It’s happening. Your company is growing and getting a lot of attention, but your website is not up to snuff – you need some striking animations that reflect your brand. It might be time to hire a motion graphics designer. While you’re not cheap, you also want to be smart with your budget. So here’s a primer on spending wisely for designs you’ll love.
Option 1: Salaried employee
If you feel like you would have enough work that hiring a full-time designer is the way to go, you’ll want to see what those salaries look like.
According to Glassdoor, US salaries range from $46,000 - $96,000 with an average of about $65,000. In the EU the ranges are significantly lower, around €33,000 - €60,000, with an average of €42,000. In the UK, it’s also on the lower end, at about £24,000 - £52,000.
However, your hiring costs will include more than just salaries. Here are some other costs involved:
- Recruitment – Your recruitment costs may include job board fees, as well as internal or external recruiter expenses. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) suggests that the average cost per hire is nearly $4,700.
- Training – Want to retain employees and help keep their skill set relevant? You’ll have to spend on training. According to Training Magazine’s industry report, which surveyed US-based companies with 100 or more employees, companies spent an average of $1,071 per employee on training in 2021.
- Benefits – Hiring a full-time employee also means providing other non-direct compensation, paid leave, health insurance and contributions to retirement savings. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, wage and salary costs for private industry employees account for 70.4% of employer costs, while benefit costs make up the remaining 29.6%.
These are all significant costs, so you’ll need to make sure you have enough work for a full-time motion graphics designer. If a salaried employee isn’t the most strategic option, you might look at finding someone on more of a temporary basis.
Option 2: Freelance motion designers
Freelance might be the better choice if you’d rather work with a designer who can just create what you want and then come back if you need more. Freelancers come with the aforementioned benefits, but also with their own challenges, such as cost, availability and time constraints.
According to Upwork, motion graphic designers charge a median hourly rate of $18 to $35, but you'll see a wider range of rates as you browse the platform. Experienced motion designers may charge up to $100 or more.
Expect to do a lot of research, looking at rates and portfolios to find the aesthetic you’re looking for, rates that are within your budget and someone you trust.
You could go with a fixed rate, or pay for a project if you have a certain set amount of work in mind. This also leads to a huge range of costs, anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a couple thousand. It comes down to how you feel about the designer, their portfolio and cost.
And, of course, they also have to be available. If you are looking for a lot of work quickly, or may need follow-up work soon, there’s a chance the designer might struggle to fit you into their schedule, especially if they are very good. If this is the case, you might be better off working with people who have greater resources and availability.
So where can you hire a freelance motion designer? Here are a couple of options.
- Freelancing platforms - Freelance platform Upwork is great if you’re looking for experienced freelancers on a medium or long-term basis. Fiverr could be an option if you’re budget-strapped, or if you’re looking for someone on a short-term basis.
- Design portfolio platforms - Designers use sites like Dribbble and Behance to show off their portfolios. These platforms offer an option to contact or hire designers you’re interested in.
- LottieFiles - LottieFiles features thousands of free animations by the motion design community. If you like a particular designer’s work, check out their profile – they may be available for hire.
Option 3: Motion graphics studio/agency
The benefit of going with a design agency is they usually have a wide range of designers, meaning they may have more availability and also a variety of styles, skill sets and can present you with someone to match your requests. That means less guesswork on your end.
But cost can be an issue when working with an agency. Agencies usually prefer to get sense of your project before offering a quote, but depending on what you’re looking for, hourly rates can be double (or more) when compared to freelancers. They may also have a minimum charge per project. A quick glance at Clutch, a review platform for B2B services, suggests that US-based motion graphics and animation studios typically charge a minimum of $5,000 per project, while smaller studios may start at $1,000. The final quote depends on factors like the duration of your animation, the animation style, its complexity and whether there is scriptwriting or voiceovers involved.
Second, while an agency may have more availability than a freelancer, they are also more structured. Agencies are often spinning a lot of plates at once, and may be fairly strict with timelines. On the other hand, a freelancer’s availability might be limited, but they are also probably more flexible if you need changes made for deliverables.
There’s another option: LottieFiles
What if you want to make use of motion, but don’t have the budget to engage with motion designers or agencies yet? Here’s another option.
LottieFiles has thousands of free animations you can use, for both personal and commercial projects. And even better – you can customize any animation to fit your brand’s color palette. You can also change other features, like text, size, speed and more, even if you don’t know anything about motion design. Alternatively, if you have existing design assets you’d like to animate, LottieFiles can help with that too. Use our SVG to Lottie tool to transform static images, such as your company logo, into engaging animations.
And LottieFiles isn’t just for brands that don’t have in-house motion designers. We have tons of integrations with popular software like Adobe After Effects, Adobe XD, Figma, Visual Studio Code and more. This helps design and development teams save up to weeks editing, previewing and shipping animations.
So whatever your needs and budget, don’t be discouraged – there are plenty of options to start using animation in your website, app or marketing.
