🎬 Studio Budget Planner
Enter your team size, schedule, weekly rate, software cost, and overhead to see labor, software, subtotal, overhead, the grand total, and the cost per artist — size an animation production before you quote.
🧮 Plan Your Production Budget
What is a Studio Budget Planner?
It builds a production budget from the pieces that actually drive cost. Labor is your team multiplied by the weeks they work and their weekly rate; software and licensing are a fixed line; and overhead — added as a percentage — covers management, revisions, infrastructure, and margin. The tool sums it all and shows the cost per artist so you can compare staffing options.
Use it to scope a short, a series, or a commercial, to test how team size and schedule change the total, and to build a quote that won't leave you out of pocket. Rates and licensing vary by region and discipline, so treat the result as a planning baseline to refine per role.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
How does the studio budget planner work?
Enter the number of artists, the schedule in weeks, the weekly rate per artist, a fixed software or licensing cost, and your overhead percentage. It multiplies artists by weeks by rate for the labor cost, adds software for the subtotal, applies overhead on top, and reports the total plus the cost per artist so you can size the project.
What should overhead cover in an animation budget?
Overhead captures the costs of running a studio beyond the artists' pay: producers and coordination, revisions, hardware and render infrastructure, office or cloud costs, contingency, and profit margin. Adding it as a percentage keeps quotes realistic — a project priced on labor alone almost always ends up underwater.
How do I estimate a weekly rate per artist?
Base it on the artists' salary or contract rate divided across the working weeks, or on a blended studio day rate. Rates vary widely by discipline — a senior 3D or effects artist costs more than a junior clean-up artist — and by region, so a blended average across your team is a practical starting figure to refine per role.
Why include software as a separate line?
Animation, compositing, and render tools are often billed as per-seat subscriptions or licenses that don't scale with hours worked, so treating them as a fixed cost rather than folding them into rates keeps the budget honest. Listing software separately also makes it easy to compare tool choices and see their real impact on the total.