The choices you make during an animation project directly affect how much it costs and how impactful it ends up being. Contrary to what you might assume, the most costly components are not always the most effective.

If you have timeline or budget constraints — and who doesn’t! — making choices according to cost and impact is essential.

To help, we’ve created an easy-to-follow chart that plots out how impactful and costly each component of an animation project can be, based on Animation Type, Music & Sound, Narration, and Visuals.

Say you want character animation on an illustrated background with stock music and a voiceover. Check out the chart to see where that project would fall within the impact/cost matrix.