what are the different types of presentation software

• Interactive Presentation

Top 11 Types of Presentation Software in 2024

Leah Nguyen • 19 September, 2024 • 13 min read

There are hundreds of presentation software options available on the market today, and we know it’s hard to venture outside the comforts of PowerPoint. What if the software you’re immigrating to suddenly crashes? What if it does not live up to your expectations?

Luckily, we’ve taken care of all the tedious tasks for you (which means testing over a dozen types of presentation software on the way).

Here are some types of presentation software that might be helpful so you can give them a try.

No matter what presentation tool you want, you'll find your presentation platform soulmate here!

Table of Contents

What is a presentation software.

• Interactive Software
• Non-Linear Software
• Visual Software
• Simple Software
• Video Software

Comparison Table

Frequently asked questions.

Presentation software is any digital platform that helps elaborate and illustrate the presenter’s points through a sequence of visuals like graphics, texts, audio, or videos.

Each bit of presentation software is unique in its way, but all usually share three similar features:

• A slideshow system to show each idea consecutively.
• Slide customisation includes organising different clusters of texts, inserting images, choosing backgrounds or adding animation to the slides.
• A sharing option for the presenter to share the presentation with their colleagues.

Slide makers give you various unique features, and we’ve classified them into the five types of presentation software below. Let’s dive in!

🎊 Tips: Make your PowerPoint interactive to get better engagement from the audience.

Interactive Presentation Software

An interactive presentation has elements the audience can interact with, such as polls, quizzes, word clouds, etc. It turns a passive, one-way experience into an authentic conversation with everyone involved. 

• 64% of people believe that a flexible presentation with two-way interaction is more engaging than a linear presentation ( Duarte ).
• 68% of people believe interactive presentations are more memorable ( Duarte ).

Ready to boost audience engagement in your presentations? Here are a couple of interactive presentation software options for you to try for free.

#1 - AhaSlides

We’ve all attended at least one ultra-awkward presentation where we’ve secretly thought to ourselves - anywhere but this .

Where are the buzzing sounds of enthusiastic discussions, the “Ooh” and “Aah”, and the laughter from the audience to dissolve this awkwardness? 

That’s where having a free interactive presentation tool such as AhaSlides comes in handy. It engages the crowd with its free, feature-rich and action-packed content. You can add polls, fun quizzes , word clouds >, and Q&A sessions to hype up your audience and have them interact with you directly.

• A library of pre-made templates that’s ready to use to save you time and effort.
• Quick and easy AI slide generator to make slides in an instant.
• AhaSlides integrates with PowerPoint/Zoom/Microsoft Teams so you don't need to switch multiple software to present.
• The customer service is super responsive.
• Since it's web-based, the internet plays a crucial factor (test it out always!)
• You can not use AhaSlides offline.

💰 Pricing : 

• AhaSlides is a free interactive presentation software that lets you access almost all of its features.
• Essential plan: from $7.95/month (monthly/annually), host up to 50 live participants.
• Plus plan: from $10.95/month (monthly/annually), host up to 200 live participants.
• Pro plan: from $15.95/month (monthly/annually), host up to 10,000 live participants.
• Education plans and bulk purchases are available with better price offerings.

✌️ Ease of use : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

👤 Perfect for : 

• Educators, trainers, and public speakers.
• Small and large businesses.
• Individuals who want to host quizzes but find software with annual plans too much.

#2 - Mentimeter

Mentimeter is another interactive presentation software that lets you connect with the audience and eliminates awkward silences through a bundle of polls, quizzes, or open-ended questions in real time.

• Best Mentimeter Alternatives | Top 7 Choices in 2024 for Businesses and Educators

• It’s easy to get started right away.
• A handful of question types can be used in any scenario.
• They only let you pay annually (a bit on the pricier side).
• The free version is limited.
• Mentimeter is free but doesn't have priority support or supporting presentations imported from elsewhere.
• Pro plan: $11.99/month (pay annually).
• Pro plan: $24.99/month (pay annually).
• The education plan is available.

