Whiteboard AnimationA1D whiteboard animation alternative: change the drawing after it is drawn
A1D’s whiteboard animation tool and WhiteboardAnimation.ai both draw one uploaded picture by hand, line art first, then colour. In A1D you set two durations and a hand before it draws, and get one MP4. In WhiteboardAnimation.ai you can change the order, the hand and the timing after the drawing without paying again, and export transparent, layered or green-screen clips for your editor, or draw through an API.
| Compared | A1D | WhiteboardAnimation.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Credits shared by all A1D tools. Billed yearly: Starter $7.99/month (500 credits a month), Growth $23.99/month (2,000), Studio $47.99/month (6,000). In its whiteboard editor a clip costs 1 credit per second. | Free to start; Starter and Pro monthly or yearly, or a one-off credit pack. One credit draws one picture. Current prices are on the pricing page. |
| Free option | 30 credits, no card: one clip of up to 30 seconds. Our free-credit MP4 had no watermark. | 5 free credits on sign-up, no card; free exports are 720p with a watermark. |
| What you start from | One image: PNG, JPG or WebP, from 512 × 512 to 2048 × 2048 px. | One finished picture: PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 10 MB. It does not generate pictures from text. |
| How the picture is drawn | Stroke by stroke: line art first, then colour, both from the top of the picture down (our run). | Drawn stroke by stroke from the picture itself: outlines first, then colour region by region. |
| Drawing order and style | Sketch duration 1 to 30 s; colouring on or off, 1 to 30 s. Its editor has no setting for the order things are drawn in. | Lines only, or lines then colour; the subject or the background coloured first; and on the timeline, any layer’s lines or colour in any order. Each change replays at once: no redraw, no credit. |
| Hand | Four hands (light, medium and dark tone, a child’s hand) or none; a white, black or green board. | Six hands, or none. Switching hands never redraws or spends a credit. |
| Output | One MP4 download, with no transparent or layered option: ours was 1920 × 1440 for a 4:3 picture. Its pricing lists 1080p on Starter, 4K on Growth and Studio. | MP4, WebM or a PNG sequence, up to 1080p, in the picture’s shape or 16:9, 1:1 or 9:16, on paper or any colour, such as a green screen; transparent WebM or PNG frames, and one transparent clip per layer, subject and background apart, on Pro. |
| Changes after drawing | Play, download, upscale or delete. A different duration or hand is a new generation, at its credit cost. | After the drawing: reorder, trim and re-time its line and colour clips on a timeline, with no redraw and no credit. No text, scenes or voice-over: you finish the video in your own editor. |
| API for agents | Plans include API access; its API documents image upscaling and background removal, not whiteboard animation. | A REST API for agents, on Pro; an MCP server is in development. |
| Best for | A quick drawing clip from one image, on its website or in Canva (its Speed Painter app), beside A1D’s other AI image and video tools. | Turning illustrations you already have into drawing clips for your own edit, or for an agent through the API. |
The same picture in both
On 21 October 2026 we uploaded the same PNG — our water-cycle illustration, 724 × 543 — to A1D’s whiteboard animation editor on a new account’s free credits. We set the sketch to 10 s and colouring to 10 s with the Light tone hand (20 credits), and downloaded the MP4. The frames below are from that file at a quarter, half, three quarters and the end, beside our clip of the same picture at the same points.
The hand draws all the line art first, from the top down, then colours the picture in the same direction; the picture’s paper colour appears when colouring starts. The file was a 20-second MP4, 1920 × 1440, with no watermark.
The hand traces the outlines first — cloud, mountain, river, arrows — and the colour comes after, region by region, as if someone drew it. Watch the full water cycle animation
What each costs
A1D sells credits that every A1D tool spends. Free: 30 credits, no card. Billed yearly: Starter $7.99 a month ($95.88 a year, 500 credits a month), Growth $23.99 ($287.88, 2,000) and Studio $47.99 ($575.88, 6,000); unused credits roll over for two months, three on Studio. In its whiteboard editor a clip costs one credit per second: 10 s of sketch and 10 s of colour cost 20.
WhiteboardAnimation.ai: Free to start; Starter and Pro monthly or yearly, or a one-off credit pack. One credit draws one picture. Current prices are on the pricing page. Pricing
When A1D is the better choice
- You want a 4K file: A1D’s Growth and Studio plans export 4K; we export up to 1080p.
- You work in Canva and want the drawing made there, with A1D’s Speed Painter app.
- You already use A1D’s other image and video tools and want one credit balance for all of them.
- You want a blackboard or green-board look built in.
Using both, or moving over
- Upload the same PNG, JPEG or WebP here; every picture is its own clip.
- Change the hand, lines only, or which part is coloured first after the drawing: none of it redraws or spends a credit.
- Put the clips into your video editor — Premiere, Final Cut, DaVinci Resolve or CapCut — and add your voice-over and music there.
Questions
