How long should a presentation be? [Answered]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- Jul 20
- 6 min read
Last week, while we were working on a presentation for our client Andy, he asked us something every presenter has wondered at some point:
“How long should a presentation be, really?”
Our Creative Director didn’t blink. She said,
“As short as it can be without losing the point.”
That hit home.
As a presentation design agency, we work on many sales decks, investor pitches, product launches, and keynotes throughout the year. And in the process, we’ve observed one common challenge—people tend to drag it out. They confuse more slides with more value, more minutes with more clarity. It’s almost always the opposite.
So, in this blog, we’ll talk about how to keep your presentation short, sharp, and strategic—without losing what actually matters.
Let’s break down how long should a presentation be, and what we’ve learned after designing hundreds of them.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
Why the Length of Your Presentation Matters More Than You Think
You’ve probably sat through one of those never-ending presentations where your mind wandered to lunch plans, weekend errands, or literally anything else. We all have. And here’s the thing: the content might have been good. The speaker might have been smart. But they lost you because they didn’t know when to stop.
We’ve seen it happen in boardrooms, conference halls, and Zoom calls. The difference between a presentation that lands and one that limps isn’t just the content—it’s timing.
Here’s what happens when your presentation is too long:
People tune out.
The core message gets buried.
Decision-makers get impatient.
The Q&A turns into a damage control session.
Your credibility takes a hit.
And when it’s too short? You risk sounding unprepared or superficial.
But most people don’t realize that the sweet spot is rarely about minutes or slide count. It’s about control. Controlling the flow, the energy, and the attention in the room.
Your job isn’t to share everything. It’s to guide the audience to exactly what matters.
So, yes, "how long should a presentation be" isn’t just a technical question. It’s a strategic one. Because the right length earns attention, builds trust, and sets the tone for decisions.
How Long Should a Presentation Be?
Let’s cut to it. If you're waiting for a magical number of minutes, here it is: Your presentation should be as short as possible without making people ask, “Wait, what?”
That’s it.
That’s the metric.
And while that might sound vague, it’s the most accurate answer we can give—because the truth is, presentation length is not about time, it’s about clarity. The people in the room aren’t keeping score by the clock. They’re keeping score by how fast they “get it,” how useful it is, and how confident you sound delivering it.
But fine. You still want a number? We get it. So let’s talk numbers—but in context.
1. Boardroom Presentations: 10–20 minutes of you, 10–15 minutes of them
When you're presenting to a leadership team, board members, or senior stakeholders, remember: their time is currency. The longer you talk, the more expensive you're getting.
We've worked with companies pitching multi-million-dollar strategies to time-poor execs. Every time the initial draft goes over 20 minutes, we can almost guarantee the last third will be ignored—or worse, interrupted with questions that could have been answered earlier.
Our rule of thumb?
You get 10–20 minutes. Not for your slide deck. Not for your meeting invite. For you. Talking. Presenting. Making your point.
Leave another 10–15 minutes for discussion. They will have questions. If they don’t, you probably lost them.
Client example: We worked with a fintech company preparing for a board update. Their initial slide deck had 47 slides. After multiple rounds of cutting, they ended up with 16 high-impact slides and took exactly 18 minutes to deliver it. The response? “Best update we’ve had this quarter.” Why? It respected time and delivered clarity.
2. Investor Pitch Decks: 3–5 minutes to hook, 10 minutes max
Founders often think they’re pitching their product. They’re not. They’re pitching their thinking.
Investors look for speed of thought, clarity of narrative, and how well you prioritize. Rambling through your solution is the fastest way to lose the room.
If you're in a pitch session, you typically have:
3–5 minutes to land the hook (what you're solving, why it matters, how you're different).
Another 5 minutes to touch on team, traction, and numbers.
Then Q&A.
Don’t treat Q&A as a bonus round. Treat it as part of your pitch. A short pitch with a long, confident Q&A often does more heavy lifting than a monologue that tries to cover every angle.
