The Year-in-Review Video for Tech and SaaS Companies: A December 2026 Production Timeline

When should a SaaS company start a December 2026 year-in-review video?

Approve the brief between Friday 30 October and Friday 13 November 2026 for a 60-second motion-graphics recap released on Tuesday 8 December, and freeze the numbers on Tuesday 24 November. That schedule is Dream Aspect's arithmetic on the production hours its CGI page publishes, for one person working 40 hours a week. Ten seconds of photoreal 3D moves the brief to 16 October – 4 November. Full calendar-year 2026 numbers mean a release no earlier than about Friday 15 January 2027.

The December 2026 schedule at a glance:

• Data freeze: Tuesday 17 November, 24 November or 1 December for a release on 1, 8 or 15 December, 14 days before release.
• Brief for 60 s of simple 2D: 23 October – 6 November, 30 October – 13 November or 6–20 November.
• Brief for 60 s with 10 s of photoreal 3D: 9–28 October, 16 October – 4 November or 23 October – 11 November.
• 60 s built entirely in photoreal 3D: needed its brief by 4 August – 29 September, so for one person every December date has passed.
• Cost at Dream Aspect's published averages: about $4,200 for 60 s of simple 2D, $6,500–$13,500+ with 10 s of 3D, $18,000–$60,000+ for all 3D.

Each date range reads safe date first, fast date second. For more margin, use the safe date or Vicinity Studio's rule of six to eight weeks before release, which for 8 December means 13–27 October. A year-in-review video is a recap of a company's year in numbers, and the numbers are what make December hard: December's own figures are not final until January.

When should a SaaS company freeze the data for a December year-in-review video?

Freeze the data at least 14 days before release, and print the data window on screen. Of the four public 2025 year-in-reviews Dream Aspect checked that publish a data window, two cut the calendar year early, Spotify Wrapped and Cloudflare Radar, and two counted a trailing twelve months, GitHub Octoverse and the Duolingo Language Report. Their cut-offs ran from 31 August to 2 December, and the three that give the day launched 13 to 62 days after it. We read each company's report page on 5 October 2026.

• GitHub Octoverse: data from 1 Sep 2024 – 31 Aug 2025, published Tuesday 28 October 2025, 58 days after the cut-off.
• Duolingo Language Report: data from 1 Oct 2024 – 30 Sep 2025, published Monday 1 December 2025, 62 days after the cut-off.
• Spotify Wrapped: data from 1 January to "mid November" 2025, launched Wednesday 3 December 2025, a few weeks later by Spotify's own account.
• Cloudflare Radar Year in Review: data from 1 Jan – 2 Dec 2025, published Monday 15 December 2025, 13 days after the cut-off.

A data freeze is the last day the numbers in the video can change. Dream Aspect's 14-day rule sits just above the shortest published gap we found, 13 days at Cloudflare, and that was a web report with no voice-over, music or render, so a video may need longer. Build on placeholder numbers before the freeze and use the 14 days after it for the real figures, sign-off and upload. No source we found sizes legal, finance or brand review, and a longer review moves every date earlier.

The three data windows you can choose from:

• Year to date, cut early (Spotify, Cloudflare): Spotify gives the reason: "We do this to ensure we have enough time to check the data and get everything ready for launch day." Print the window on screen, "1 January – 24 November 2026" for an 8 December release. A visible cut-off is easy to explain; a 2026 total that finance revises in January is not.
• Trailing twelve months (GitHub, Duolingo): GitHub's glossary defines its 2025 as "September 1, 2024 through August 31, 2025". It avoids the December rush entirely, at the cost of not being the calendar year, so print that window too.
• Wait for January: full-year numbers cannot close before 31 December ends, so on the 14-day rule the earliest release is about Friday 15 January 2027, after New Year's Day on Friday 1 January 2027 (OPM). It is later if finance closes December later; we found no source on how long that takes.

When did the big year-in-review reports launch in 2025?