#3 - Crowdpurr

• Many types of questions, such as multiple-choice, true/false, and open-ended.
• Can host up to 5,000 participants per experience, making it suitable for large events.
• Some users may find the initial setup and customisation options slightly complex.
• The higher-tier plans can become costly for very large events or organizations with frequent usage.
• Basic Plan: Free (limited features)
• Classroom Plan: $49.99/month or $299.94/year
• Seminar Plan: $149.99/month or $899.94/year
• Conference Plan: $249.99/month or $1,499.94/year
• Convention Plan: Custom pricing.

✌️ Ease of Use: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

👤 Perfect for:

• Event organisers, marketers, and educators.

Non-Linear Presentation Software

A non-linear presentation is one in which you don’t present the slides in a strict order. Instead, you can jump into any chosen fall within the deck.

This type of presentation software allows the presenter more freedom to cater content relevant to their audience and let their presentation flow naturally. Therefore, the best-known nonlinear presentation software is:

#4 - RELAYTO

Organising and visualising content has never been easier with RELAYTO , a document experience platform that transforms your presentation into an immersing interactive website.

Get started by importing your supporting content (text, images, videos, audio). RELAYTO will piece everything together to form a complete presentation website for your purposes, whether a pitch or a marketing proposal. 

✅ Pros : 

• Its analytics feature, which analyses viewers’ clicks and interactions, provides real-time feedback on which content is engaging to the audience.
• You don’t have to create your presentation from scratch since you can upload existing presentations in PDF/PowerPoint format and the software will do the work for you.
• The embedded videos have length restrictions.
• You’ll be on a waitlist if you want to try RELAYTO’s free plan.
• It’s pricey for occasional uses.
• RELAYTO is free with a limit of 5 experiences.
• Solo plan: $80/user/month (pay annually).
• Lite Team plan: $120/user/month (revenue annually).
• Pro Team plan: $200/user/month (revenue annually).

✌️ Ease of use : ⭐⭐⭐

• Small and medium businesses.

Widely known for its mind map structure, Prezi lets you work with an infinite canvas. You can alleviate the boredom of traditional presentations by panning between topics, zooming in on details, and pulling back to reveal context. 

This mechanism helps the audience see the whole picture you’re referring to instead of going through each angle individually, which improves their understanding of the overall topic.

• Fluid animation and eye-catching presentation design.
• Can import PowerPoint presentations.
• Creative and diverse template library.
• It takes time to do creative projects.
• The platform sometimes freezes when you’re editing online.
• It can make your audience dizzy with its constant back-and-forth movements.
• Prezi is free with a limit of 5 projects.
• Plus plan: $12/month.
• Premium plan: $16/month.
• Small to large businesses.

🎊 Learn more: Top 5+ Prezi Alternatives

Visual Presentation Software

The visual presentation focuses on wowing the audience with aesthetically pleasing designs that look like they came straight from a professional designer’s hard drive.

Here are some pieces of visual presentation software that will bring your presentation up a notch. Get them on the screen, and nobody will have a clue if it’s been designed by an adept professional unless you tell them😉.

#6 - Slides 

Slides is an interesting open-source presentation tool that allows great customisation assets for coders and developers. Its simple, drag-and-drop UI also helps people with no design knowledge to create presentations effortlessly.

• The fully open-source format allows rich customisation options using CSS.
• The Live Present Mode lets you control what viewers see on different devices.
• Allows you to display advanced math formulas (super helpful for math teachers).
• Limited templates can be a hassle if you want to create a quick presentation.
• If you’re on the free plan, you won’t be able to customise much or download the slides to see them offline.
• The website’s layout makes it hard to keep track of drops. 
• Slides is free with five presentations and a 250MB storage limit.
• Lite plan: $5/month (pay annually).
• Pro plan: $10/month (revenue annually).
• Team plan: $20/month (revenue annually).

✌️ Ease of use : ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• Developers with HTML, CSS and JavaScript knowledge.

If Sketch and Keynote had a baby in the cloud, it would be Ludus (at least, that’s what the website claims). If you are familiar with the designer environment, then Ludus’s versatile functions will get you hooked. Edit and add any kind of content, collaborate with your colleagues and more; the possibilities are endless.

