Apart from the official seasons, "Sanders Sides" can be divided in three "ages". The first age comprises the first seven episodes of season 1, the episodes that were written by
Thomas Sanders alone. These episodes had a "minisode" format of 5:30 minutes of average length and were direct descendants of Thomas' old personal vlogs from his YouTube channel. In these first seven episodes, the topic was presented straightforwardly in a vlog format, accompanied with gags from the characters and light and comedic stories that were mostly self-conclusive, though some of these stories would be referenced in later episodes. Also, the release frequency was notably higher on the first age, as episodes were released weekly to fortnightly. The exceptions are the two first episodes, which were released monthly, as it was still not fully planned to make a full series of its own at that time, and therefore these episodes were originally released as one-off short videos.
The second age comprises from episode 8 of season 1 to episode 7 of season 2.
Joan S. arrived as a co-writer in the 8th episode of season 1, and with that, Thomas and Joan as a creative team expanded the series dramatically. They accelerated character development, created story arcs developed throughout the season, and even created stories in two parts with a cliffhanger in between. They introduced dramatic and thrilling moments in the episodes that would join the gags and comedy that were and remained being the root of the series. They also abandoned the "minisode" format, as the rest of episodes from season one would move between 8 to almost 15 minutes of running time, and season 2 would have even longer episodes, moving from 14 to 27 minutes. More complex visual effects and cinematography were also introduced at the end of season 1.
Talyn also joined in, helping Thomas and Joan in the makeup, costume and art departments. Due to the higher production values, episodes started being released in a fortnightly to monthly average basis, sometimes longer than monthly if production issues of any kind arose.
The third age began on episode 8 of season 2, after a six-month hiatus, with the introduction of a whole new team of writers, editors and other crew members that joined Thomas and Joan in the production of the series, including also external guest crew members for specific episodes. Among the new members, there are
Cam Foote,
Davi Decandia,
Quil Darling,
Lev Ettinger,
AJ Hentges, among others, and in the guest crew, names like
Nate Begle and
Adam Kreutinger among others. The team had expanded so much that credit sequences started appearing onscreen at the beginning of each episode instead of relying solely on the YouTube video description as had been the norm earlier, and this was reflected on a new increase of production values for each installment, as well as a new increase on the average running time for each episode, which moved between 38 and 51 minutes of length. The gap between episodes was also increased as now they were released with two to three months between releases or more. With the inauguration of Sanders' new headquarters on January 2019, which included a green-screen studio, more elaborated special effects became available for the series.
