How to Make Animated Explainer Videos for Online Courses [2026]
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You've poured months into building your online course. The curriculum is carefully structured, the content is genuinely helpful, and you know it can change people's lives. But after launch, the same pattern repeats: students enroll, watch the first couple of lessons, and then quietly disappear.
The problem, in most cases, isn't the content - it's the format.
Static slides and talking-head videos filmed on a laptop camera don't hold modern learners' attention. Today's online students expect something more engaging. Animated explainer videos for online courses consistently outperform every other content format when it comes to completion rates, student satisfaction, and knowledge retention.
The good news is that learning how to make animated explainer videos for online courses has never been more accessible. You don't need a design background, expensive software, or months of practice. This complete guide walks you through everything - from understanding why animated video works in e-learning, to choosing the right tool, and creating your first course explainer video step by step.
Why Animated Videos Work in E-Learning
What Are Animated Explainer Videos for Online Courses?
An animated explainer video is a short, focused video that uses visual animation - drawings, characters, text motion, or illustrated diagrams - combined with a voiceover narration to explain a single concept clearly and memorably.
Unlike a talking-head lecture where a presenter speaks directly to camera, an animated explainer video uses visuals that appear, move, and evolve in sync with the narration. This combination is especially powerful in e-learning because of what cognitive scientists call dual coding theory - the brain processes verbal information and visual information through separate channels at the same time. When both channels are engaged simultaneously, comprehension and memory retention improve dramatically compared to text or audio alone.
For course creators, this means students don't just hear what you're teaching - they see it happening. Abstract concepts become concrete. Complex processes become clear step-by-step sequences. Difficult ideas that students might struggle to grasp from reading a module page suddenly click when they watch an animated explainer video that illustrates the same concept.
The ideal animated explainer video for an online course is 3 to 5 minutes long, covers exactly one concept or learning objective, and ends with a clear call to action - such as completing an exercise, answering a quiz question, or moving to the next lesson. This format works across virtually every subject: business skills, technical training, creative arts, language learning, health education, coding, marketing, and more.
Types of Animated Explainer Videos for Online Courses
Not all animated explainer videos are created equal. Different styles work better for different content types. Here are the three formats that consistently perform best in e-learning video creation:
Whiteboard Animation
Hand-drawn illustrations appear on screen as if being sketched live. This whiteboard animation for education style is ideal for explaining processes, frameworks, and step-by-step concepts. Students find it especially trustworthy and easy to follow - it mimics the experience of a teacher drawing on a board while explaining.
Character Animation
Animated characters walk through real-world scenarios, demonstrate skills, or tell relatable stories. This format works brilliantly for soft skills training, business courses, and any topic where showing a character navigate a realistic situation helps students connect emotionally with the lesson content.
Kinetic Text Animation
Animated text, numbers, and data visualizations move across the screen in sync with narration. Perfect for statistics-heavy content, key-point summaries, financial topics, or any lesson where you need students to focus on specific information as it is being spoken.
For most course creators just getting started, whiteboard animation offers the best balance of visual impact and ease of creation. It is forgiving of imperfect scripts, works across virtually every subject, and can be produced quickly by complete beginners. Our complete whiteboard animation guide covers this format in depth if you want to go further into the technique.
The most effective animated explainer videos for online courses are 3 to 5 minutes long and cover exactly ONE concept per video. Trying to pack too much information into a single video is the most common mistake course creators make - and the fastest way to lose students halfway through.
What Makes a Great Course Explainer Video
Understanding what separates a student engagement video that people watch all the way through from one they abandon in the first minute is the foundation of effective e-learning video creation. Before you open any software, make sure your video is built on these four pillars.
A Script Built Around One Learning Outcome
Everything in a successful course explainer video flows from a single, specific learning outcome. Before writing a single word of script, complete this sentence: "After watching this video, my student will be able to [specific action]." If you cannot fill that blank cleanly, your concept is still too broad.
A strong course explainer script follows a simple three-part structure:
- ▸Hook (first 10 to 15 seconds): Open with the exact problem your student is facing right now, not with an introduction to yourself. "If you've ever struggled to [problem], this video will show you exactly how to fix it" is far more engaging than "Hi, I'm [name] and today we're going to cover..."
