If you are budgeting motion capture for a game or film in 2026, the honest answer to “how much does it cost” is: it depends on how you capture and who cleans it up. The old model — renting a marker stage by the day — still exists, but markerless, AI-based capture has split the cost into smaller, per-clip pieces that are far friendlier to indie budgets. This guide breaks down stage day-rates, per-second solve-and-retarget pricing, hourly cleanup, and the five things that actually drive your invoice, so you can build a realistic move-set budget before you spend a dollar.
The two pricing models: stage day-rate vs markerless per-clip
Traditional optical mocap is sold by the day. A mid-tier stage with operators, suits, and a marker volume typically runs in the $1,500-$3,000 per day range, plus travel, talent, and a wait for processed data. You pay for the room whether you shoot 5 clips or 50.
Markerless capture flips that. Because we capture from ordinary video — no suit, no marker stage — there is no room to rent and no per-day floor. You pay for the work that produces usable animation: the solve, the retarget, and the cleanup. That turns a fixed daily cost into a variable per-clip or per-batch cost, which is why a remote markerless service is usually cheaper for anyone shooting fewer than a full day of motions. Our in-house markerless motion capture service is built around exactly this model.
Per-second solve and retarget
The core of markerless pricing is the solve: turning 2D video into a 3D skeleton, then retargeting that skeleton onto your character. Industry per-second rates for solve plus a single retarget land around $18-$20 per second of usable animation. A few things to know:
- You pay for kept seconds, not the raw take. A 30-second performance you trim to 8 usable seconds is billed near those 8 seconds.
- Each additional retarget target (MetaHuman, Unity, Blender, a custom skeleton) adds cost, because each skeleton needs its own mapping and a re-check.
- Short, distinct game actions — idle, walk, attack, hit-react — are billed individually and add up faster per second than one long film take.
Cleanup: the line item nobody warns you about
Every markerless capture needs cleanup before it is usable. The raw solve will have jitter, foot-slide, ground penetration, and limb pops at the knees and elbows. There is no tool that skips this step — it is the core paid service. Cleanup is billed hourly, and the time it takes is usually 2x to 8x the length of the capture, depending on quality:
- 2-3x (light): good multi-cam source, simple locomotion, minor smoothing and foot-locking.
- 4-6x (standard): single-cam source, contact and ground fixes, knee/elbow pop repair.
- 6-8x (heavy): occlusion, prop interaction, fast or acrobatic motion, or anything that needs partial hand-keying.
If you want the technical detail on what cleanup actually involves, our remote AI mocap cleanup guide walks through the full workflow.
The five things that drive your price
- Clip length and count: total usable seconds is the base. More distinct game actions means more setup overhead per clip.
- Number of actors: two-person interactions need separate solves and contact alignment between bodies, which adds cleanup time.
- Cleanup level: source quality (single-cam vs multi-cam) and motion complexity set the hourly multiplier — this is usually the biggest swing.
- Retarget targets: one engine-ready skeleton is the base; each extra target adds mapping and QC.
- Face add-on: facial capture via ARKit and MetaHuman Animator is a separate pass with its own solve and cleanup.
How markerless plus remote collapses overhead
Because there is no stage, no suit, and no travel, the fixed costs that bloat a traditional mocap budget simply disappear. You shoot reference video yourself — a phone or a few cameras — and send it to us. We solve, clean, and retarget, then deliver in FBX, BVH, USD, or engine-ready formats. You are billed for the clips you keep, not the day you booked. For a small studio, that is often the difference between affording mocap and faking it with hand-keyed animation.
Budgeting an indie game move-set
A practical way to scope a character: list every action you need, estimate usable seconds per action, then add cleanup hours and your retarget targets. A typical starter set looks like this:
- Idle, walk, run, jump, two attacks, hit-react, death — roughly 20-40 usable seconds total.
- Solve + one retarget at per-second rates, plus standard cleanup at 4-6x.
- One engine-ready target (Unreal or Unity); add a second only if you actually ship on both.
Captured and cleaned this way, a full indie move-set typically comes in well under a single day of stage time — and you can add or re-shoot one action without re-booking anything.
Frequently asked questions
Is markerless motion capture cheaper than a mocap stage?
For most indie and small-studio projects, yes. A mocap stage charges a day-rate of roughly 1,500 to 3,000 dollars whether you shoot a little or a lot, plus travel and talent. Markerless capture is billed per clip — solve, retarget, and cleanup — so you only pay for the animation you actually keep, which is usually far less for short move-sets.
Why is cleanup a separate cost?
Every markerless capture comes out of the solve with jitter, foot-slide, ground penetration, and joint pops that must be fixed before the animation is usable. That work is billed hourly and typically takes 2 to 8 times the length of the capture, depending on source quality and motion complexity. It is the core service, not an optional extra.
How does per-second mocap pricing work?
Solve and retarget are commonly priced around 18 to 20 dollars per usable second. You pay for the seconds you keep after trimming, not the full raw take, and each additional retarget target adds cost because every skeleton needs its own mapping and quality check.
What is the minimum I should budget for an indie game move-set?
Scope it by listing every action you need, estimating usable seconds, then adding cleanup hours and your retarget targets. A standard starter set of idle, walk, run, jump, attacks, and reactions is roughly 20 to 40 usable seconds and usually costs less than a single day of stage time. Send us your action list for an exact quote.
Mocap pricing stops being mysterious once you separate the stage day-rate from per-clip markerless work. Send us your action list and target engine, and we will give you a real number — capture, cleanup, and retarget — with no stage rental in it. Get a free quote.
