Animation Studios in Belfast: How to Choose

What this article covers: Educational Voice works with Belfast businesses on 2D animation projects from our Belfast studio. This page covers what we do for Belfast clients, what to expect on pricing, and how our process works.

Who this is for: Marketing managers, training leads and SME owners in Belfast and across Northern Ireland ready to commission professional 2D animation.

Key takeaway: As a Belfast-based studio, Educational Voice combines local access with the same structured production process used for clients across the UK and Ireland.

“Being based in Belfast gives us a direct understanding of what local and UK businesses need from their animation. We know the market, the culture, and the practical realities of working with SMEs who need quality without enterprise-level budgets.” Michelle Connolly, Founder and Director, Educational Voice

Quick facts:

• Educational Voice is based at the McSweeney Centre in Belfast and has produced over 3,300 educational animations for LearningMole.
• Professional 2D animation typically ranges from £1,500 for a short explainer to £15,000+ for complex, longer-form productions.
• Most 2D animation projects complete in four to eight weeks from brief to delivery.

Educational Voice is a one of the 2D animation studios in Belfast, Northern Ireland, working with businesses, schools and public sector organisations across the city and the wider UK. Whether you need an explainer video, a training series or an educational animation, this page covers what working with us actually looks like, what pricing to expect, and how to get a project started. You can read more about Educational Voice and the team behind the studio.

Working with Belfast Businesses

Belfast businesses commission animation for the same reasons companies anywhere in the UK do: to explain something complex, train staff more effectively, or communicate a message that static content struggles to land. Being based in the city means we understand the practical realities Belfast SMEs work within, from budget constraints to approval processes that often involve a small internal team rather than a dedicated marketing department.

Michelle Connolly, a former primary school teacher, founded Educational Voice to help businesses and educators communicate complex ideas through animation. That background shapes how the studio approaches every Belfast brief: starting with what the audience needs to understand, not with what looks impressive on a showreel. Educational Voice has since produced over 3,300 educational animations for LearningMole, alongside explainer videos, corporate training content and sector-specific work for healthcare and financial services clients.

Working with a Belfast-based studio also means straightforward logistics. There’s no time zone difference to manage, briefings can happen over a call or in person, and revisions get discussed directly rather than through layers of account management. Animation is only one part of the city’s wider production capability, alongside video production in Belfast more generally.

That directness matters more than it sounds. A lot of animation projects lose time not in production but in the gaps between feedback rounds, waiting on approvals, chasing clarification on a note, or discovering three weeks in that two people on the client side had different expectations of the brief. Being in the same city removes some of that friction: a quick call or a short meeting can resolve in ten minutes what might otherwise take several email exchanges. For Belfast businesses juggling animation alongside a full workload, that speed is often as valuable as the final animation itself.

The studio also brings a specific perspective to Belfast briefs that comes from Michelle Connolly’s background in primary education: an instinct for breaking a complex idea into the smallest clear step, and building the animation around that step rather than around what looks visually striking. That approach applies whether the brief is a product explainer, a compliance training module, or a public information film.

Sectors We Serve in Belfast

The studio works across several sectors from its Belfast base, each with different requirements for tone, accuracy and review process.

• Education: schools, universities and training providers, including the studio’s long-running production relationship with LearningMole, often using whiteboard animation for step-by-step explanations.
• Healthcare: animation that explains medical or clinical information clearly, with the accuracy standards regulated communication requires.
• Financial services: explainer and training content that meets the plain-language and compliance expectations of regulated financial communication.
• Public sector: animation for Northern Ireland public bodies communicating policy, service changes or citizen-facing information.
• SMEs: Belfast small and medium businesses needing explainer videos, onboarding content or marketing animation on a realistic budget.

If your sector isn’t listed here, that doesn’t rule out a fit. Sector experience helps with review process and terminology, but the underlying production approach, brief, script, storyboard, animate, review, works the same way across industries. What changes between sectors is mainly the review stage: a healthcare animation might need clinical sign-off before it moves to production, while a financial services piece might need compliance review at the script stage rather than after animation is complete. Building that review point into the schedule early avoids the more expensive alternative, discovering a wording problem after the animation is finished.

How the Remote Process Works

Because the studio is based in Belfast, most local clients choose a mix of face-to-face and remote collaboration rather than a fully remote process. The underlying workflow is the same one used for clients elsewhere in the UK and Ireland, built around clear review stages rather than open-ended back and forth.