Three of the five big 2025 reports Dream Aspect checked launched between 1 and 3 December 2025: Duolingo, Strava and Spotify, which launched Wrapped on 3 December. The Strava release for its 12th Year in Sport report carries a 2 December header and a 3 December dateline but no data window. GitHub went out in late October and Cloudflare in mid-December. We have no data on whether a B2B release gains or loses by landing beside them, found no study of whether a December or a January release works better for a B2B recap, and found no 2026 dates for any of the five.

What is the December 2026 production timeline for a year-in-review video?

For a 60-second simple 2D motion-graphics recap, approve the brief 11 to 25 days before the freeze: 23 October – 6 November, 30 October – 13 November or 6–20 November for a release on Tuesday 1, 8 or 15 December 2026. Ten seconds of photoreal 3D moves the brief 9 to 14 days earlier. Sixty seconds of photoreal 3D has already missed December for one person. The schedule stops at release; paid cut-downs and platform review come after it.

Every date comes from Dream Aspect's CGI page, which says, as of 5 October 2026, that simple 2D "usually takes around 1 production hour per second" and complex 3D "may require 6–10+ hours per second". The fast end multiplies seconds by those hours for one person at 40 hours a week, our assumption, since the page defines neither a production hour nor a headcount. Calendar days = hours ÷ 40 × 7, rounded up. The safe end uses 10 hours per second for 3D and, for 2D, the page's only 2D window, "~2–5 days for 7-12 seconds", read as 5 calendar days per 12 seconds and scaled to the runtime.

Brief windows for a release on Tuesday 1, 8 or 15 December 2026:

• 30 s simple 2D (6–13 days before the freeze): 4–11, 11–18 or 18–25 November.
• 60 s simple 2D (11–25 days): 23 October – 6 November, 30 October – 13 November or 6–20 November.
• 90 s simple 2D (16–38 days): 10 October – 1 November, 17 October – 8 November or 24 October – 15 November.
• 60 s, 50 s simple 2D plus 10 s photoreal 3D (20–39 days): 9–28 October, 16 October – 4 November or 23 October – 11 November.
• 90 s, 80 s simple 2D plus 10 s photoreal 3D (25–51 days): 27 September – 23 October, 4–30 October or 11 October – 6 November; the first two safe dates have passed.
• 60 s, all photoreal 3D (63–105 days): 4 August – 15 September, 11 August – 22 September or 18 August – 29 September; all passed.

Thanksgiving, Thursday 26 November 2026 (OPM), falls inside the sign-off weeks for the 1 and 8 December releases and inside the build for 15 December. Christmas Day, Friday 25 December, comes ten days after the latest release. Check now that your finance and legal reviewers work Thanksgiving week, because company closures vary and none of these dates allows for them.

A rival rule gives you more margin. Vicinity Studio advises "Six to eight weeks before the screening, and earlier if you need interviews or animation." For an 8 December release that is 13–27 October. Dream Aspect's 60-second simple-2D dates, 30 October – 13 November, are 3 to 31 days later, which is more convenient for a buyer deciding in October and flatters us as the seller. If our one-person arithmetic or published averages are optimistic, you lose runway and we gain a sale, so plan on Vicinity's date. Houston Video says to start "in November or December"; both studios sell production, and neither mentions a data cut-off.

How much longer does 3D animation take than motion graphics in a year-in-review video?

Photoreal 3D takes six to ten times longer per second than simple 2D motion graphics, or more, by the hours on Dream Aspect's CGI page. Every 10 seconds of photoreal 3D adds 60–100+ hours: 11–18 calendar days for one person, when a whole 60-second simple-2D build takes 11 at the same hourly reading. That ratio is why the 3D seconds, not the runtime, set the brief date for a year-in-review video.

• 10 s: simple 2D about 10 hours, 2–5 days; complex 3D 60–100+ hours, 11–18 days.
• 60 s: simple 2D about 60 hours, 11–25 days; complex 3D 360–600+ hours, 63–105 days.
• 90 s: simple 2D about 90 hours, 16–38 days; complex 3D 540–900+ hours, 95–158 days.