- ▸Core explanation (the middle): Cover your one concept clearly, using the simplest language possible. If a bright 14-year-old couldn't follow your explanation, simplify further. Use concrete examples, real-world analogies, and step-by-step progressions. Avoid jargon unless the course specifically teaches technical terminology.
- ▸Takeaway and next step (last 15 to 20 seconds): Tell students exactly what they just learned and what to do next. "So to recap: [key point]. In the next lesson, we'll cover [next topic]." This closing moment anchors the learning and maintains forward momentum through the course.
Pacing That Feels Natural
Animated videos work best at a measured pace - roughly 130 to 150 words per minute. Speak too slowly and students lose attention. Speak too fast and concepts don't land. A practical technique is to add a brief pause of 1 to 2 seconds after each key point. This gives the animation time to catch up visually and gives the student time to absorb the information before the next point arrives.
Visuals That Reinforce, Not Distract
Every visual element should support what is being said, not compete with it. If you are explaining a three-step process, the animation should show those steps appearing one at a time - not a flood of unrelated doodles appearing all at once. A common mistake is adding visual decoration that looks impressive but actually pulls attention away from the core lesson.
Audio Quality - Non-Negotiable
Poor audio is the single fastest way to make students abandon a video. You do not need a professional recording studio, but you do need a quiet room and a decent microphone. A USB microphone in the $30 to $50 range makes a dramatic improvement over a built-in laptop mic. Alternatively, if you are using AI voiceover for your explainer video, choose a voice model that sounds natural and warm rather than robotic or overly formal.
How to Script Your Animated Explainer Video
The script is the foundation of any great e-learning video. Before you open any animation software, write your script word for word. Here is a proven scripting process that works across virtually all course content:
Step 1 - Write for the ear, not the eye. Your script will be heard, not read. Write in conversational language. Short sentences. Active voice. Read every sentence aloud as you write it. If it sounds awkward when spoken, rewrite it until it flows naturally.
Step 2 - One idea per sentence. Complex sentences are hard to follow in audio. Break complicated ideas into multiple short, clear sentences. Give the listener time to process each point before you move to the next.
Step 3 - Time your draft. Read your first draft aloud and time it. For a 5-minute video, you need approximately 650 to 750 words of narration. If you are running long, identify which sections are not directly serving the learning outcome and cut them.
Step 4 - Write your visual cues. Alongside your script, note what should appear on screen at each moment. This does not need to be a full storyboard - even simple notes like "[show 3-step diagram]" or "[character confused - then lightbulb moment]" are enough to guide your animation work.
Step 5 - Read it aloud one final time. Before you start animating, read the complete script aloud as naturally as you can. If anything sounds forced, overly formal, or confusing, fix it now. Changing the script after you have built the animation is time-consuming and frustrating.
How to Make Animated Explainer Videos: Step by Step
Here is the complete practical process for creating your first animated explainer video for an online course - even if you have never made a video before.
Define Your Single Learning Outcome
Write one sentence: "After watching this video, my student will be able to [specific outcome]." If you cannot complete that sentence cleanly, your concept is still too broad. Break it down further until you have something focused and achievable in 3 to 5 minutes. This outcome becomes the filter for every decision you make in the steps that follow.
Write and Trim Your Script
Write your first draft naturally, as if explaining the concept to a friend. Then go back and trim aggressively - cut filler phrases like "So what I'm going to do here is...", unnecessary repetition, and anything that does not directly move the student toward the learning outcome. Read the final script aloud. It should sound like a natural conversation, not a formal lecture or a textbook passage.
Choose Your Animated Video Maker
Select an animated video maker that matches your skill level and budget (see the comparison section below). For most beginners, a drag-and-drop whiteboard animation tool is the fastest path to a professional-looking result. Set up a 16:9 canvas for standard course platforms like Teachable, Thinkific, or Kajabi. If you also plan to repurpose the content for short-form social media, create a 9:16 version separately after finishing the course version.
Build Your Animation Scene by Scene
Work through your script paragraph by paragraph. For each section of narration, add one or two visual elements that illustrate the point being made. Do not try to build the whole video at once - take it scene by scene, previewing as you go. A useful rule of thumb: one main visual element per talking point. More than that and the screen becomes cluttered, pulling attention away from the narration.
