By Kevin Yi
Most small businesses know a short explainer video would help. Then they get a quote from an animation studio and quietly drop the idea.
AI cartoon tools have changed the maths. You still need a good script and some judgement, but you no longer need an animator.
This article walks through the process using one example. The business below is hypothetical. "Crumb & Co." is a made-up neighbourhood bakery, invented so we can discuss real decisions with real numbers.
The example: a bakery with one message to get across
Crumb & Co. has started taking pre-orders for celebration cakes. Customers keep asking the same three questions at the counter: how far ahead do I need to order, can you do allergy-friendly versions, and how do I pick it up?
That is a good brief for an explainer, for a simple reason: there is one message ("you can now pre-order a cake, here is how") and a small number of practical questions. If you can't say what your video is for in one sentence, no tool will fix that.
Before writing anything, the owner answers three questions:
Who is watching? Local customers scrolling Instagram, plus people who land on the website's ordering page.
What should they do afterwards? Open the order form.
What must they remember? Order at least three days ahead; allergy-friendly options exist; pickup is at the side door.
Step 1: Write the script before you open any tool
The script is where most explainers succeed or fail. A cartoon doesn't make a muddled message clearer; it just makes it move.
For a 6090 second explainer, this structure works for almost any small business:
A few rules that save a lot of rewriting later:
Write for the ear, not the eye. Read it out loud. If you run out of breath, the sentence is too long.
Budget words by time. A calm narrator speaks roughly two to three words per second. A 75-second video holds around 150200 words, not 400.
One idea per sentence. Each sentence will likely become its own scene, so a sentence that tries to show three things will produce a confused picture.
Name things visually. "A cheerful baker in a flour-dusted apron hands a cake box across the counter" gives the image generator far more to work with than "great service".
Step 2: Turn the script into scenes
You can generate short clips one prompt at a time and edit them yourself, but for a first explainer a script-to-video tool, which splits the script into scenes, draws them with the same characters and adds narration and music, is much less work. In our worked example I used ToonBee AI, where you can
paste the finished script and get it narrated word for word: the tool decides where to cut scenes and what each one shows, but it doesn't rewrite your copy. That matters for a business, because your opening hours, prices and promises need to be said exactly as you wrote them.
The flow looks like this:
1. Paste the script (or approve a generated one).
2. Pick a narrator voice and background music.
3. Review every scene picture. If the baker suddenly has a different apron in scene four, redraw only that scene; the other scenes stay as they are, and the old picture is kept as a variant in case you want it back.
4. Decide which scenes to animate.
Consistency matters: customers notice when "the baker" looks like three different people. Tools that anchor every scene to one reference image (same face, outfit and proportions) keep this under control.
Step 3: Pick a style that fits the business
The style says something about you before the narrator does. Some rough pairings:
Modern cartoon or flat comic: bakeries, cafs, cleaners, pet services. Friendly and clear.
Children's book illustration or watercolor: nurseries, tutors, craft shops, anything gentle.
3D animation: product-style explanations, apps, gadgets.
Realistic film looks: use carefully. If it looks real, viewers may assume it is real (more on that below).
For Crumb & Co., a warm modern cartoon style matches the shop: bright colours, round shapes, nothing that looks like stock footage.
Step 4: Vertical or horizontal?
Decide this before you render, because it changes how scenes are composed.
Vertical (9:16) is for Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Keep the subject centred, use close-ups, and assume many people watch without sound, so captions matter.
Horizontal (16:9) is for your website, YouTube and presentations. You have room for wider shots and a slower pace.
If you need both, make two versions rather than cropping one; a cropped scene often loses the very thing the narrator is talking about.
Crumb & Co. makes a 9:16 version for Instagram and a 16:9 version for the ordering page.
Step 5: Control the cost by choosing what moves
Here is where small businesses often overspend: animating every scene by default. A narrated explainer with good still pictures and a few animated moments often works just as well.
Using ToonBee AI's published rates (1 credit = $0.01) as an example:
The last row is my own arithmetic: animation is charged at 20 credits per second of clip, so three 5-second animated scenes add about 300 credits on top of the stills. For Crumb & Co. those three moments would be the hook (a cake box opening), the "how it works" steps, and the final call to action. Everything else can stay still while the narration carries it.
Whatever tool you use, look for one that shows the cost of each step before you confirm, so you're never surprised at the end.
Step 6: Make a second, shorter ad cut
An explainer answers questions. An ad grabs attention. They are different jobs, and trying to make one video do both usually weakens it.
Once the explainer is done, many businesses also want a 1530 second ad in the style of user-generated content: someone "talking to camera" about why they love the cakes. If you don't want to film it, an agent-style tool can plan this kind of piece from a written brief. For example, with
ViewMax Studio's agent mode you describe the ad, and the agent plans its own shot list, cuts, narration and music in one pass, without filming.
Keep the brief short and specific: who the viewer is, the one thing to remember, and the action to take. The same discipline as the explainer script applies.
When NOT to use a cartoon
Cartoons are a great fit for explaining a process, a service or an idea. They are the wrong tool when the footage has to show something real:
Testimonials. A cartoon customer saying nice things is not a testimonial, and presenting it as one damages trust.
Your actual team or premises. If people need to recognise you, your staff or your shop, film them.
A physical product's real appearance. A cartoon cake can't prove what your cakes look like. Use photos for that.
News or announcements that need credibility, such as a recall, a safety notice or a change in legal terms.
For Crumb & Co., the explainer handles "how pre-ordering works". Real photos of real cakes go on the order page next to it. Each does the job it's good at.
Before publishing, watch it once on a phone with the sound off, and check that the call to action is both spoken and shown on screen.
Small businesses don't need a studio-grade animation to explain a service clearly. They need a tight script, a consistent look, and the discipline to spend effort only where it shows.
Kevin Yi builds AI video tools, including ToonBee AI.
