12 Essential Types of Animations SaaS Founders Need to Know

As a founder, you know video is essential for explaining your product, but the path to creating one is often unclear. You're told you need an "explainer video," but that term covers a dozen different styles, each with its own cost, timeline, and strategic purpose. Choosing the wrong one means wasting budget on a video that doesn't connect with your audience.

This isn't about finding the flashiest animation; it's about finding the right one for the job. Do you need the authenticity of a screen recording to build user trust, or the narrative power of 2D characters to simplify a complex workflow? This guide breaks down the most important types of animations for SaaS companies, moving beyond generic descriptions to provide a founder-focused perspective.

We will analyze each style through a practical lens, focusing on specific use cases and tradeoffs. Whether you're trying to drive conversions on a landing page or improve user onboarding, the right animation choice is a strategic decision, not just a creative one. This list is designed to give you the clarity needed to make that decision confidently.

1. Motion Graphics

Motion graphics animation brings graphic design elements to life. Instead of illustrating characters or realistic scenes, it focuses on animating shapes, text, icons, and other graphical components. This technique is one of the most versatile types of animations for SaaS companies because it excels at making abstract ideas understandable.

For a SaaS product, this means you can clearly demonstrate a workflow or visualize data-driven results without needing to show the actual UI. It transforms static information into a dynamic and compelling narrative.

Why Use Motion Graphics?

Motion graphics are ideal for explainer videos, product feature highlights, and data visualizations. Companies like Slack and Figma use them to quickly communicate value propositions in a clean, professional, and on-brand style. The focus remains on the information, with the animation serving to guide the viewer’s attention and clarify key points.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To get the most out of motion graphics, follow these practical guidelines:

• Prioritize Clarity: Every movement should have a purpose. Use animation to highlight important information or guide the eye, not just for decoration.
• Maintain Consistency: Use consistent easing curves (the acceleration and deceleration of objects) to create a smooth, professional feel throughout the video.
• Sync Audio and Visuals: Time animations to sync precisely with the voiceover or soundtrack. This synchronization dramatically improves viewer comprehension and engagement.
• Guide the Viewer: Use motion to direct attention sequentially through key features or benefits, ensuring your audience follows the intended message.

Understanding the core principles behind creating effective animations can make a significant difference. To see how these elements come together, you can explore the fundamental process of animation and apply those insights to your motion graphics projects.

2. 2D Character Animation

2D character animation involves creating illustrated characters that move and interact within a scene. Instead of focusing solely on abstract shapes, this technique humanizes technical products by using relatable personas to guide users. For SaaS companies, 2D characters can act as friendly guides, walking viewers through complex features.

This approach transforms a potentially dry product explanation into a relatable story. By giving a face to the solution, you make the software feel more accessible and less intimidating. This is one of the most effective ways to use these types of animations to improve user engagement and comprehension.

Why Use 2D Character Animation?

2D character animation is perfect for explainer videos, onboarding tutorials, and brand storytelling. Companies like Grammarly and Mailchimp use characters to build brand identity and make their value propositions memorable. A well-designed character can simplify technical concepts and demonstrate user empathy.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To get the most out of 2D character animation, follow these practical guidelines:

• Align with Brand Personality: Design characters that reflect your brand’s voice. A playful character suits a creative tool, while a more professional persona works for a financial platform.
• Keep Designs Simple: Use simple, distinctive traits for quick recognition. Overly complex characters can be distracting and harder to animate effectively, especially for a SaaS video.
• Focus on Essential Emotions: Limit character expressions to the key emotions needed to tell your story, such as confusion, understanding, and satisfaction. This keeps the animation clear and purposeful.
• Use Interaction to Demonstrate Value: Show characters interacting with your UI or solving a problem. This directly connects the character's journey to the product's benefits, making the solution tangible.

3. Screen Recording & Cursor Animation

Screen recording captures your actual product interface in action, often enhanced with animated cursors and highlights to guide the viewer’s eye. This technique is one of the most effective types of animations for SaaS demos and tutorials because it provides an authentic, transparent look at your platform's functionality.

By showing the product directly, you build trust and reduce the gap between marketing promises and user reality. For a SaaS company, this means you can create compelling feature walkthroughs, onboarding guides, and support content that is both accurate and easy to follow.