• It can integrate with many design assets from tools such as Figma or Adobe XD.
• The slides can be edited simultaneously with other people.
• You can copy and paste anything to your slides, like a YouTube video or tabular data from Google Sheets, and it will automatically transform it into a beautiful chart.
• We encountered a lot of bugs, such as an error that occurred when trying to undo or the presentation’s inability to save, which resulted in some work losses.
• Ludus has a learning curve that takes time to get to the top of if you’re not a pro at designing things.
• You can try Ludus for free for 30 days.
• Ludus personal (1 to 15 people): $14.99.
• Ludus enterprise (over 16 people): Undisclosed.
• Ludus education: $4/month (pay annually).

#8 - Beautiful.ai

Beautiful.ai is one of the prime examples of presentation software with both the look and the functionality. Worrying that your slides would look mediocre will no longer be a problem because the tool will automatically apply the rule of design to organise your content in a captivating way.

• Clean and modern design templates let you show the presentation to your audience in minutes.
• You can use Beautiful.ai templates on PowerPoint with the Beautiful.ai add-in .
• It doesn’t display well on mobile devices.
• It has very limited features on the trial plan.
• Beautiful.ai doesn’t have a free plan; however, it lets you try the Pro and Team plan for 14 days.
• For individuals: $12/month (pay annually).
• For teams: $40/month (pay annually).
• Startup founders are going for a pitch.
• Business teams with constrained time.

Simplistic Presentation Software

There’s beauty in simplicity, and that’s why many people crave presentation software that’s simple, intuitive and goes straight to the point. 

For these bits of simple presentation software, you don’t have to be tech-savvy or have guidelines to make a great presentation instantly. Check them out below👇

#9 - Zoho Show

Zoho Show is a mix between PowerPoint's look-a-like and Google Slides' live chat and commenting. 

Besides that, Zoho Show has the most extensive list of cross-app integrations. You can add the presentation to your Apple and Android devices, insert illustrations from Humaaans , vector icons from Feather , and more.

• Varied professional templates​​ for different industries.
• The live broadcast feature lets you present on the go.
• Zoho Show’s add-on market makes inserting various media types into your slides easily.
• You may experience the software’s crashing issue if your internet connection is unstable.
• Not many templates are available for the education segment.
• Zoho Show is free.
• Non-profit organisations.

#10 - Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck minimises your effort in creating presentations with its simple and neat-looking slide decks. If you don’t want flashy animations and would rather just get straight to the point, this is it!

• Available on the website and the iOS ecosystem.
• Enormous template library to choose from.
• Features are easy to use, even for first-timers.
• The free version doesn’t offer much. You can’t add audio or videos unless you pay for their plan. 
• If you want a fully customisable presentation, Haiku Deck isn’t the one for you.
• Haiku Deck offers a free plan but only allows you to create one presentation, which isn’t downloadable.
• Pro plan: $9.99/month (pay annually).
• Premium plan: $29.99/month (revenue annually).

Video Presentation Software

Video presentations are what you get when you want to make your presentation game more dynamic. They still involve slides but revolve very much around animation, which happens between images, text and other graphics. 

Videos offer more advantages than traditional presentations. People will digest the information more efficiently in a video format than when they’re reading text. Plus, you can distribute your videos anytime, anywhere.

#11 - Powtoon

Powtoon makes it easy to create a video presentation without prior video editing knowledge. Editing in Powtoon feels like editing a traditional presentation with a slide deck and other elements. There are dozens of animated objects, shapes and props you can bring in to enhance your message.

• Downloadable in multiple formats: MP4, PowerPoint, GIF, etc.
• Various templates and animation effects to make a quick video.
• You’ll need to subscribe to a paid plan to download the presentation as an MP4 file without the Powtoon trademark.
• It’s time-consuming to create a video.
• Powtoon offers a free plan with minimal functions.
• Pro plan: $20/month (pay annually).
• Pro+ plan: $60/month (revenue annually).
• Agency plan: $100/month (revenue annually).

#12 - VideoScribe

Explaining the theory and abstract concepts to your customers, colleagues, or students can be tricky, but VideoScribe will help lift that burden. 

