Brand says I read your website before anyone else does. Yes, I noticed the three shades of blue.
For small businesses: explainers, local ads and thank-you films without an agency
A small business needs films that are short, on brand and paid for by lunchtime. Here is how cafes, clinics, shops and one-person companies use them, and what they cost.
Nine reads your colours, typeface and name from your website, so a film looks like your business before you have typed a word. The pages below go from the first explainer to the staff birthday.
Small business
- 30 second explainer video script examples you can steal tonightA 30 second explainer video script is about 70 words in three beats: the problem (5 to 8 seconds), what you do about it (15 to 18 seconds) and one next step (5 seconds). Below are three complete examples for different businesses and a fill-in template.
- Animated ad for a local business: stop the thumb, name the streetA good animated ad for a local business is 6 to 15 seconds, grabs attention in the first two seconds, names something local (your town, street or season), makes one offer and ends with one action. Make it tall for phones, add captions, and test two versions.
- Animated fundraising video for a nonprofit or school: one story, one askA good animated fundraising video tells one story, shows what a specific gift does ("a small gift buys a week of lunches"), and ends with one clear ask and a link. Keep it 30 to 60 seconds for your donation page, 15 to 20 for social. Drawing also protects the people you help.
- Animated reel ideas for small business: 24 you can make without dancingThe best animated reel ideas for small business are short series you can repeat: a weekly tip, a customer question answered, myth versus fact, a product's origin story, or a seasonal special. Keep reels 7 to 20 seconds, tall (9:16), with a hook in the first second and captions.
- Animated thank you video for customers: gratitude with no sales pitchAn animated thank you video for customers works best at a real moment: a first order, a milestone, a review, or the end of the year. Keep it 10 to 20 seconds, thank them for something specific, and resist adding a sales pitch. Send it by email, after checkout or as a post.
- Animated video for a cafe or bakery: warm, drawn, smelling of cinnamonAn animated video for a cafe, bakery or restaurant works best as a short, drawn film of 10 to 20 seconds with one message: today's bake, a seasonal special, your opening hours or a new menu. Play it on a counter screen, in the window and on social, in wide, tall and square.
- Employee birthday video for work: nice, short, and HR would approveAn employee birthday video for work should be 10 to 20 seconds, use their name, say one specific thing they bring to the team and skip their age. Send it in the morning in the team chat, or make one monthly film that celebrates everyone born that month.
- Explainer video without an agency: the whole job, on your kitchen tableYes, you can make an explainer video without an agency. Write a 60 to 80 word script with one problem, one answer and one next step, pick a length of 20 to 30 seconds, and make it with a freelancer, a do-it-yourself tool or a service like Nine for a fraction of an agency quote.
- Grand opening video announcement: the countdown, the day, the doorsA grand opening video announcement should say what is opening, where, and exactly when, in 10 to 20 seconds, with one reason to come on the day. The best openings use three short films: a teaser two weeks before, a reminder a few days before, and a "we are open" film on the day.
- How much does a 30 second animation cost? The honest ranges, no gaspingA 30 second animation typically costs $3,000 to $15,000 or more from an agency, $500 to $3,000 from a freelancer, $0 to $50 a month in do-it-yourself tools plus your own time, or a monthly plan with a service like Nine. Style, characters and changes move the number most.
- Work anniversary video for an employee: years 1 to 25, no gold watchA work anniversary video for an employee should name the milestone, thank them for one or two specific things they did, and look ahead. Keep it 15 seconds for a first year and 30 to 60 seconds for 10 years or more, and show it at a team meeting or send it that morning.
- A new product, and an invitation to hear about itA small company launching something on a Tuesday does not need a campaign. It needs one clear film by the end of the day, and it needs to know what to leave out.
- Internal messages that actually get watchedThe problem with an internal announcement is not that it is badly written. It is that it arrives in the same place as forty other messages on the same morning.
- Messages to customers and partners: the opening, the year, and the partyThese four have nothing in common except the audience, and that is enough to put them in one family: somebody outside the business is going to watch it and decide something.
Craft
- Animaker alternatives: four honest picks, and who each one suitsTry Powtoon if you want a similar editor with screen recording, Vyond for long team training videos, Doodly for classic whiteboard sketches, and Nine if you'd rather describe a short film in words and have it made, with a voice and music, while you watch.
- Doodly alternatives: whiteboard animation, and when to skip the whiteboardIf you love the hand-drawn whiteboard look, VideoScribe is the closest Doodly alternative and runs in the browser too. Animaker includes whiteboard among many styles. If you just want a short drawn explainer with a voice and music made for you, try Nine.
- Powtoon alternatives: what to use when the watermark has to goGood Powtoon alternatives are Animaker for lots of styles at a low price, Vyond for long training videos, VideoScribe for whiteboard animation, and Nine if you want a finished short film with voice and music made for you instead of built by hand.
- Vyond alternatives: cheaper options, and when Vyond is still worth itThe best Vyond alternative depends on the job. For long training videos, Powtoon and Animaker cost less and do similar work. For whiteboard sketches, Doodly. For a finished short film with a voice and music that you don't build yourself, Nine.
- AI logo animation, without wrecking the logoA logo is the one piece of design a company cannot afford to get wrong, and animating it is the fastest way to get it wrong. The good news is that the rules are short and they are mostly about restraint.
- An AI video generator that reads your website firstThere are two kinds of AI video generator, and the difference is not the model. It is where the thing gets its information. One asks you to describe your company in a sentence. The other reads the company you already built.