Why Use Screen Recording & Cursor Animation?

This method is ideal for product demonstrations, feature announcements, and bug-reporting videos. Companies like Notion and Linear use it to showcase their powerful user interfaces with absolute clarity. It grounds the viewer in the actual product, making abstract features tangible and proving that the tool works exactly as advertised.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To produce polished and effective screen recordings, apply these best practices:

• Prepare Your Environment: Before recording, close all unnecessary tabs, turn off notifications, and hide personal bookmarks or desktop icons to create a clean, professional canvas.
• Guide with Intent: Use smooth cursor animations and highlights to draw focus to one UI element at a time. This prevents cognitive overload and keeps the viewer engaged.
• Use Strategic Pauses: Add 1-2 second pauses after a key action. This gives viewers a moment to process what just happened before you move on to the next step.
• Ensure Readability: Zoom in on smaller interface elements like buttons or text fields to ensure they are legible, even on mobile devices. Record in high resolution (at least 1920x1080) for maximum clarity.

4. Whiteboard Animation (Explainer)

Whiteboard animation simulates a hand drawing illustrations and text on a white background in real-time. This technique creates a uniquely engaging, story-driven presentation style that feels personal and educational. This approach is one of the most effective types of animations for breaking down intricate concepts into simple, digestible steps.

For a SaaS company, whiteboard animation is well-suited for explaining a complex user problem or demonstrating how your software provides a solution. It excels at building a narrative that guides viewers from confusion to clarity, making it ideal for longer-form educational content.

Why Use Whiteboard Animation?

This style is perfect for tutorial videos, product explainers, and educational content that needs to hold viewer attention. The hand-drawn process creates a psychological effect, making the audience feel as though they are part of a one-on-one lesson. Companies use it to simplify abstract workflows or tell the origin story of their product.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To create a powerful whiteboard animation, focus on the narrative and clarity:

• Prioritize the Script: The story is the foundation. A strong script with a clear beginning, middle, and end is more important than the illustrations themselves.
• Keep Illustrations Simple: Use iconic, easily recognizable drawings. The goal is rapid comprehension, not artistic complexity.
• Pace the Animation: Sync the drawing speed precisely with the voiceover. The visual reveal should perfectly match the narrator's explanation for maximum impact.
• Use Color Strategically: Stick to a monochrome palette with one or two accent colors to highlight key information without distracting the viewer.

The hand-drawn, narrative style of this format is a powerful tool for education. To understand how this fits into a broader marketing strategy, you can explore in detail what an explainer video is and when to best deploy one.

5. Kinetic Typography

Kinetic typography is a specific form of motion graphics that animates text to convey ideas and emotion. This technique brings words to life by manipulating their movement, scale, color, and timing. For SaaS companies, it’s a potent way to highlight value propositions or create memorable brand messaging without complex illustrations.

This type of animation transforms static text into a primary visual element, making your message not just readable but also impactful. It can create rhythm, guide the viewer’s focus, and add a layer of personality that static text cannot match. It’s one of the most direct types of animations for communicating a core idea quickly.

Why Use Kinetic Typography?

Kinetic typography is perfect for high-impact social media ads, product feature callouts, and brand manifestos. Companies like Apple and Spotify use it to make their messaging feel modern, clean, and deliberate. The animation focuses entirely on the words, ensuring key phrases land with maximum emphasis and are easily remembered.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To make your kinetic typography compelling and clear, follow these guidelines:

• Prioritize Readability: Ensure text remains on screen long enough to be read, typically 2-3 seconds per phrase. Test on mobile devices where screen size is smaller.
• Synchronize with Audio: Precisely time text animations to match the cadence of a voiceover or the beat of a music track. This creates a powerful, unified experience.
• Focus the Message: Don’t overwhelm the viewer. Concentrate on animating 5-7 key words or phrases per video to ensure your core message stands out.
• Maintain Visual Consistency: Use a consistent set of easing curves and a limited color palette. This makes the animation feel professional and cohesive, not chaotic.

6. Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion animation gives physical, real-world objects the illusion of movement. This technique involves capturing a sequence of still photographs, with the object being moved in tiny increments between each shot. When these frames are played in rapid succession, the object appears to move on its own, creating a tangible and often charming visual narrative.

