Yes. In fact they tend to work harder for software than almost any other product. A good explainer takes a complex tool and makes the value obvious in 60 seconds, which is exactly what a busy buyer needs. Wyzowl's 2026 research found that adding an explainer video to a landing page can lift conversions by up to 80%. On top of that, 87% of B2B buyers say video has shaped a purchase decision. Those are ceiling figures rather than guarantees, but the direction is clear: when someone is weighing up software, showing beats telling.
The catch is that most B2B explainers are made backwards. Teams pour the budget into a glossy homepage hero, then wonder why it does not move the needle. The videos that actually convert are the ones built for a specific moment in the buying journey, with a job to do. A homepage explainer that tries to speak to everyone usually ends up speaking to no one. The ones that work pick a single buyer, a single problem, a single moment of doubt, then answer it cleanly.
Because software is genuinely hard to sell with screenshots. Most products are a dense interface that makes perfect sense to the people who built it and almost none to a first-time viewer. An explainer bridges that gap by selling the outcome instead of the dashboard.
Something we keep hearing this month is that the real driver isn't vanity, it's clarity. We recently scoped an explainer project with a B2B software company whose product runs on an older, database-style interface. They didn't want to animate it to look prettier than it is. They wanted stylised animation so they could explain what the software actually does for a customer, without a new buyer getting lost in a wall of tables. That is the honest use case for animation in B2B: not to mislead, but to translate.
It is a pattern we see constantly. The product teams who build brilliant software are often far too close to it to explain it simply. They lead with features because the features are what they're proud of. A buyer doesn't care about the feature, they care about the headache it removes. An explainer forces that translation, which is half the reason it converts.
The best explainer video doesn't show your software. It shows the problem your software quietly removes.
Get that right and the video does a job no feature list can. It gives a prospect the gist in a minute, so by the time they reach a sales call they already understand why you exist. That shortens the whole conversation.
In your sales process, not just your website. The company we mentioned wanted theirs for the deal room, the private space where a buyer reviews case studies and webinars before signing off. That is where a 90-second explainer earns its money, because it arms your internal champion to sell the product to colleagues when you are not in the room.
Most custom B2B explainers in the UK land between £3,000 and £10,000 for a polished 60-second piece, with simpler 2D work starting nearer £1,500. Squideo's 2026 survey across 45 studios put the average 30-second explainer at £2,960. For a fuller picture of what video work costs across formats, we broke the numbers down in our guide to UK video content pricing.
We tend to price on a day rate rather than a fixed per-video number, because it keeps things honest. A master explainer is usually a few days of animation work, then the derivative cuts, social versions and product-page edits cost far less because the heavy lifting is already done. One master feeding several outputs is almost always better value than commissioning five separate videos from scratch.
The other cost most teams forget is reuse. A well-built explainer is not one video, it's a system. The same illustration style, the same characters, the same motion language can carry across carousels, sales decks and onboarding emails. When you brief an explainer, ask what else the visual language can power before the animation is even signed off. That single decision often doubles the value you get from the same budget.
Animate when your interface is dense, changes often, or doesn't photograph well; film when you have real people and a real story to tell. Software usually falls into the first camp. A live screen recording dates the moment you ship an update, then quietly stops representing the product. It also rarely captures the why behind a feature.
Animation also lets you show things a camera can't: data moving through a system, an abstract benefit like reduced risk, a before-and-after that would take a customer six months to experience in real life. The trade-off is that animation needs a tighter script, because there's no improvising on set. Every second is drawn on purpose, so the thinking has to happen up front.
Aim for 60 to 90 seconds for the main explainer. Long enough to land one clear idea, short enough that a busy buyer watches to the end. If you have four product pillars to cover, make four focused videos rather than one four-minute epic nobody finishes. One idea per video keeps each one sharp and easy to re-use across pages.
Wireframe it before you animate a single frame. The most expensive mistake in explainer video is committing to full production, then discovering the story doesn't work three weeks in.
We always storyboard or wireframe the whole video first, so a client can see exactly what they're getting before the costly animation starts. It feels slower, but it saves money and arguments. You catch the "actually, can we lead with the problem?" note while it costs nothing to change, not after a designer has spent two days rendering it. Our rough order of play looks like this:
One last thing worth saying plainly: an explainer is a sales tool, not a brand-awareness exercise. Judge it on whether it shortens conversations and answers the objection your prospects keep raising. If you don't know what that objection is yet, that is the work to do before any animation begins. The best brief we ever get is a sales team telling us the one thing buyers always misunderstand. Solve that on screen, point it at the deal room, then watch the video pay for itself many times over.
If you want B2B explainers built this way, our Content Sprints are designed to get a batch of video planned and produced fast, without the usual agency faff. Book a 15-minute call, drop us a WhatsApp on 07498 203 482, or email team@weshouldcreate.com and we'll talk through what would actually move the needle for your product.
They can, often significantly. Wyzowl's 2026 data shows a landing page explainer can lift conversions by up to 80%, though that is the ceiling rather than the average. The bigger gain is usually fewer wasted sales calls, because prospects arrive already understanding what your software does and why it actually matters.
Typically three to six weeks for a custom animated explainer, depending on script rounds and revisions. Most of that time is scripting and storyboarding, not animation itself. If you sign off the wireframe quickly, production moves fast. Batching several videos at once shortens the per-video timeline considerably and keeps costs down.
Animation usually wins for software. A live screen recording dates the moment you ship an update and struggles to show abstract benefits like reduced risk or saved time. Animation translates a dense interface into a clear story, though it demands a tighter script because nothing is improvised on the day.
Put it where buyers make decisions: the sales deal room, key product pages, even pitch decks, not only the homepage. A short explainer inside a deal room helps your internal champion sell the product to colleagues when you are not in the meeting, which is often exactly where deals quietly stall.
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