Add Voiceover, Review as a Student, and Export
Record or generate your voiceover and sync it to the animation. Then watch the complete video once as a student would - does every visual match the spoken content? Is the pacing comfortable to follow? Is the audio clean and clear? Make final adjustments, export at 1080p HD minimum, and upload to your course platform. Your first animated explainer video is done.
Best Animated Video Maker Tools for Online Course Creators
Choosing the right animated video maker is one of the most important decisions in your e-learning video creation workflow. The tool you choose affects how quickly you can produce videos, what styles are available to you, and how much you spend over the long term. Here is an honest comparison of the most used tools among course creators in 2026:
Which Tool Is Right for You?
For independent course creators who want professional animated explainer videos without expensive monthly commitments, InstaDoodle is the most accessible starting point. It is a one-time payment tool designed specifically for whiteboard and doodle-style animation - the exact format that performs best in educational content. There are no recurring fees, no per-video limits, and no need to justify the cost each month. You can read our full InstaDoodle review to see exactly what it can and cannot do before you decide.
For corporate L&D teams producing character-driven training content at scale, Vyond is the industry standard and worth the monthly investment. But at $49 to $100 per month, it is overkill for most independent educators before they have validated that animated video improves their course metrics.
For creators who want to test multiple styles before committing, Powtoon and Animaker both offer free tiers worth exploring. The limitations of the free versions are significant, but they are enough to confirm whether a subscription upgrade makes sense for your specific content.
Common Mistakes Educators Make with Course Explainer Videos
These are the most frequent mistakes that undermine otherwise good course videos - and how to avoid each one:
Making videos too long. The temptation is to make each video as comprehensive as possible. Resist it. A 15-minute animated explainer covering five concepts will always underperform five focused 3-minute videos, each covering one concept well. Students who feel overwhelmed skip ahead, lose context, and disengage completely. Shorter videos also make your course feel more structured and professional.
Improvising instead of scripting. Improvised narration works in conversational talking-head videos where personality and warmth carry the content. It does not work in animated explainer videos, where the visuals need to match the words being spoken precisely. Always build the script first, then build the animation around it.
Neglecting audio while obsessing over visuals. Students will tolerate slightly imperfect animation far more readily than muffled, echo-filled, or background-noise-contaminated audio. Before investing time in visual polish, make sure your recording environment and microphone are producing clean, clear sound.
Using too many animation effects at once. More movement does not equal more engagement. Chaotic, overly animated course explainer videos are harder to watch than calm, well-paced ones with clean transitions. One or two visual elements appearing per talking point is almost always better than an animated screen full of competing motion.
Neglecting the opening 10 seconds. If the first 10 seconds of your video do not clearly signal what the student will learn and why it matters to them, many will drop off before the actual content begins. Open with the problem your student is facing - not with a title card, not with your name, not with "today we're going to..."
Not testing on mobile before publishing. A significant portion of online learners watch course content on smartphones. Before publishing, play your finished video on a mobile screen. Text should be legible at small sizes, and key visuals should be centered rather than placed at the edges of the frame where they may be cropped or cut off on smaller screens.
How to Measure If Your Animated Explainer Videos Are Working
Creating animated explainer videos for your online course is an investment of time and energy. Tracking the right metrics tells you whether that investment is paying off and where to improve in future videos.
Video completion rate is the most important metric in e-learning. If students are consistently dropping off at the same point in a video, that is a clear signal that the content, pacing, or visual engagement needs adjustment at that specific moment. Most course platforms - Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, and others - show per-lesson completion data in their analytics dashboard.
Course completion rate is the big-picture signal. Compare your overall course completion rate before and after adding animated explainer videos to key modules. Even a 10 to 15 percentage point improvement in completion rate dramatically increases the number of students who reach your course's transformation moment - and who go on to leave positive reviews.
Module quiz scores tell you about knowledge retention. If your course includes quizzes, compare scores on modules that have animated explainer videos versus modules that do not. Higher quiz scores are direct evidence that the student engagement video format is improving how well students understand and remember the material.
