How much does it cost to make a visual novel? Real budgets, line by line

A visual novel can cost almost nothing or tens of millions of yen. The difference is who is paid, and for what. The clearest public evidence comes from developers who have published their own budgets. One, for a one-hour indie visual novel, came to $5,185 in paid work. At the other end, Wikipedia reports that Japanese commercial visual novels typically budget 20 to 30 million yen.

This page sets out two real indie budgets line by line, the Japanese commercial benchmark, what each part of a visual novel costs and why, how long the work takes, and how to estimate a budget of your own. Prices are in the currencies the sources used, and most are from 2021, so allow for inflation and for wide variation between freelancers.

Key points

• A one-hour indie VN: about $5,000 in paid work. Toadhouse Games published the breakdown.
• With writing and programming paid: about $10,000. That was the same developer’s estimate.
• Japanese commercial VNs: 20 to 30 million yen. With one to one and a half years of development.
• Art is usually the largest cost. Voice acting overtakes it in fully voiced games.
• Hours matter as much as money. One short, fully voiced VN took 2,536 logged hours.
• Length multiplies everything. Every route adds art, voice and testing.

Budget 1: a one-hour visual novel, $5,185

In April 2021 Toadhouse Games published a line-by-line budget for Good Lookin’ Home Cookin’, which it described as an hour-long visual novel. The developer wrote and programmed it unpaid and paid for everything else.

The developer put the full cost at about $10,000 once a writer and a programmer were paid at around $2,000 each. Voice acting, marketing and sound effects were not in the budget.

The lines listed add up to $4,685; the post gives $5,185 as the total, which suggests about $500 of further costs not itemised.

Budget 2: a short, fully voiced visual novel, 2,536 hours

In November 2021 Sad Panda Studios published a different kind of breakdown for Cabin Fever, a short visual novel with full voice acting released on Steam. It counted hours instead of dollars.

The studio gave a total of 2,536 hours. The lines listed add up to slightly more. Either way, it is more than a year of full-time work for one person.

The two budgets measure different things, but together they show the shape of the cost. Art dominates. Music and writing are each a few hundred hours. Programming and the unglamorous work of testing and store setup are substantial.

The commercial benchmark: 20 to 30 million yen

For Japanese commercial visual novels, Wikipedia reports that development typically takes one to one and a half years, with a budget of 20 to 30 million yen. That is cheaper than most commercial games, which is one reason the format dominates Japan’s PC game market, but it is far beyond most indie budgets.

Older reporting gives a sense of how that budget is split. Siliconera, drawing in 2010 on a breakdown by an industry veteran, listed the roles involved: director, artist, scenario writer, programmer, composer, voice actors and others. Voice was a significant and rising line.

There is a ceiling. The producer of AI: The Somnium Files told Automaton that there is an upper limit to how much a visual novel can spend before it cannot be profitable, and that the series put its money into story and voice instead of graphics.

What each part costs, and why

Art

Art is the largest line in most budgets. A visual novel needs four kinds:

• Sprites: the characters on screen, in several poses and many expressions. Toadhouse paid $175 per character for four poses plus $20 per extra expression.
• Backgrounds: every location. Toadhouse paid $150 each.
• CGs: full-screen event illustrations. They are the most expensive single images, which is why Toadhouse had almost none.
• Interface: menus, text box, buttons and logo. Toadhouse spent $1,000 on interface and logo together.

Rates vary by several times between artists, so these are examples, not standards. What does not vary is the arithmetic: more characters, expressions, locations and events mean more images.

Writing

Writing is often unpaid on indie projects because the developer is the writer. When it is paid, the cost scales with words, and words scale with routes. Sad Panda’s 40,827-word script took 400 hours over about seven drafts. For how length is measured and planned, see how long should a visual novel be.

Music and sound

Toadhouse paid $300 per minute of original music. Sad Panda logged 240 hours for 18 tracks. Stock libraries and subscriptions cost much less, at the price of tracks other games may also use.

Voice acting

Voice acting is optional and, when included, often the largest line. Developers in a Lemma Soft forum thread on spending a $20,000 budget ranked it first. It also scales with the script: every word spoken has to be recorded, edited and implemented. Sad Panda recorded 20,412 words.

Programming

In Ren’Py, a linear visual novel needs little code. Systems such as affection points, inventories or mini-games add more. One freelancer on itch.io quoted $2,100 for about 20 hours of programming on a 13,000-word visual novel with 121 full-screen images. For engines and their costs, see Ren’Py vs Godot vs Unity vs RPG Maker vs Twine.

Testing, translation, store fees and marketing

These are the lines most often missing from first budgets. Toadhouse spent $500 on paid testing and translation, with much more given by volunteers. Steam charges a $100 fee per game through Steam Direct. Neither published budget included paid marketing.

How long it takes to make a visual novel

Time is the cost most solo developers actually pay. The sources give three reference points.

A visual novel made alone takes longer than one made by a team, because the same person must write, draw or commission, program and test in sequence.

How to estimate your own budget

The two published budgets suggest a simple method.

1. Fix the scope first. Count characters, poses, expressions, backgrounds, CGs, tracks and words.
2. Get quotes for each kind of asset. Use real quotes from the artists you would hire, not averages.
3. Multiply. Assets times rates gives the art and music budget.
4. Price your own time. Even if you are unpaid, write down the hours, as Sad Panda did.
5. Add the missing lines. Testing, translation, store fees, marketing, tools and a margin for revisions.
6. Cut scope, not quality. Fewer routes or CGs is cheaper than cheaper art.

A worked example using Toadhouse’s 2021 rates, for a short game with 4 characters, 6 backgrounds, 8 expressions, 4 music tracks and no CGs or voice, gives:

This is an illustration of the method, not a quote. Your rates will differ.

How this page was put together

The budgets are quoted from the developers’ own posts by Toadhouse Games and Sad Panda Studios, both published in 2021. The commercial benchmark comes from Wikipedia’s article on visual novels. Context on Japanese production costs comes from Siliconera and Automaton, and rankings of cost drivers from the Lemma Soft forums. The worked example is our own arithmetic on Toadhouse’s published rates.

The studio has not published a budget of its own here, and nothing on this page is a quote for work. To report an error, see the corrections standard.