- AI video for business in 2026: what it is good at, and what to ask before you commissionAI video is not one thing. It can mean generated footage, automated editing, or a film shaped around your own brand. Each is useful for a different job.
- How to write an onboarding film people actually watchMost onboarding films are not bad films. They arrive at the wrong hour, in the wrong order, with the wrong job attached. Here is how to write one that a new person watches, remembers, and still trusts in month three.
- Captions and subtitles: how to make a business film work with the sound offMost people watch your film with the sound off, in a room where nobody is listening. If the message only exists in the voiceover, the film only exists for the handful of people who hear it. Here is how to build captions in from the start rather than adding them at the end.
Holidays
- Company Christmas Video Ideas Your Team Will Actually Watch (and Enjoy)The best company Christmas videos are short, warm and about the people, not the numbers. Try a thank-you from leadership in plain words, a drawn year-in-review, or a light team joke, and keep it under 30 seconds so it gets watched on a phone.
- Holiday Video Card for Clients: Warm, On Brand, and Not a Sales PitchAn animated holiday card for clients is a 10 to 20 second film in your brand colors with one sincere thank-you and a holiday wish. Keep it free of sales talk, send it in early December, and make one version that works with the sound off.
- Thanksgiving Video Message Ideas for Family, Friends and BusinessA good Thanksgiving video message thanks one person or group for one specific thing. For family, name a memory or a dish; for business, thank customers without selling. Keep it 10 to 30 seconds and send it the day before or the morning of Thanksgiving.
- A Christmas card as a film: the family version, and the company versionA Christmas greeting is the most predictable film of the year, and the reason to make one is not novelty. It is that December is the one month when everybody reads the same message at the same time.
Big moments
- Retirement video ideas for a coworker who deserves a proper send-offThe best retirement video for a coworker is short, 1 to 3 minutes, and built around one idea: their famous habits, a thank-you from each colleague, or a playful "job ad" for their replacement. Collect one line per person and end with a warm wish for what comes next.
- A film for a team, a choir, or a season that just endedA voluntary organisation has the same communication problem as a company and none of the staff. That is exactly the case a template is for.
- A film for somebody leaving, or somebody who has been there for yearsA retirement speech is hard to write and harder to listen to. Counting the years is easier to write, easier to watch, and says the same thing.
Reading
- Turn your website into a short brand filmPaste your web address on Nine's front page. Nine reads your colours, your lettering and your words, and shows your colours on our films for free. On a plan, it writes a short film of your own in that look, usually in a few minutes, checked before you see it.
- Animation for training and procedures nobody readsThe films that earn the most are usually the ones with the smallest audience and the highest cost of being misunderstood.
- One film or three: how to spend the same budgetThe most common commissioning mistake is not spending too much. It is spending it all on one film when the job needed three shorter ones.
- What a film costs, and what you are actually paying forA design studio will quote you between forty and seventy thousand kroner for a short film. Here is what is inside that number, and where it can honestly be smaller.
- Fourteen places a short animated film earns its keepAn animated film is usually filed under marketing. Most of the ones we make are not marketing at all, they are the shortest way to explain something that is expensive to explain badly.
- Your colours, your typeface, and what happens when a brand has neitherA studio with a house style makes every customer look like the studio. We took the other position: the film is made of your material, and where your material is silent, the film says so.
Using Nine
Process
- Hiring an AI animation studio: what to ask before you signA studio that uses AI and a studio that is AI are different businesses with similar websites. Eight questions separate them, and every one of them has a short answer that a supplier either gives you or does not.
- How long does an animated video take? The timeline, stage by stageYou have a date: a launch, a trade fair, a board meeting. What you need is not a reassuring answer but the arithmetic, the stage order, and the two places where animation projects actually die.
Where it goes
- AI video ad generator: what a machine does well, and where it quietly failsThe expensive part of a video advert was never the animating. It was deciding what the advert is for. A generator is very good at the first and has no opinion at all about the second.
- A short film in a tender or a bid: the answer that argues without youA bid is read by people you never meet, in minutes they did not choose to spend on you. A short film is the one part of a submission that still makes your argument when nobody is there to explain it.
- The product demo video is the ninety-second version of your front pageYour front page has about ninety seconds to explain what the software is for. That is the length of a product demo video, and it is enough, provided the film is given one job and the feature tour is left out.
- One film, every format: making one animation work on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, a website and a trade fair screenThe same film has to work in a feed, on a wall, and on a screen in a hall. That is not a resizing job. It is a second composition, and it is worth planning before the film is approved rather than after.
- A hero video on your website: when it helps, and when it wrecks the pageA film above the fold is a promise about weight, sound and attention, and it sits in the most expensive space on your site. Here is how to decide whether your homepage should carry one, and what has to change on the page once it does.
Cost
- A brand film when you do not have a studio budgetMost small businesses do not need a brand film. They need one short film that does one job. Asking for the second thing instead of the first is the difference between a few hundred pounds and a few tens of thousands.
- Explainer video cost in 2026: what you are actually paying forAn explainer video cost is decided by a handful of things you can name before the work starts. Learn what they are and you can read any quote in about five minutes, including the cheap one.
Questions people ask
How much does a short animated video cost for a small business?
Agencies usually quote in the thousands for a 30 to 60 second explainer. On Nine a plan starts from $29 a month before VAT, and every film shows its price before it starts. See what a 30-second animation costs.
Will the video use my brand colours?
Yes. Type your website address and the film starts from your name, colours and typeface.
Your idea, ready to go“A 20-second film for my bakery: fresh bread at 7 every morning, and the smell reaches the bus stop.”
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