VideoScribe is a video editing application supporting whiteboard-style animations and presentations. You can place objects, insert text, and even create your own objects to put in the software’s whiteboard canvas, and it will generate hand-drawn style animations for you to use in your presentations.

• The drag-and-drop function is easy to get acquainted with, especially for beginners.
• You can use personal handwriting and drawings besides those available in the icon library.
• Multiple export options: MP4, GIF, MOV, PNG, and more.
• Some won't show up if you have too many elements in the frame.
• There are not enough available quality SVG images.
• VideoScribe offers a 7-day free trial.
• Monthly plan: $17.50/month.
• Annual plan: $96/year.

Exhausted - yep, there are a lot of tools out there! Check out the tables below for a quick comparison of what might be best for you.

Best Value for Money

Most intuitive and easy to use

Best for education use

Best for professional business

Best for creative use

What is a non-linear presentation software?

Non-linear presentations allow you to navigate through the material without following a strict order, as presenters can jump over slides depending on what information is most relevant in different situations

Examples of presentation software?

Microsoft Powerpoint, Keynotes, AhaSlides, Mentimeter, Zoho Show, REPLAYTO…

Which is the best presentation software?

AhaSlides if you want presentation, survey, and quiz functions all in one tool, Visme if you want an all-rounder static presentation, and Prezi if you want a unique non-linear presentation style. There are many tools to try, so consider your budget and priorities.

Leah Nguyen

Words that convert, stories that stick. I turn complex ideas into engaging narratives - helping audiences learn, remember, and take action.

Tips to Engage with Polls & Trivia

More from AhaSlides

Best presentation software of 2024

Perfect slideshows for speeches, talks, and presentations

• Best overall
• Best for media
• Best unique
• Best for branding
• Best for marketing
• Best for themes
• How we test

We list the best presentation software, to make it simple and easy to make and manage slideshow presentations to display to an audience.

Presentation software runs at the heart of business sales, management, and development, so it's important to ensure you have the best presentation software for your needs. This is especially when looking to share ideas, concepts, and workflows, and the ability to present these in a simple and understandable way is essential.

However, while presentation software has been traditionally limited to text and images, it has widened its ability to work with different media such as video and audio. 

Therefore it's important for the best presentation software to not simply be easy and simple to use, but also be able to support additional media so that presentations can be more engaging, lively, and ultimately serve their purpose in educating and updating their intended audience.

Below we've listed the best presentation software currently on the market.

We've also listed the best free presentation software .

The best office software in the world is: Microsoft 365 There are many different office software suites out there, but Microsoft Office remains the original and best, offering an unsurpassed range of features and functionality that rivals just can't match.

Even better, Microsoft 365 - previously branded as Office 365 - is a cloud-based solution which means you can use it on any computer, mobile device, or smartphone, without having to worry about compatibility. All your files are saved in the cloud and synced between devices, so you can begin work on a document at home or in the office, then continue working on it on the go.

You can sign up to Microsoft 365 here .

The best presentation software of 2024 in full:

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Best presentation software overall

1. PowerPoint

Our expert review:

Reasons to buy

For most people, Microsoft 's PowerPoint remains the original and best of all the presentation software platforms out there. While other companies have managed to catch up and offer rival products worthy of consideration, the fact is that PowerPoint's familiar interface and ubiquitous availability means it remains a favorite for the majority of people.

On the one hand, it's long been a staple of the hugely popular Microsoft Office suite, meaning that for most users this is going to be the first - and last - presentation software they are going to need to use.

Additionally, Microsoft has made PowerPoint, along with their other office products, available as free apps (with limited functionality) on both iOS and Android for mobile use, meaning it's even harder to avoid them. And this is before we even consider the inclusion of PowerPoint in Microsoft's cloud-based Microsoft 365.

It does everything necessary that you'd expect of presentation software, allowing you to add text and media to a series of slides, to accompany a talk and other presentations. There are easy-to-use templates included to help spice things up a little, but even a general user with little experience of it is likely to find themselves able to use PowerPoint without much trouble at all.

Overall, it's hard to go wrong with PowerPoint, and although Microsoft 365 has a nominal cost, the apps are free to use even if they do have more limited functionality.