For a SaaS company, stop motion offers a powerful way to stand out from purely digital content. It can add a human, craft-like quality that feels authentic and memorable. This approach is particularly effective for brand storytelling, where the goal is to create an emotional connection rather than demonstrate a specific software feature.

Why Use Stop Motion Animation?

Stop motion is ideal for creating distinctive hero videos, brand campaigns, or social media content that needs to grab attention. Companies like Mailchimp have used it to explain services in a whimsical, physical way, differentiating their brand from more conventional competitors. This type of animation excels at building brand personality.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To successfully incorporate stop motion, focus on careful planning and execution:

• Plan Every Frame: Storyboard your entire sequence meticulously before shooting. Unlike digital animation, you cannot easily go back and make changes once you have started.
• Maintain Consistent Lighting: Even minor shifts in lighting between frames can create a distracting flicker effect. Shoot in a controlled environment where you can manage the light source completely.
• Ensure Stability: Use a high-quality camera and a sturdy tripod to eliminate any camera shake. Even the slightest movement can ruin the illusion of smooth motion.
• Aim for Smooth Playback: Shoot at a minimum of 12-24 frames per second (fps) for fluid motion. Lower frame rates can look choppy, while higher rates require more photos and time.

7. 3D Animation & Product Visualization

3D animation uses computer-generated imagery to create objects and scenes with realistic depth, lighting, and perspective. For SaaS companies, it excels at visualizing abstract concepts or demonstrating complex product architecture. It's one of the most powerful types of animations for turning intangible digital services into something tangible and understandable.

This technique allows you to show how data flows through a system, how different software components interact, or how a platform scales to handle massive workloads. Instead of just telling your audience, you can show them a compelling, three-dimensional representation of your product’s inner workings.

Why Use 3D Animation & Product Visualization?

3D animation is perfect for high-impact hero videos, technical explainers, and visualizing concepts that are otherwise impossible to show. Companies like Stripe and AWS use 3D to illustrate complex backend processes like payment processing or cloud infrastructure, instantly building credibility and demonstrating their platform's power.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To implement 3D animation effectively, focus on precision and purpose:

• Reserve for High-Impact Moments: Use 3D strategically for premium hero videos or to explain a core, unique concept. Overusing it can be costly and may overshadow your message.
• Visualize the Invisible: Focus on animating concepts that are difficult to explain with words or simpler graphics, such as data architecture or machine learning models.
• Prioritize Pre-visualization: The rendering process is time-intensive. Planning your shots thoroughly is crucial, and learning how to make an animatic can save significant time and budget.
• Balance Detail and Clarity: While 3D allows for immense detail, ensure the visuals support the core message rather than becoming a distraction. The goal is to clarify, not just to impress.

8. Animated Infographics

Animated infographics use the power of motion to bring data, statistics, and complex information to life. Instead of presenting static charts, this technique guides the viewer through key data points sequentially, making dense information digestible. This is one of the most effective types of animations for SaaS companies looking to prove their value with numbers.

For a SaaS product, this means you can visually demonstrate ROI or compare features against competitors using concrete metrics. It transforms abstract data into a compelling, easy-to-follow narrative that builds trust and highlights your product's impact.

Why Use Animated Infographics?

Animated infographics are perfect for landing pages, investor pitches, and marketing content where data is central. Companies like Salesforce and HubSpot use them to turn performance metrics into engaging visual stories. The animation serves to direct attention and add context to the numbers, ensuring the core message is understood.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To create impactful animated infographics, apply these practical guidelines:

• Focus on Key Metrics: Avoid overwhelming the viewer. Highlight only the 3-5 most important data points to ensure your core message lands.
• Use Clear Visual Cues: Employ contrasting colors and simple, universally recognized chart types (bar graphs, pie charts) to make data easy to interpret at a glance.
• Pace the Reveal: Sync the animation timing with your voiceover or supporting on-screen text. Reveal one statistic at a time to give the audience a moment to process it.
• Provide Context: Numbers alone are not enough. Frame your data within a narrative that explains what the metrics mean for the customer and why they should care.

