You just landed a new client with a great story that deserves to be seen.
But your budget is tight, deadlines are looming, and your team is drowning in revisions.
Here’s a simple truth: if you’re still doing it all in-house, you’re leaving money, speed, and your creativity on the table.
The best studios in the world don’t work their magic alone. They outsource often, yet strategically.
Want to know how they do it? Keep reading. Because your next breakthrough isn’t always in your studio, it could be in the next time zone!
What Is Outsourcing?
Outsourcing is the practice of hiring third parties to perform tasks, jobs, or entire processes that were previously handled in-house by a company’s own employees.
For example, a US-based animation studio could outsource the creation of background art or character animation to a team of artists in India or the Philippines.
Outsourcing is a common model across industries, and animation is no exception.
Why Outsourcing Works
More studios and companies are turning to outsourcing to streamline their production process without compromising on quality.
Outsourcing is so popular because it allows businesses to significantly reduce production costs, first and foremost. By partnering with studios in regions where labor and operational expenses are lower, companies access skilled animators at a fraction of the price compared to hiring locally. The savings can then be reinvested to scale projects or launch multiple ones simultaneously.
Sometimes it's not so much about saving money and more about focusing on what you do best: animation is a highly specialized field that requires diverse skill sets. Outsourcing opens the door to a global talent pool to fill the gaps.
Lastly, in-house animation teams often face limitations when it comes to scaling up for large projects or managing seasonal workloads: outsourcing provides the flexibility to scale production up or down based on demand, without the long-term commitment of hiring full-time staff.
1. Define Your Outsourcing Needs
Before reaching out to animation studios or individual contractors, it’s important to clearly define what you want to outsource. The more precise you are at this stage, the easier it'll be to find the right partner and the smoother the collaboration will be.
- Scope - Start by outlining the scope of work. Are you looking for full-scale production support or just specific parts of the pipeline? Clarifying the scope helps understand exactly what’s expected and compare quotes, timelines, and capabilities. Make sure both sides are aligned on deliverables.
- Budget - Animation projects vary widely in cost depending on complexity, style (2D, 3D, motion graphics, etc.), and duration. By setting a budget range, you not only avoid wasting time with vendors outside your price bracket but also encourage realistic proposals. If you’re unsure, check our guide on how to manage your animation production budget.
- Quality expectations - Quality can be subjective, so defining it upfront is important: share style guides, animation moodboards, or examples of past work you’d like to match. This provides a benchmark for the team and prevents costly revisions later on.
- Timeline - Deadlines make or break a project. Be specific about overall timelines, as well as milestone check-ins for drafts, revisions, and final delivery. A clear schedule not only keeps the vendor accountable but also gives your in-house team enough time to review and integrate outsourced assets.
- Technical requirements - Animation pipelines often rely on specific software and formats. Make sure to outline the technical requirements from the start. Include details like DCC tools, resolution, aspect ratio, frame rate, or file format standards so that the outsourced work is easier to integrate.
- Level of involvement - Decide how much creative control you want to retain. Some studios prefer to outsource only execution tasks, providing detailed directions for every shot. Others hand over broader responsibilities and allow vendors to make creative decisions.
- Confidentiality and IP - Don’t overlook legal considerations. Clarify ownership of assets, intellectual property rights, and licensing terms. If the project involves sensitive material, make sure NDAs and confidentiality agreements are in place.
2. Choosing Between Freelancers Vs Studios
One of the first decisions you’ll face is whether to work with freelancers or a professional studio. Both options have their pros and cons, and the right choice depends on your project's requirements.
Freelancers are often more affordable than studios, since they don’t carry the overhead costs of a large team. They also offer a higher degree of flexibility, adapting to your workflow. For smaller projects or specific tasks, hiring a freelancer is a great way to get specialized skills on demand. But a single animator may not be able to handle large volumes of work or tight deadlines. Availability can also be a challenge, as freelancers often juggle multiple clients. Scaling a team of contractors with different skillsets is a challenge not every company is equipped for.
Animation studios provide a ready-made team with diverse skills and a structured production pipeline, making them well-suited for complex projects that require coordination across multiple disciplines. Studios also tend to have quality assurance processes in place. You gain not just talent but also project management support. Studios are generally more expensive. Their processes is also less flexible to fit their established workflows.
If your project is small, has a limited budget, or requires only specific tasks, freelancers are often the most efficient option. But if you’re producing a large-scale animation with multiple moving parts, strict deadlines, or high production values, a studio is usually the safer choice. In many cases, companies find value in a hybrid approach: using freelancers for specialized tasks while relying on studios for full-scale production.
3. Task Tracking
Without proper oversight, even the most talented collaborators can miss deadlines or deliver work that doesn’t fit into your pipeline.
- As previously mentioned,you need to define responsibilities on both sides at the beginning of the collaboration. Documenting these roles prevents overlap and confusion. Assigning a single point of contact like a project manager also streamlines communication.
- Modern animation projects rely on pipeline management tools to keep everyone aligned. Solutions like Kitsu, ShotGrid, or ftrack allow teams to track assets, assign tasks, monitor progress, and store version histories in one place. These tools make it easier to manage remote animators or distributed teams by providing visibility into every step of production.
Consider a project that involves a mix of 3D modeling, rigging, and animation. Without a tracking system, a rigger might begin working on a character model before the modeling team finishes its work and force revisions. A pipeline tool like Kitsu can tell the rigger the model’s status is “in review” and to wait until it’s officially approved before starting.
4. Asset Management
Asset management is a critical part of keeping the production organized and secure, from sharing large files across studios to enforcing proper version control.
- Cross-studio collaboration - Animation projects now often involve multiple studios contributing different assets—models, textures, rigs, or scenes. Without a clear system, files easily get lost or overwritten. Centralized animation asset storage solutions ensure everyone works with the latest approved files.
- DCC integrations - Digital Content Creation (DCC) tools play a central role in animation pipelines. Many asset management platforms integrate directly with these tools, allowing artists to check files in and out without leaving their worksp ace. This reduces friction, minimizes human error, and keeps version history intact. By linking task tracking tools with DCC software, studios automate approvals and make collaboration more seamless.
- Security best practices - Outsourcing often means sharing sensitive assets, from proprietary character designs to client IP. To protect this material, studios establish strict animation asset security policies like limiting access permissions, using encrypted file transfers, or requiring two-factor authentication on storage platforms. A strong security framework also builds trust with clients and partners.
5. Review Engine
Without clear communication and feedback loops, projects risk falling into endless revisions or drifting away from the intended vision.
- Successful outsourcing depends on frequent, structured communication. Instead of relying only on emails, use dedicated review tools that allow for visual feedback like Kitsu. These platforms let reviewers leave frame-accurate comments directly on a scene preview. You can then instantly turn comments into actionable tasks for artists to keep revisions organized and prevent notes from being lost in long message threads. Check out our guide on how to give efficient animation feedback.
- Define a step-by-step review pipeline so both your in-house team and outsourcing partners know what to expect. For example, rough passes might be reviewed only for timing and staging, while later passes can focus on polish and technical details. Each stage should have clear criteria for approval, along with deadlines for feedback. Documenting decisions helps avoid revisiting old notes.
Conclusion
Outsourcing is a creative accelerator. From defining your needs and choosing between freelancers or studios, to tracking tasks, managing assets, and streamlining reviews, the right systems turn outsourcing from a gamble into a growth strategy.
The studios that thrive aren’t the ones trying to do everything in-house. They’re the ones that know how to tap into global talent, manage collaboration across time zones, and keep their pipeline airtight with the right tools.
Your next big animation project doesn’t have to overwhelm your team!
