How Long Should an Explainer Video Be? (60-90s Rule)

“How long should it be?” is usually the second question on a discovery call, right after “what will it cost?” The two are connected, and both are easier to answer once you know what the video has to do and where it will play.

This guide gives the short answer, the data behind it, a length-by-use-case table, the word counts that decide runtime before anyone animates a frame, and the runtimes of real films from our own portfolio. For the basics, start with what is an explainer video? or the wider explainer videos guide.

The short answer: 60 to 90 seconds

Most marketing explainer videos should be 60 to 90 seconds long: enough time to name the problem, show the solution and land one call to action, and short enough that most viewers reach the end. Go shorter for ads and social cut-downs. Go longer only when the viewer has already chosen to learn, as in onboarding, training or a technical deep dive.

That’s the 60–90s rule. It’s a default, not a law. The rest of this page is about when to break it.

What the data actually says about length

There’s a lot of recycled “viewers leave after X seconds” content online. Here is what holds up, with sources.

• Engagement holds steady up to about two minutes. Wistia’s 2016 study of 564,710 videos and more than 1.3 billion plays found engagement was roughly flat up to the two-minute mark, then dropped significantly between two and three minutes. In practice, a 90-second video holds attention about as well as a 30-second one.
• Viewers drift around the halfway point. Wistia’s current length guidance, built on its 2026 State of Video data (more than 13 million videos), puts videos under a minute at a 52% average engagement rate and names 1–5 minutes as the range for videos that educate or explain. Its advice: most viewers drop off around halfway, so put the most important information in the first half.

One caveat: engagement is not conversion. A 45-second film that everyone finishes but nobody acts on has failed. A 2-minute film that the right buyer watches to the end, and then books a call, has done its job. Length serves the message and the next step, never the other way round.

Explainer video length by use case

Pick the length from where the video will live and what the viewer should do next. These are the ranges we recommend:

Where it plays	Recommended length	Why
Homepage hero	60–90 seconds	A first-time visitor needs the “what is this and why should I care?” story, start to finish
Paid landing page	45–90 seconds	Same idea, tighter. Match the ad’s promise and repeat one CTA
Product or feature page	60–120 seconds	Intent is higher, so there’s room for how it works plus one proof point. See product explainer videos
Sales email or proposal	45–90 seconds	Sent before the call so the meeting starts further along
LinkedIn and other social feeds	15–60 seconds	A cut-down of the master, designed to work on mute with captions
YouTube ads	6 seconds (bumper) to under 3 minutes (skippable)	Google caps bumper ads at 6 seconds and recommends keeping skippable in-stream ads under 3 minutes (YouTube ad formats)
Trade show or booth loop	30–60 seconds, silent	People walk past, so it has to read like a poster and restart often
Onboarding and help centre	1–3 minutes per task	The viewer has chosen to learn. One task per video
Training and internal comms	Varies by topic	A different brief. See how long a training video should be

Notice the pattern: the colder the viewer, the shorter the cut. The warmer the viewer, the more detail they’ll sit through, as long as every scene earns its place.

60 vs 90 seconds: which do you need?

Most briefs land on one of these two. The difference is how much your viewer needs to believe before they act.

The 60-second explainer video

Sixty seconds fits problem, solution, a quick “how it works” and one call to action. It suits a single clear benefit, a cold or mixed audience, and placements where people are still deciding whether to care: homepages, paid landings and outbound emails. If your product can be explained in one sentence, a 60-second film is usually enough.

The 90-second explainer video

Ninety seconds buys room for one more thing: a second step in the workflow, a differentiator, or a proof point such as an integration, a certification or a named outcome. It suits B2B products with a buying committee, technical or regulated categories (software, cybersecurity, medtech, fintech), and product pages where intent is higher. Many SaaS explainer videos sit here.

Shorter than 60 seconds

Under a minute works for teasers, ads and social cut-downs, or for a very simple offer. Treat it as a ruthless edit of a clear story, not a second strategy. Short formats have their own rules, which we cover in our guide to 30-second videos.

Longer than two minutes

Past the two-minute mark the data shows a real drop, so only go long when the viewer has opted in: onboarding, training, investor or partner briefings, or a series where each episode explains one module. A whiteboard lesson or a technical walkthrough can run three minutes and still hold attention, because the audience came to learn. A homepage video that runs three minutes because nobody could agree what to cut is a different story.