9. Live-Action Video with Motion Graphics Overlay

This hybrid approach combines real-world footage with animated graphic elements layered on top. By featuring real people and environments, you build authenticity and trust, while the motion graphics add clarity and branding. This technique is one of the most effective types of animations for grounding abstract product benefits in a relatable, human context.

For a SaaS product, this means you can produce a compelling customer testimonial where key metrics pop up on screen as they are mentioned. It’s perfect for founder interviews, success stories, or product walkthroughs that need both a human touch and precise informational callouts.

Why Use Live-Action with Motion Graphics?

This combination is ideal for building credibility. When a real customer or founder is on screen, the message feels more genuine than a pure animation. Companies like Zapier use this style for integration testimonials, allowing users to share their stories authentically while graphics highlight the specific apps and workflows involved.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To successfully merge live-action footage with animated overlays, follow these guidelines:

• Plan Your Graphics in Pre-Production: Script where graphics will appear before you start filming to ensure you leave enough empty space (negative space) in the shot composition.
• Shoot in High Resolution: Film in 4K if possible. This provides the flexibility to crop or reframe in post-production without losing quality, making it easier to integrate graphics.
• Keep Graphics Minimalist: The live-action footage is the star. Use motion graphics to support the narrative, not overshadow the person on screen. Simple text callouts or subtle data points work best.
• Match Colors and Tone: Ensure your graphics use your brand’s color palette and that the overall color grade of the video aligns with your brand guidelines for a cohesive, professional look.

10. Animated Product Mockups & UI Previews

Animated product mockups bring a user interface to life without needing to capture a live, functioning product. This technique involves animating high-fidelity designs of app screens or website layouts to demonstrate workflows and feature interactions. It is one of the most effective types of animations for showcasing unreleased features before development is complete.

For a SaaS company, this means you can create compelling feature announcements, App Store previews, or landing page demos that feel real. Animated mockups allow you to control the narrative perfectly, showing an idealized user flow without the clutter or potential bugs of a live environment.

Why Use Animated Product Mockups?

This approach is perfect for marketing upcoming features, securing investor buy-in with a product vision, or gathering user feedback on a proposed design. Companies like Figma and Apple use animated mockups to generate excitement and clearly communicate functionality in a polished, controlled manner.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To create mockups that look and feel authentic, consider these guidelines:

• Focus on a Single Flow: Animate one key user interaction or workflow at a time to keep the message clear and prevent overwhelming the viewer.
• Maintain High Fidelity: Ensure the mockup’s design quality matches or exceeds the final product. A polished preview sets high expectations.
• Incorporate Micro-interactions: Add subtle animations like button presses, loading spinners, and smooth screen transitions to make the mockup feel responsive and real.
• Use Realistic Content: Populate mockups with realistic data, usernames, and images. "Lorem ipsum" text and placeholder content can break the illusion.

Creating these polished visuals is a key step in building a compelling narrative. To understand how these animations fit into a broader strategy, you can explore detailed guides on how to make a product video that converts.

11. Animated GIFs & Cinemagraphs

Animated GIFs are short, looping animations, while cinemagraphs are high-quality still images with a single, subtly moving element. Both formats excel at creating visual interest without the overhead of a full video. These lightweight, soundless loops are among the most versatile types of animations for SaaS marketing.

For a SaaS product, you can quickly demonstrate a specific UI interaction or add a touch of polish to a webpage. They grab attention instantly and communicate a simple action more effectively than a static image, all without requiring the user to click play.

Why Use Animated GIFs & Cinemagraphs?

These formats are ideal for showcasing quick feature highlights, enhancing email marketing campaigns, and creating engaging social media content. Companies like Slack and Product Hunt use GIFs to provide quick previews of features or new products, making their content more dynamic and shareable.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To get the most out of these looping formats, follow these practical guidelines:

• Optimize File Size: Compress your files as much as possible without sacrificing too much visual quality. Smaller files load faster, which is critical for web and email performance.
• Design a Seamless Loop: Ensure the animation's end point flows smoothly back to its beginning. A jarring or obvious cut can distract the viewer and make the loop feel unprofessional.
• Focus on a Single Action: Each GIF or cinemagraph should highlight one specific action or benefit. This clarity ensures the viewer understands the message in just a few seconds.
• Provide a Static Fallback: When using these in emails, always include a static alternative image for email clients that do not support animated formats.