Student reviews and direct feedback are qualitative signals worth watching for. Feedback like "the animated videos really helped me understand [concept]" or "I loved how visual this course is" is direct confirmation that e-learning video creation is delivering results for your audience.
I spent my first three months trying to make every lesson video perfect before publishing. What actually moved my completion rates was publishing videos faster and iterating based on real student data. Your first animated explainer video for your online course does not need to be flawless - it needs to be clear, focused, and specific. Publish it, watch the analytics, and make the next one better. Done consistently beats perfect every single time.
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- →How to Create Whiteboard Animation Videos in Minutes
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Frequently Asked Questions About Animated Explainer Videos for Online Courses
Aim for 3 to 5 minutes per concept. This is the sweet spot where students can stay focused without feeling overwhelmed. If your lesson naturally runs longer, split it into two shorter videos rather than stretching one video past the 7-minute mark. Research consistently shows that engagement in e-learning video content drops sharply after 6 minutes.
No. Modern whiteboard animation tools use pre-made asset libraries and drag-and-drop interfaces. You pick elements from a library, arrange them on your canvas, and the tool handles all the animation automatically. If you can use PowerPoint or Google Slides, you have all the technical skill needed. The creative skill that matters most is writing a clear, focused script.
A one-time payment animated video maker like InstaDoodle ($37) is the most cost-effective starting point for most independent educators. Monthly subscription tools like Powtoon or Animaker add up quickly - $150 to $600 per year - before you have even confirmed that animated video is improving your course results. Start with a one-time tool, measure the impact on completion rates, and upgrade later if you need advanced features like character animation.
Both approaches work well, but they serve different purposes. Your own voice builds a stronger personal connection with students and is worth the extra effort for your core course content. AI voiceover is useful for supplementary videos, quick concept recaps, or when you need to produce content at high volume quickly. If using AI narration, always preview multiple voice options and choose one that sounds natural and warm for your subject matter.
Not entirely - and they should not try to. Animated explainer videos are best used for concept introductions, process explanations, framework walkthroughs, and summary recaps. Traditional face-to-camera segments build the personal connection and trust that keeps students engaged and enrolled long-term. The most effective online courses combine both formats: animated videos for teaching concepts, and face-to-camera segments for motivation, Q&A responses, and relationship building.
Export as MP4 using the H.264 codec at 1080p resolution. This is the universal standard accepted by all major course platforms - Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, Udemy, and others. Avoid exporting at 720p, which looks noticeably blurry on modern high-resolution screens. Also avoid proprietary formats specific to your animation tool, which may not upload correctly to your course platform.
There is no fixed number, but a useful framework is one short animated explainer video (3 to 5 minutes) per major concept or module, used alongside other content types like exercises, quizzes, and face-to-camera lessons. A 6-module course might have 6 to 8 animated concept videos. Focus on quality and clarity over hitting a specific video count - one excellent course explainer video per module beats three mediocre ones.
Any course that explains processes, frameworks, or abstract concepts benefits enormously from animation. This includes business and marketing courses, technical skills training, financial education, language learning, health and wellness courses, and any STEM subject. Courses that rely primarily on hands-on demonstration - cooking, woodworking, physical fitness - may find screen-recorded or filmed demonstrations more appropriate for certain lessons, supplemented by animated explainer videos for the conceptual content.
Start Creating Your Course Explainer Videos Today
Animated explainer videos are not a nice-to-have for online courses in 2026 - they are what separates courses that students complete, rave about, and recommend to their networks from courses that see high enrollment but low engagement and even lower completion.
The barrier to e-learning video creation is genuinely lower than most course creators expect. You do not need a film degree, an animation background, or a significant budget. You need a focused concept, a clear script, and an animated video maker that handles the technical side for you.
Ready to Make Your First Animated Explainer Video?
If you want the fastest, most beginner-friendly path to professional animated explainer videos for your online course, InstaDoodle is worth exploring. It is a one-time investment designed for whiteboard and doodle-style animation - the format that consistently works best in educational content - with no monthly subscription fees and no video limits.
The students who will most benefit from your course are waiting. Giving them content in the format they actually learn best from - clear, focused, animated explainer videos built around one concept at a time - is one of the highest-leverage improvements you can make to any online course. And you can start today.