Size the video from the script (about 150 words a minute)

Runtime is decided in the script, not in the edit. The National Center for Voice and Speech puts the average rate of speech for US English speakers at about 150 words per minute. An explainer voiceover usually runs a little slower than conversation so the visuals have time to land, so treat 150 as a ceiling, not a target.

Target runtime	Voiceover word budget (at ~150 wpm)	What fits
30 seconds	about 75 words	One problem, one promise, one CTA
60 seconds	about 150 words	Problem, solution, how it works, CTA
90 seconds	about 225 words	All of the above plus one differentiator or proof point
2 minutes	about 300 words	A fuller story for a warm or technical audience

To check a draft before you approve it:

1. Count the voiceover words only (not the scene directions).
2. Divide by 150 to get the rough runtime in minutes.
3. Read it aloud at a natural pace with a stopwatch running.
4. Add a second or two for the logo, any on-screen pauses and the end card.
5. If it runs long, cut whole ideas, not adjectives. Trimming words makes the voiceover rush; trimming ideas makes the story clearer.

Writing from scratch? Our guide to writing an explainer video script that converts walks through the structure.

A 60–90 second structure that holds attention

Wistia’s advice to front-load matters most here. A viewer who leaves at the halfway mark should still know what you do. A simple running order:

1. Hook (first 5–10 seconds): name the viewer’s problem in their own words.
2. Problem: show what it costs them today, briefly.
3. Solution: introduce your product or service as the turning point.
4. How it works: three steps at most, shown rather than listed.
5. Proof or differentiator: one reason to believe you (90-second versions).
6. Call to action: one clear next step, spoken and shown on screen.

If you can’t fit your story into those beats, the brief needs a sharper single idea, not a longer runtime.

What length looks like in our own work

Here’s an honest view of our own portfolio. These are published runtimes of films we’ve made, and several run past 90 seconds on purpose because the job was different.

Film	Runtime	Job it does
Celigo	0:25	A single software feature (data mapping), one point
XMA Surface Pro (video 1)	0:35	One episode in a hardware series: one product, one point
Vertech and Taxelco	0:46 each	Short industrial-automation and transportation explainers
Arkose Labs	1:20	A computer and network security explainer in the classic range
Technologent	1:43	An IT and software explainer
MD3	1:45	A dental-device story that ends on the product itself
Intel 471 (video 7)	2:23	One episode in a seven-part threat-intelligence series
Siren and ISA	3:00 each	Longer, cinematic films for technical security and intelligence audiences

XMA Surface Pro (0:35): short works when a series carries the story. We made a series of films for XMA, one product per film, so each episode can stay short.

MD3 (1:45): a medical device needs a little longer. The film builds from a clinic scenario to the device itself. A clinical audience needs that context before the product makes sense.

Siren (3:00): long-form for a specialist audience. An investigative intelligence platform whose use cases include counterterrorism, fraud investigation and cyber threat hunting. It’s closer to a brand film than a homepage spot, and the runtime suits a technical audience that wants the detail.

More in our portfolio.

Signs your explainer is too long

• The script covers more than one idea or more than one call to action.
• Every stakeholder’s favourite feature made it in.
• The first ten seconds are a logo, a slogan or “In today’s fast-paced world…”.
• The proof section lists features instead of showing one outcome.
• The word count is well over the budget in the table above.

The fix is almost always the same: decide the one thing the viewer must remember, cut everything that doesn’t serve it, and move the extra features into a separate film or a product demo. One master plus a few cut-downs usually beats one long video trying to do everything.

Does length change the cost?

Yes, but not in a straight line. Longer scripts mean more storyboard frames, more animation seconds, more voiceover and more to review. A lot of the work is fixed, though: discovery, scripting, style frames, voiceover casting and project management cost much the same whatever the runtime. A 30-second film is not half the price of a 60-second one, and a 90-second film is not 50% more.

Studio projects at Animation Explainers typically sit in the $6,000 to $35,000 and beyond band. Style, custom assets, revisions, languages and deliverables move a quote more than the stopwatch does. For the full breakdown, read how much an explainer video costs.

Soft next steps

Not sure whether your story is a 60 or a 90? Send us the script or a rough outline. Browse our portfolio, skim the cost guide, or contact us and book a meeting from that page. We’ll tell you honestly how long it should run, and what to cut.

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