A recap is mostly numbers, type and charts in motion, the 2D type the CGI page describes as "Clean motion graphics for brand & explainer content". Ration the photoreal seconds: a hero shot at the open or the close, motion graphics for the numbers. Cutting 10 seconds of 3D lets you approve the brief 11–18 days later, and turning them into simple 2D still gains 9–14, while cutting 30 seconds of simple 2D buys only 5–13. Every 2D date here assumes simple 2D: the page's "Moderate 2D or basic 3D" row gives about 5–10 days with no runtime, hours or rate, so a heavier recap is not sized.

Three assumptions cut different ways. Several artists at once would compress the calendar and move the dates later, so ask for the headcount in writing. The CGI page lists rendering time among the things a 3D price depends on; we read that as computer time beyond the artists' hours, which would push dates earlier. The page also does not say whether the hours include concept, script and revisions; if not, every brief date moves earlier. Against the page's own windows, the hours give 2–3 days for 7–12 seconds of simple 2D, the fast half of its 2–5-day window, while all-3D at 63–105 days is two to three and a half times its "2 weeks to a month".

How do you keep December's numbers off the critical path?

Build the year-in-review on placeholder numbers, review the draft on placeholders, and drop the real numbers in last. Dream Aspect's CGI process shows the client a draft "When 80% ready"; on the December schedule that review happens before the freeze, so the two weeks after it carry only number changes, sign-off and upload. That is our advice on using the step, not a published service term.

In a year-in-review video built in 2D, a number is usually a text layer, so changing 41% to 43% after the freeze is a small edit. In 3D it can drive geometry, such as a bar's height, and changing it means re-animating and re-rendering. That is our reading, not a measured cost, so keep every number that might move in the 2D layer.

Agree four things before the brief is approved:

• One owner who signs off every number by the freeze date, from one spreadsheet.
• The on-screen window label: for an 8 December release, "1 January – 24 November 2026".
• A fallback line for any metric legal or finance does not approve in time, so a late refusal costs a sentence, not a scene.
• One date for the last number change. After it, nothing moves.

What does a SaaS year-in-review video cost at 60 and 90 seconds?

At the averages on Dream Aspect's CGI page as of 5 October 2026, a 60-second year-in-review costs about $4,200 in simple 2D motion graphics, $6,500–$13,500+ if 10 of those seconds are photoreal 3D, and $18,000–$60,000+ if all 60 are. These are our multiplications of the page's per-second averages, "~$70/sec on average" for simple 2D and "~$300–1,000+/sec" for 3D, not quotes, and a real quote can land on either side.

• 60 s simple 2D: about 60 hours, about $4,200.
• 90 s simple 2D: about 90 hours, about $6,300.
• 60 s, 50 s simple 2D plus 10 s photoreal 3D: 110–150+ hours, $6,500–$13,500+ ($3,500 of 2D plus $3,000–$10,000+ of 3D).
• 90 s, 80 s simple 2D plus 10 s photoreal 3D: 140–180+ hours, $8,600–$15,600+ ($5,600 of 2D plus the same 3D).
• 60 s, all photoreal 3D: 360–600+ hours, $18,000–$60,000+.

Four caveats apply to those totals. The CGI page hedges every figure as typical or average, and the 3D range depends on scenes, objects and animation detail. It publishes no hours or rate for moderate 2D or basic 3D, so a heavier recap has no published price. It does not say whether the rate covers concept, scripting and revisions. And a per-second average multiplied out reads like a price but is not one; if it reads low, that helps us, not you. Our article on CGI vs live-action product video works the same figures through at more length.

Against the market, Welpix, a 3D studio describing the market it sells into, publishes two 2D bands per minute: "Basic 2D animation $1,000–$3,000" and "Motion graphics $2,500–$6,000". Dream Aspect's roughly $4,200 for 60 seconds of simple 2D sits above the first band and near the middle of the second. If your recap is basic 2D, that market figure says you may pay less elsewhere.

Is a Spotify Wrapped-style campaign right for a B2B company?

