How long should a SaaS explainer video be?
The right length for a SaaS explainer depends on where it plays. A practical guide to runtime for homepages, social feeds and sales, with real examples.
There is no single correct length for an explainer video, but there is a correct length for each place a video is watched. The same product can need a 20 second cut and a two minute cut, and both can be right.
The useful question is not "how long should it be?" but "how much attention has the viewer already agreed to give?"
Length by placement
Social feed: under 30 seconds
In a feed nobody has agreed to anything. The video has to justify itself in the first second and finish before the thumb moves. Our Rebuttal POV spot runs about 20 seconds with no voiceover: a hook, a typed prompt, the product doing the work, done.
Homepage or landing page: 60 to 90 seconds
A visitor who presses play on your homepage has opted in, but only loosely. Around a minute to a minute and a half is enough to set up the problem, show the product and close with one promise. Our Basic Memory explainer does it in 60 seconds.
Demo for an interested buyer: up to about two minutes
Someone evaluating your product will stay longer, because the video is saving them a call. A full workflow can take close to two minutes without dragging, as long as every scene shows something new. The OBPrint product video follows an entire print order in just under two minutes.
Length is a script problem, not an editing problem
Runtime is decided when the script is written. Narration is spoken at a fairly steady pace, so the word count of a script predicts the length of the video almost exactly. If a 90 second video is the goal and the script reads at two and a half minutes, no amount of fast editing will fix it. Something has to be cut.
That is why we lock the script and storyboard before animation starts. It is far cheaper to delete a paragraph than to delete a finished scene.
A simple test for what to cut
- Write down the one thing the viewer must remember.
- Go through the script line by line and ask whether each line helps that one thing land.
- Anything that is true and interesting but does not help goes into a second video, a feature page or the sales call.
A video that makes one point clearly will outperform a longer one that makes five points vaguely.
When in doubt, make two
If you are torn between a short version and a complete one, plan both from the start. A main explainer plus a short social cut, built from the same scenes, costs far less than two separate productions and covers both ends of the funnel. See how we approach SaaS explainer videos and social video ads.