And please—for the love of focus—don’t present a 30-slide pitch deck to a seed-stage investor. If you can’t explain your startup in 10–12 slides and under 10 minutes, you’re not ready to raise yet.
3. Keynote Presentations: 20–30 minutes (if you're really good)
Here’s the thing about keynotes: most people assume they have to be long and inspirational. They don’t. In fact, the best keynote speakers are the ones who know when to get off the stage.
We’ve designed keynotes for conferences and product launches. The ones that kill it? Usually between 20 to 30 minutes, delivered with confidence, stories, and zero filler.
But that’s only if:
You’re on a stage.
People are sitting there just to hear you.
The setup gives you space to build energy.
If you’re giving a keynote on a Zoom call? 30 minutes is a stretch. Trim it down to 15 and save the rest for interaction.
4. Internal Team Presentations: 15–20 minutes
Here’s where most managers go wrong: they turn a team presentation into a lecture. Especially with remote teams. You don’t need a TED Talk. You need focus.
For internal meetings—monthly updates, project recaps, team town halls—15 to 20 minutes is usually enough. The goal is not to impress. It’s to inform, align, and move forward.
We’ve seen great team presentations done in 12 slides. Clean visuals, clear data, focused message. People walked out knowing exactly what changed and what they had to do next.
If your internal presentation is running past 30 minutes and no one’s asking questions, chances are you've lost the room.
5. Educational Webinars or Workshops: 30–45 minutes + 15-minute Q&A
Here’s where you get a little more breathing room. If people signed up to learn something, you have their attention longer. But attention is still fragile.
We’ve designed workshop decks for corporate training sessions and webinars, and here’s what we’ve found works best:
30 minutes of structured content.
15 minutes for live examples, demos, or walk-throughs.
15 minutes for Q&A.
Anything longer and people start multi-tasking. You’ll lose half the room to Slack, emails, or scrolling.
Pro tip: Break up longer presentations into chapters. Add moments for reflection, interaction, or even pauses. Don’t just pack 45 minutes with non-stop information. That’s not teaching—it’s dumping.
What Happens When You Don’t Respect Time?
Let’s be honest. No one will tell you to your face that your presentation was too long. They’ll say things like:
“That was interesting.”
“Thanks for the deep dive.”
“We’ll follow up.”
Translation: You lost them.
One of the worst things you can do in a presentation is overstay your welcome. It doesn’t matter how smart you are or how valuable the content is. If you don’t manage pacing, the message dies somewhere between Slide 14 and their mental to-do list.
We’ve seen pitches go south because the founder didn’t pause to breathe or invite a question. We’ve watched clients burn time on background slides while the real story—the differentiator, the spark—was buried near the end.
Here’s the truth we’ve learned designing hundreds of decks: The moment your audience feels like they can skip ahead, you’ve already lost.
So what do you do?
You trim. You practice. You strip the fluff. You organize your content around decisions, not information. You give just enough to make people say, “Tell me more.”
Still Not Sure How Long Yours Should Be?
Ask yourself this:
Is the audience already invested in the topic? (Go deeper.)
Are they new to it and deciding something? (Stay sharp and surface-level.)
Do they have context already? (Skip the backstory.)
Will they ask questions? (Leave room.)
And finally, practice the thing. Not once. Not when the slides are done. Do it like a performance. Time yourself. Record it. Listen to where your own energy drops. Cut the bits you want to skip. That’s your signal.
We often help clients trim their presentations by 30–40% just by reading the room before they’re even in it. Most presentations fail not because of what they say—but because of how much they say.
And if you take one thing from all this, let it be this: Shorter isn’t less. Shorter is clearer.
Why Hire Us to Build your Presentation?
If you're reading this, you're probably working on a presentation right now. You could do it all yourself. But the reality is - that’s not going to give you the high-impact presentation you need. It’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error. And at the end of the day, you’ll be left with a presentation that’s “good enough,” not one that gets results. On the other hand, we’ve spent years crafting thousands of presentations, mastering both storytelling and design. Let us handle this for you, so you can focus on what you do best.