1. Brief: an initial conversation, in person at the McSweeney Centre or over a call, to establish your audience, message and goals.
2. Script: a draft script for your review and sign-off before any animation begins.
3. Storyboard: a visual outline showing how the script translates into scenes, shared for approval.
4. Animation: full production, with defined revision rounds built into the timeline.
5. Review and delivery: final sign-off and delivery of the finished files in the formats you need.

Project management tools and video calls keep things moving between stages, so Belfast clients who prefer to handle most of a project remotely can do so just as easily as clients calling in from further afield. Nothing about being local changes the underlying discipline of the process: each stage still has a defined review point, and revisions are scoped against the original brief rather than left open-ended.

For clients who do want face-to-face contact, that usually happens at two points: the initial brief and the final review before delivery. Everything in between, script drafts, storyboard frames, work-in-progress animation, tends to move faster over email or a shared link than it would scheduling a meeting each time, even for a local client.

Pricing Expectations

Pricing depends on animation style, length, complexity and the number of revision rounds included. The ranges below reflect current UK market rates for professional 2D animation.

Project type	Typical price range
Short explainer (60 seconds, simple style)	£1,500 to £3,500
Standard explainer (60-90 seconds, character animation)	£3,500 to £7,000
Corporate training video (2-4 minutes, character-led)	£6,000 to £12,000
Educational animation series (per episode, 3-5 minutes)	£5,000 to £15,000+

For a full breakdown of what drives these figures across the UK market, see what animation costs in the UK. We discuss budget honestly from the first conversation rather than waiting for a formal brief before naming a range.

A few things move a project up or down within these ranges. Character count matters: an animation with one narrator costs less to script and animate than one with several characters interacting. Voiceover and music licensing are sometimes quoted separately, so it’s worth asking whether they’re included before comparing two prices directly. The number of revision rounds built into the contract also affects cost; a tighter revision allowance keeps the price down but works best when the brief and script stages are thorough enough that major changes aren’t needed later.

Belfast businesses sometimes ask whether local pricing differs from London or other UK city rates. It doesn’t, in the sense that the studio charges the same UK market rates regardless of where the client is based; what changes is the absence of any additional cost or delay that can come from managing a project entirely at a distance, since local clients have the option of an in-person meeting whenever it’s useful.

Examples of Our Work

Educational Voice’s Belfast studio has produced animation across explainer videos, corporate training series, healthcare communications and educational content, including the 3,300+ animations made for LearningMole. Projects range from a single 60-second explainer for a small local business to multi-episode educational series produced over several months.

What ties the portfolio together isn’t a single visual style but a consistent process: understanding what the animation needs to achieve before deciding how it should look. A training video built to improve retention of a safety procedure is judged on whether staff remember the steps, not on how polished the character design is. A marketing explainer is judged on whether it moves someone toward a decision. Keeping that distinction in mind through the brief and script stages tends to produce animation that performs better than work chosen purely on style.

You can browse our portfolio to see examples close to what you have in mind, whether that’s tone, length or sector. If you’re also weighing up other studios before committing, this framework for how to choose an animation company sets out the criteria worth checking beyond price.

Beyond Belfast

While Belfast is home, the studio works with businesses well beyond the city. The studio serves clients across the UK and Ireland, using the same production process described above regardless of where a client is based. A client in Manchester or Dublin goes through the same brief, script, storyboard and review stages as a client based five minutes from the McSweeney Centre; the only real difference is whether the kickoff meeting happens in person or over a call. If you’re researching animation studios in another part of the UK or Ireland, those pages cover what to expect for your specific location.

How to Start a Belfast Project With Us

Getting started doesn’t require a finished brief. A rough sense of your message, audience, and where the animation will be used is enough for a first conversation. From there, we offer a free, no-obligation consultation to help shape the brief and recommend the right animation style and length. Explore 2D animation services for more detail on what’s included, or find out more about our Belfast HQ before getting in touch.

Most Belfast projects start with a short call or a visit to the McSweeney Centre to talk through the brief in person. That first conversation usually covers your goals, your audience, roughly where the project sits within the pricing table above, and a realistic timeline. There’s no pressure to commit at that stage; it’s meant to give you enough information to decide whether the project is worth taking further, and with whom.

Start Your Belfast Animation Project

Educational Voice works with Belfast businesses from our Belfast studio: local access, the same UK-wide production standard, and honest pricing from the first conversation. Get a quote.

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