Pitch Deck Checklist: The 10 Slides Investors Expect
What every slide must show, the checks a deck should pass before you send it, and the red flags to remove.
Check my deck freeInvestors read a lot of decks, and they read them in roughly the same order: what is broken, how you fix it, how big it is, how you make money, what proof you have, who else is trying, who you are, how you will sell, what the numbers look like and what you want. When one of those answers is missing, the reader fills the gap with the worst assumption.
Use this checklist before you send your deck. Or upload the PDF to the Pitch Deck Analyzer: it classifies every slide, marks which of the 10 standard slides are present or missing, and runs the automatic checks below for you.
The 10 standard slides
- Problem. Who has the pain, how often, and what it costs them today. One specific customer beats a general trend. Avoid "everyone" as the target.
- Solution / product. What you built and how it removes the pain. Show the product: a screenshot with a one-line caption is stronger than a paragraph of features.
- Market size. Bottom-up: the number of target customers times what they pay per year, then the share you can realistically reach. A top-down "1% of a $50B market" is a red flag.
- Business model. Who pays, how much, how often. Add the unit economics you know: price, gross margin, customer acquisition cost, payback.
- Traction. The strongest proof you have, with dates: revenue, users, growth rate, retention, pilots, letters of intent. A chart with labelled axes beats a list of logos.
- Competition. Real alternatives, including spreadsheets and doing nothing, and why customers choose you. Saying there is no competition makes investors doubt the market.
- Team. Why these founders win this market: relevant experience, past results, who builds and who sells. Advisors only if they matter to the deal.
- Go-to-market. How you reach the first 100 customers: the channel, the cost and the early evidence that it works.
- Financials. A short projection with burn and runway. The assumptions should match your traction slide; a jump from $20k to $5M in two years needs a reason.
- The ask. How much you are raising, what it is for and which milestones it reaches in the next 18–24 months.
Add a cover with a one-line description and a closing slide with contact details. A roadmap or product vision slide is optional and fits well after the solution.
5 automatic checks
These are rule-based checks, run on the text of your PDF before the AI reads it. They are part of the free result.
Length
8 to 25 slides is typical. Most investor decks are 10 to 20.
Text density
No slide should have more than 90 words. Investors skim.
Contact info
An email or website, so a reader who likes the deck can reach you.
Funding ask
A raise amount or a clear ask, usually on the last slides.
Readable text
Slides that are only images are listed, because there is nothing to evaluate.
5 red flags to remove
- Inconsistent numbers. Revenue, users or growth that differ between slides. Investors notice, and it costs trust in every other number.
- Top-down TAM. A market size taken from an analyst report with no link to who actually buys.
- No competition. Every customer solves the problem somehow today; name how.
- Unrealistic growth. A hockey stick with no driver behind it: no channel, no conversion rate, no hiring plan.
- Unclear ask. No amount, or an amount with no use of funds and no milestones.
The free result tells you how many red flags were found. The PRO report explains each one and names the slide. More examples and fixes: pitch deck red flags.
Example checklist result
For a fictional seed-stage SaaS deck with 12 slides:
Standard slides
✓ Problem · ✓ Solution / product · ✓ Market size · ✓ Business model · ✓ Traction · ✓ Competition · ✓ Team · ✗ Go-to-market · ✓ Financials · ✓ The ask
Automatic checks
✓ 12 slides — a typical length.
✗ Slide 6 has 132 words. Investors skim.
✓ Contact info found.
✓ A funding ask is mentioned.
✓ Every slide has readable text.
Red flags: 2. Overall score 72 — Strong. How the score is calculated.
Here the fix list is short: add a go-to-market slide that names the first channel, and cut slide 6 to a headline and three points. The PRO report would give a new headline for slide 6 and a draft of the missing slide.
Analyze → Practice → Price
Frequently asked questions
How many slides should a pitch deck have?
Most investor decks have 10 to 20 slides. The analyzer treats 8 to 25 as a typical length and flags anything outside that range. Put extra detail in an appendix rather than in the main story.
Do I need all 10 slides?
Not as 10 separate slides, but the content of each should be in the deck. Two topics can share a slide, for example business model and pricing. What matters is that an investor can find each answer.
How many words should a slide have?
Investors skim. The analyzer flags any slide with more than 90 words. A headline that states the conclusion plus a few supporting points is usually enough.
Can the checklist read image-only slides?
It reads the text in your PDF. A slide that is only a screenshot or a picture has no text to judge, so it is flagged and listed by slide number. Add a short caption or headline to those slides.
Is the checklist free?
Yes. The free result for a signed-in account shows which standard slides are present or missing and all automatic checks, along with the overall score and the 3 biggest problems. The PRO report adds a fix for each slide and tells you which slides to add.
Ready to check yours? Open Pitch Deck Analyzer.
The All Innovativ pitch deck checklist covers the 10 standard investor slides (problem, solution/product, market size, business model, traction, competition, team, go-to-market, financials, the ask), 5 automatic checks and 5 red flags.
The automatic checks are: 8–25 slides, no slide over 90 words, contact info present, a funding ask present and no image-only slides. The red flags are inconsistent numbers between slides, a top-down TAM, claiming no competition, unrealistic growth and an unclear ask. The Pitch Deck Analyzer runs this checklist on an uploaded PDF and marks each standard slide as present or missing; it is free with an account for 1 analysis a day, and the PRO report in paid plans from Starter ($9.99/mo) adds fixes for each slide.