How to make a pitch deck with Gamma, from a one-line prompt to an investor-ready export

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Originally published at kuponaut.com, where plan details are kept up to date.

Gamma makes a deck from a prompt, from pasted notes or from a file, and you edit the result in a card-based editor rather than a slide canvas. The quickest route to a pitch deck is to write the story first, let the Agent build a draft, then spend your time on the three or four slides investors actually read. This guide follows the steps and names in Gamma's help centre (read 20 October 2026), and ends with what the free plan's 400 credits do and do not cover.

Step 1: write the deck in ten lines before you open Gamma

Gamma builds around what you give it, so the prompt matters more than the theme. Write one line for each of the usual pitch sections: the problem, your solution, why now, the product, the business model, traction, market size, competition, team and the ask. Keep the numbers in. A traction line that says "412 paying customers, $38k MRR, 11% month-on-month" gives the Agent something to build a chart from; "strong growth" gives it nothing.

If you already have a memo, a Notion page or an older deck, you do not need to retype it. Gamma's help centre lists three ways to start: Generate (a topic or prompt), Paste (your own text, which Gamma formats) and Import (a PowerPoint, a document or a URL). For a pitch deck, Paste with your ten lines is usually the best balance between control and speed; Import is the right choice when a previous deck already has the story and you want it restyled.

Step 2: start with the Agent and pick Plan, Express or Research

On the dashboard, describe the deck in the prompt bar. You can attach files, choose a template or add your own images: click the + button and Upload Files, and Gamma will use your images instead of sourcing its own, which is the right move for product screenshots and team photos.

Then pick a mode. Plan (the default) asks a few questions about your goal, audience and priorities, shows a plan covering the story, the style and the look, and waits for your approval; the help centre is explicit that the Agent will not start building until you approve it. Express skips the questions and the plan review and goes straight to a first draft. Research pulls web sources before writing and only works with Plan. For an investor deck, Plan is worth the extra minute: say the audience is seed investors, that the deck is for a 20-minute meeting, and that every slide needs one headline sentence. You can answer each question with a tappable option, type your own guidance, or choose Decide for me.

If you prefer the older flow, the dashboard still offers Use classic generator, where you choose Generate, Paste or Import directly. Either way the Agent researches, writes, designs and generates images while narrating progress; slides appear in a live grid, and the browser tab shows a yellow badge while it is building and a green check mark when it is done.

Step 3: fix the deck with the Agent, one slide at a time

The first draft is rarely the deck you send. Gamma's own pitch-deck guide describes two ways to change text: click the Agent icon in the top right and describe the change for the whole deck (shorter text, a more formal tone, a different audience), or navigate to one card first and then use the Agent so only that card changes. The help centre notes that targeted revisions leave other slides and your manual edits untouched, and that asking for a restyle keeps your content.

For images, click the sparkle icon on the image and prompt for a different one, or replace it with an upload. For layout, the Smart Layouts button on the right-hand bar previews the same card in different arrangements, which is the fastest way to turn a wall of text into a two-column or a stat block. Typing / opens the slash menu for formatting, embeds and other commands, and pasting a link (a YouTube demo, a Google Sheet, a Loom) embeds it where you paste it.

Spend the editing time where investors look: the problem slide, the traction slide and the ask. Gamma can add a chart or a table if you ask the Agent for one, and the "use this text as-is" instruction in your prompt tells it to build around finished copy rather than rewrite it.

Step 4: set the theme and hide what you do not want investors to see

Theme sits in the upper right of the editor; changing it applies your fonts, colours and backgrounds to every card, and a saved custom theme (title and heading fonts, background images, accent colours, a logo) keeps later decks on brand. Custom branding beyond the standard theme editor is listed under the Pro plan on Gamma's pricing page.

Three sharing settings matter for a pitch deck and all live under Share and its Advanced Settings: Hide "Made by Gamma" (Plus and higher), Require a password to view (Pro and higher, for Gamma docs rather than sites) and Make discoverable on the web (Pro and higher, and for a pitch deck you want this off). Access levels for the link are No access, View, Comment and Edit; workspace settings override the link, so if your workspace is set to "Members can edit", members keep editing even on a view-only link.

Step 5: share a link, export a PPTX, or both

Gamma's own recommendation for pitch decks is to share the live link: click Share in the top right and copy it. Recipients always see the latest version, and there is no file to re-send after an edit. In Present Mode, pressing S switches on spotlight, which highlights one element at a time; it is useful in a live meeting and does nothing in an emailed file.

Investors who ask for a file get one from Share then Export (or the three-dot menu then Export). Formats are PDF, PNG and PowerPoint; the download starts automatically and a copy is emailed to you. In the dialog, choose All cards in the dropdown, otherwise only the current card may export, and leave the Editable tables toggle on if you want the tables to stay editable in PowerPoint. Exports follow Present Mode, not Edit Mode, so check the deck in Present Mode first. There is no Google Slides button: export PPTX and upload it to Google Slides. Word is not supported on any plan.

The "Made by Gamma" badge appears on PDF and PPTX exports made while the workspace is on the Free plan. Upgrading removes it from future exports but not from files you already downloaded, and if a subscription lapses the workspace drops back to Free and new exports carry the badge again. Printing from the browser (Ctrl+P or Cmd+P) while signed in does not add the badge on any plan, which is a workable route to a clean PDF on Free.

Analytics: see which slides investors read

If you share a link rather than a file, Gamma can tell you what happened to it. Open the gamma, click the three-dot menu in the top right and select Analytics: it shows relative time spent per slide, the percentage of views per slide, how far viewers got and unique viewers for the last 30 days. Only collaborators with full access can see it, and the help centre states that full analytics access is only available on the Pro plan or higher.

What the free plan covers, and what it does not

Gamma's Free plan costs nothing and asks for no card. New accounts get 400 credits at signup, and on Free those credits do not refill; once they are gone, you earn more through referrals (200 credits per completed signup, up to a 2,000-credit balance) or upgrade. Credit cost is metered per slide and per image when you create with AI, and editing with the Agent, adding cards with AI and trying new layouts also use credits, with the exact cost depending on the model and the length of the output; image generation shows its credit cost before you confirm. AI errors and clarification questions are not charged.

Free also limits each prompt to 10 slides, which is enough for a short teaser but not for a full 12-to-15-slide investor deck in one pass; you can generate the rest card by card or on a second prompt. Exports work on Free (PDF, PPTX, PNG) but carry the badge, the badge-hiding toggle needs Plus, and password protection and analytics need Pro.

On Gamma's pricing page on 19 October 2026, Plus was $12 a seat a month or $9 a seat a month billed yearly ($108) with 1,000 credits a month and up to 100 slides per prompt; Pro was $25 or $18 billed yearly ($216) with 4,000 credits, premium image models, custom branding, analytics and the API; Ultra was $100 or $90 billed yearly. Unused plan credits roll over up to twice the plan size, and paid plans can buy extra credits that never expire while the plan is active. Refunds close three days after subscribing and only if credit use is under a threshold, so build the deck on the free 400 credits first and upgrade when you need the badge gone or the analytics on.

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