A Spotify Wrapped-style campaign splits in two for a B2B company. A personalised Wrapped, where every customer sees their own numbers, is a data-and-platform job; a hero film about the company's year is a production job. Both start from the same freeze date but run on different clocks, so decide which one you mean before October ends. Spotify's own scale is no benchmark for a SaaS customer list: the Spotify timeline records "over 200 million fans reliving their year in audio within the first 24 hours" in December 2025.

That 200 million needs reading carefully. TechCrunch reported that "Engaged users are counted as those who have viewed at least one of the stories within the Wrapped experience", a definition that appears in TechCrunch's report, not on Spotify's pages. Spotify also "offers personalized Wrapped experiences for artists and songwriters, podcast creators, authors, and advertisers" (Spotify). We found no published B2B engagement figure for a personalised recap, so we give none. If every customer should see their own numbers, call a personalised-video platform or build it into the product first. Personalised video is not something Dream Aspect's pages publish as a service; a production studio, ours included, makes the film around it.

The personalised version has its own clock. Pirsonal, which sells personalised-video software, says that after its client, Sustainable Salons, spent "about one week" creating and approving its own creative, Pirsonal "prepared all four personalized video templates in eight business days", and that after "the final creative and data handoff" the videos, landing pages and QA were "ready in about 72 hours". That is a vendor's own case, and it shows where the freeze bites: the data handoff is the freeze.

Do you need a shoot for a year-in-review video?

A data-led year-in-review needs no shoot, because motion graphics and 3D need no camera, but a leadership message or customer voices do. Dream Aspect's Video Marketing page says "Full content delivery typically takes 7-10 days after the content shoot day", so footage that must be in the cut by the freeze needs shooting 7–10 days before it. That puts the last shoot at 7–10 November for a 1 December release, 14–17 November for 8 December and 21–24 November for 15 December, running into Thanksgiving week.

Those shoot dates leave no time to cut the footage into the recap, since it lands on the freeze date, and every day the edit and its approval need moves the shoot a day earlier. The Video Marketing page does not say whether those days cover revisions or extra cuts, so treat them as the first cut. Dream Aspect's homepage says shoot packages "start at $3,000 per shoot". We do not publish a booking lead time, so ask for one, because the last day to book comes before the last day to shoot.

Dream Aspect is based in Los Angeles. For shoots elsewhere, San Francisco included, we are not currently travelling; we send or source a local crew. A motion-graphics or 3D recap needs nobody on site, wherever your team is.

What should you ask a studio before approving a year-in-review brief?

Ask a studio the questions that decide whether any date in the December timeline holds. The answers move a brief date by days or weeks, several are not published on Dream Aspect's own pages, and only you can answer the one about legal review. Get the replies in writing. Headcount matters most: every date here assumes one person, and a studio that cannot tell you its headcount cannot tell you its date.

• What is the data window, and who signs off the numbers by the freeze date?
• How many seconds are 3D, how many 2D, and is the 2D simple or moderate?
• How many people work on it at once?
• Does the clock start at brief approval or kickoff, in calendar or working days, and does Thanksgiving count?
• Time and material or fixed price, and what does a post-review change cost? Our CGI page offers both models and publishes no change fee, so ask us too.
• Which aspect ratios and cut-downs are included? Our pages do not say.
• Who owns legal review, and how long does it take? That number is yours.

Planning a December release?

Send Dream Aspect the runtime, the number of 3D seconds, the release date and the freeze date. We will tell you which row of the timeline applies, whether its brief date has passed, and what it would cost at our published averages, before we quote it. Dream Aspect is a Los Angeles studio, and a motion or 3D recap needs nobody on site. Tell us your release date.

Want a price before you send the brief? The Dream Aspect pricing calculator shows the price on the page: choose a one-off shoot or a monthly plan, then add or remove deliverables such as a shoot brief, priority delivery, CGI or UGC.

Build your quote on the pricing page →

Prefer to talk it through? Talk to us → or book a 15-minute call from the pricing page.