12. Interactive & Branching Animation

Interactive animation transforms the viewer from a passive observer into an active participant. Instead of following a linear path, users make choices by clicking buttons or selecting options, which then triggers different animated sequences. This creates a branching narrative that adapts to user input, making it highly engaging for personalized onboarding.

For a SaaS company, this means you can build dynamic product tours where a user can choose to learn about the features most relevant to them. It turns a one-size-fits-all explainer into a tailored experience, increasing viewer engagement and comprehension by focusing only on what matters to that user.

Why Use Interactive & Branching Animation?

This approach is perfect for complex products with multiple user roles or use cases. It allows potential customers to self-segment and explore the product from their unique perspective. SaaS companies like Appcues and Intercom use this model to create product guides that feel like a one-on-one demo, helping users reach their "aha!" moment faster.

Actionable Tips for Implementation

To get the most out of interactive animations, follow these practical guidelines:

• Map Decision Paths: Before starting production, create a clear flowchart of every possible user path and outcome. This blueprint prevents narrative dead-ends and ensures a coherent experience.
• Keep Choices Clear: Design interactive elements (buttons, hotspots) to be obvious and intuitive. Users should never be confused about where to click or what will happen next.
• Provide an Escape Hatch: Always include a "back" or "reset" option. This gives users the confidence to explore different branches without fear of getting stuck or losing their place.
• Track User Choices: If possible, gather analytics on which paths users take most frequently. This data provides invaluable insight into what features or benefits are most compelling to your audience.

From Production Bottleneck to Distribution Engine

Navigating the diverse world of animation can feel overwhelming. We’ve journeyed through twelve distinct types of animations, from the clarity of motion graphics to the authenticity of screen recordings. Each style holds a specific power. Kinetic typography can make a key statistic unforgettable, while a 3D product visualization can convey a level of quality that static images cannot match.

The key takeaway is not just knowing what these styles are; it's understanding when and why to deploy them. For a founder, the ultimate goal of any video is the business outcome: lower churn, higher conversion, or a shorter sales cycle. The choice of animation style is a means to that end.

Common Approaches (Without Judgment)

Founders typically have a few options for creating animated videos. Agencies deliver high-end, custom work but come with significant costs and longer timelines. Freelancers offer more flexibility but require hands-on management to ensure brand consistency and quality. DIY tools are cost-effective but often result in generic-looking videos that can hurt your brand perception. Each path has tradeoffs between quality, cost, and speed.

A Distribution-First Mindset

A common pitfall is over-investing in a single, high-production video. This consumes budget and time that could be used to test different messages on LinkedIn, create a series of targeted onboarding videos, or refresh the hero video on your pricing page. The most successful SaaS companies are not those with the single most beautiful explainer video; they are the ones that can consistently communicate their value.

This is where a productized service like Forgeclips offers a practical alternative. It provides access to high-quality animation styles like motion graphics and UI animation at a fraction of the cost and time of a custom project. This allows founders to shift their focus and budget from production to distribution, where the real growth happens. When your process is fast and cost-effective, you can build a library of assets that serve every stage of the customer journey, turning video from a bottleneck into a distribution engine.

Ready to see how a streamlined video process can support your growth? Explore our examples and see how you can get a studio-quality product video ready for your website, ads, or onboarding in days at Forgeclips.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to produce a high-quality SaaS explainer video?

Traditional agencies often take 6–12 weeks. However, Forgeclips streamlines the process, delivering studio-quality product videos in as little as a few days by focusing on proven SaaS animation frameworks.

What is the best animation style for showing a new software feature?

For feature announcements, Forgeclips recommends Screen Recording & Cursor Animation or Animated Product Mockups. These styles provide the highest level of clarity and trust by showing the actual interface in action.

How much do these types of animations typically cost for a startup?

Agency prices can range from $5,000 to $20,000 per video. Forgeclips offers a more cost-effective, productized model that allows SaaS founders to produce multiple high-end assets for the price of one traditional agency project.

Can I use these animations for social media ads?

Absolutely. Styles like Kinetic Typography and short Motion Graphics loops are perfect for high-engagement ads. Forgeclips specializes in creating short, punchy clips optimized for LinkedIn, X, and Facebook.