Here at Cardinal Ridge Group we use software called Doodly to design all of our Doodle Videos. This cloud-based software is extremely easy to use and very intuitive. They take all of the difficulty out of producing these videos and saves us a considerable amount of time. In this post I will discuss key features, pros and cons, and my overall opinion of this program.
Key Features
The key feature I find extremely helpful is everything is there. What I mean is you have your choices of characters, props, MUSIC, everything you need to create a video. If they don’t have the correct character, song, etc, they allow you to upload your own. Your choices aren’t just limited to a whiteboard either. You can choose from a whiteboard, glassboard, and black or green chalkboard. Don’t like the hand drawing your video? You can change it out for several different types of hands from gender to race.
The video editing portion is very easy to use. The editing is very rigid without much flexibility for innovation. This, to me, is not a drawback but rather keeps it simple and saves time.
If you do buy the enterprise edition one nice thing they give you access to is the group Facebook page. Here you can post your videos and have the community critique them or ask questions on how to maximize Doodly.
Pricing (and other issues)
If you go on their website, there is a tab for you to check pricing. For the standard version you pay $39/month and the enterprise version $69/month. That seems steep right? Here is where I start having an issue. We have the enterprise version and I paid $69/year! How did I do that? $69/year is the standard price but if they get someone to sign up on $69/month they will take your money. The trick is to reach out to them saying you saw a promo on the $69/year and they will send you a different link to sign up on it.
Once you sign up then they start using powers of influence on you to keep adding more features. For example let’s use us as an example of what I mean.
I signed up for the Enterprise version for $69/year…
“Did you know we have a color add-on for a one time price of $69?”
“Oh we also have Toonly, an doodle animation software. One time price of $69!”
So you must endure several sales pitches before you get to actually get what you want. If you are easily swayed you may end up having a bill of $500.
The pricing structure is the only issue I have with Doodly. If you can get past that the program is great. It is extremely easy to use and they give you access to their community to ask questions and improve your skills. I highly recommend Doodly for your doodle video needs. If you want to learn more, click here.