How long does a pitch deck take?

Last updated: July 2026

For a 15-slide investor or sales deck, designed from the client's raw material: 26 to 48 hours. Said per slide: 1.5 to 3 hours each, everything included, which is the number that surprises founders who expected an afternoon.

In short: a custom 15-slide pitch deck takes 26 to 48 hours, so 1.5 to 3 hours per slide. The story work is a quarter of the hours and the part clients actually pay for.

The assumptions: the content exists in raw form (documents, notes, a rough draft deck), around 15 slides, custom design rather than a template fill, two revision rounds.

The task list

The story is the deck

The most valuable line in that table is the least visible one: story and structure.

A deck fails or wins on the order of its argument, and putting the client's ideas in the right order is consulting work disguised as design work.

AI slide generators can fill a template in minutes, and what they produce reads exactly like that: everything present, nothing argued. If a client brings you one as a starting point, the answer is simple: making the slides was never the expensive part.

Price the story work openly. It is also the part clients remember when they present the deck and it works.

What moves the estimate

Up: more slides, content that must be created rather than organized (interviews with founders, research), heavy data visualization, motion or animated versions, several deck variants (investor, sales, short teaser).

Down: an existing brand system, a deck you are updating rather than creating, a client with a clear, written narrative already.

Price your version

Adjust the lines, total them, and put the number into the calculator. At a mid-range 35 hours and the default $50/h with a 20% buffer, a 15-slide deck quotes around $2,100.

Slides are cheap. The order of the argument is what you are paid for.