps your Wi-Fi fast” explains a single feature in 49 seconds: keeping you on the least congested Wi-Fi channel. It ends on the product. Watch it on Google's YouTube channel.
Why it works: it explains one benefit well instead of listing every spec.
28. Zendesk: turn a brand system into a story
“Introducing The New Zendesk” is a short animated film in which a set of shapes stands for the products and shows how they work together. Watch it on Zendesk's YouTube channel.
Why it works: a brand refresh becomes an explanation of how the product family fits together.
29. Slack: real people, real scepticism
“So Yeah, We Tried Slack…” is a live-action mockumentary in which a real team talks to camera about switching over. Watch it on Slack's YouTube channel.
Why it works: a sceptic who comes round is more convincing than any claim the brand makes about itself.
30. Insider Tech: a sense of scale you can’t film
“This Incredible Animation Shows How Deep The Ocean Really Is” is an editorial explainer. A depth gauge runs down the side of the screen as the film sinks from the surface, past the animals that live at each depth, towards the deepest point in the ocean. Watch it on Insider Tech's YouTube channel.
Why it works: one simple visual device makes a hard-to-picture fact obvious.
What makes a good explainer video?
Look across all 30 and the same habits come up again and again, whatever the style or budget:
- One clear message. Each film explains one product, one feature or one offer. Celigo, Google Wifi and XMA all chose a single idea and stuck to it.
- A problem the viewer recognises. Fonolo, Ahrefs and Crazy Egg open on a frustration before they show the product.
- A story, not a feature list. Banqsoft follows one customer and DC Risk follows one plan from the office to the doctor’s.
- Visuals that show, not decorate. Every scene should show what the voiceover is saying, as in DHL, SkinBioTherapeutics and Microsoft Azure.
- A style that fits the audience. Calm for Asana, cinematic for ISA, dark and technical for Intel 471, warm for Fertilily.
- A clear, natural voice. Plain words, read like one person talking to another. Our guide to explainer video voiceover covers casting and briefs.
- One next step. Book a demo, try the app, call us. One call to action, not three.
Length matters too. Most of the films above run between about one and two minutes, and the common advice is 60 to 90 seconds for a product explainer. Our guide on how long an explainer video should be explains when to go shorter or longer.
How to use these examples in your own brief
Examples are most useful when they turn into decisions. Here’s how to use this list before your first call with a studio:
- Pick two or three examples you like, and say why. “The way Banqsoft follows one customer” is a better brief than “something like this”.
- Separate the style from the structure. You might want Intel 471’s look with Ibotta’s 30-second structure. Both are fair asks.
- Match the style to your audience, not your taste. Clinicians, engineers and consumers respond to different looks.
- Decide the length and the channel first. A 30-second social cut and a 2-minute homepage film are different scripts.
- Write down the one thing the viewer should do next. That decides how the film ends.
From there, the work follows a set path: script, storyboard, voiceover, animation and delivery. Our guides on how to write a video script, the explainer video storyboard and our explainer video production process walk through each stage.
What does an explainer video like these cost?
Studio projects at Animation Explainers typically sit in the $6,000 to $35,000 and beyond band. Length, style, complexity, the number of versions and languages, and review layers move the quote more than anything else. A short 2D film sits at a different point in that band from a long film with 3D device shots or a multi-part series. For the full breakdown, read how much an explainer video costs.
See more examples and start your own
The 20 Animation Explainers films above are a small slice of our work. Browse our portfolio for more explainer videos by industry, read about working with an explainer video company like ours, or start with the explainer video guide for types, length and cost.
When you’ve found a few examples you like, contact us and book a meeting from that page. Bring the examples and we’ll talk through what would work for your audience.
FAQ
What is an explainer video?
An explainer video is a short film, usually 60 to 90 seconds, that explains what a product, service or idea does and why it matters. Most are animated, though some of the best known are live action. For the full definition, see what is an explainer video.
What makes a good explainer video?
One clear message, a problem the viewer recognises, visuals that show what the voiceover says, a style that suits the audience and a single next step. The best examples explain one thing well rather than everything at once.
How long should an explainer video be?
For most product and service explainers, 60 to 90 seconds. The examples on this page run from 25 seconds (Celigo) to about three and a half minutes (Insider Tech), and the longer ones are either technical or editorial. Social cutdowns are often 30 seconds or less.
What are the main explainer video styles?
The main styles are 2D character animation, motion graphics, 3D, whiteboard, live action and footage hybrids that mix filmed footage with animation. Many films combine two, such as a 2D story with 3D product shots.
What is the most famous explainer video?
Dollar Shave Club's founder-led launch video and Crazy Egg's animated explainer turn up on almost every list of famous examples, along with films from Slack, Airbnb and Ahrefs. All of them are in the list above.
Are animated explainer videos better than live action?
Neither is better across the board. Animation suits products that are abstract, technical or hard to film, like software, security, medicine and anything inside a device. Live action suits stories that rely on real people and personality. Footage hybrids give you some of both.
How much does an explainer video cost?
Studio explainer videos at Animation Explainers typically cost $6,000 to $35,000 and beyond, depending on length, style, complexity, versions and review layers. Our cost guide has the full breakdown.
Where can I see more explainer video examples?
Our portfolio has many more Animation Explainers films, organised by industry. If you’d like examples close to your own product or sector, ask on your first call and we’ll share the most relevant ones.
What is an explainer video?
An explainer video is a short film, usually 60 to 90 seconds, that explains what a product, service or idea does and why it matters. Most are animated, though some of the best known are live action. For the full definition, see what is an explainer video.
What makes a good explainer video?
One clear message, a problem the viewer recognises, visuals that show what the voiceover says, a style that suits the audience and a single next step. The best examples explain one thing well rather than everything at once.
How long should an explainer video be?
For most product and service explainers, 60 to 90 seconds. The examples on this page run from 25 seconds (Celigo) to about three and a half minutes (Insider Tech), and the longer ones are either technical or editorial. Social cutdowns are often 30 seconds or less.
What are the main explainer video styles?
The main styles are 2D character animation, motion graphics, 3D, whiteboard, live action and footage hybrids that mix filmed footage with animation. Many films combine two, such as a 2D story with 3D product shots.
What is the most famous explainer video?
Dollar Shave Club’s founder-led launch video and Crazy Egg’s animated explainer turn up on almost every list of famous examples, along with films from Slack, Airbnb and Ahrefs. All of them are in the list above.
Are animated explainer videos better than live action?
Neither is better across the board. Animation suits products that are abstract, technical or hard to film, like software, security, medicine and anything inside a device. Live action suits stories that rely on real people and personality. Footage hybrids give you some of both.
How much does an explainer video cost?
Studio explainer videos at Animation Explainers typically cost $6,000 to $35,000 and beyond, depending on length, style, complexity, versions and review layers. Our cost guide has the full breakdown.
Where can I see more explainer video examples?
Our portfolio has many more Animation Explainers films, organised by industry. If you’d like examples close to your own product or sector, ask on your first call and we’ll share the most relevant ones.