Read our full Microsoft PowerPoint review .

Our Microsoft discount codes can help you save on your next purchase.

• ^ Back to the top

Best presentation software for media

2. SlideDog

Reasons to avoid.

It’s all too easy to end up creating a presentation that’s unappealing, and the last thing you want to do is make the audience fall asleep. SlideDog lets you combine almost any type of media to create a rich presentation that’s sure to keep the viewers’ peepers open, avoiding the ‘cookie cutter’ look that makes presentations seem dull.

Marketed as a web-based multimedia presentation tool, it gives you the ability to combine PowerPoint presentations, graphics, PDF files, Prezi presentations, web pages, pictures, videos, and movie clips. You can drag these into custom playlists and display them to your audience with ease.

You’re able to remotely control your presentations and playlists from your smartphone, the web, or a secondary computer, and there’s also the option to share slides in real-time. Audience members can even view your slide from their own devices by clicking a link. That’s a handy feature if you’re looking to create an immersive presentation experience.

SlideDog is probably the cheapest of the presentation software featured, with a free account that will cover the essential features. However, for live sharing and premium support, you need to upgrade.

Read our full SlideDog review .

Best unique presentation software

Prezi is one of the more unique presentation tools. Instead of presenting your graphics and text in a slide-to-slide format, you can create highly visual and interactive presentation canvases with the goal of “emphasizing the relationship between the ideas”.

Presentations can also be tailored to the specific audience, as this is a flexible platform that’s capable of skipping ahead, or veering off into a side topic, without having to flip through all the slides to get to a particular bit.

For business users, there are a variety of handy tools available. By downloading Prezi , you can build and edit presentations with your colleagues in real-time, which is perfect for companies with teams based around the globe.

When you have created a presentation you’re happy with, you can present it live (in HD) and send a direct link to viewers. There are some analysis tools here, too – you can see who’s accessed your presentation, which parts of it, and for how long. The app is available for Mac and Windows devices.

Read our full Prezi review .

Best presentation software for branding

4. CustomShow

Branding says a lot about a business, and it’s something firms need to get right from day one – from a good logo to a suitable font. CustomShow is business presentation software that puts all these elements of branding first.

Using the system, you can design and present customized, branded presentations that reflect your company and the products you offer, featuring the aforementioned logo and custom fonts. As well as this, you get a slide library and analytics to ensure your presentations are a success.

What’s more, you can import presentations into the software, and use it to tweak them further. There’s also integration with SalesForce , and because the platform is cloud-based, you can access your presentations on computers, tablets, and smartphones. 

Considering the focus on branding, this offering could be good for marketing and sales teams, and it's used by major companies such as HBO and CBS Interactive.

Best presentation software for marketing

5. ClearSlide

Just like CustomShow, ClearSlide has a niche focus for companies. The platform is targeted at firms looking to generate successful marketing campaigns, pushing sales via presentations (and more), not least through a range of analytics and metrics to work for sales and marketing.

With the product, you can upload a range of files, including PowerPoint, Keynote, PDF, and Excel. ClearSlide is integrated with other platforms, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and Salesforce.

This system is pretty complex and may offer too many irrelevant features for some businesses, but you can create customized content that reflects your company and the message you’re trying to get out to customers. There are also some good metrics and analysis features, and you can sign up for a free trial before making any decisions.

The real strength of ClearSlide comes from its focus on sales and marketing data, not least being able to track user engagement alongside other metrics.

Best presentation software for themes

6. Haiku Deck

Any presentation app will allow you to personalize your slides to at least some extent, but Haiku Deck goes one step further than the competition. It comes with a wide range of themes suited to different needs, and you also get access to 40 million free images from the Creative Commons collection.

When it comes to creating a presentation, you have the option to do so on the web, which means your presentation is accessible across a range of mobile devices as well as desktops. Regardless of the device used, you’re able to select from a variety of different fonts, layouts, and filters to make the perfect presentation.

The great thing about these various customization options is that they’re categorized into different industries and use cases. For instance, you’ll find themes for teaching, cooking, real estate, and startups. Most of the features require you to be online, but hopefully, you’ll have a sturdy net connection wherever you go.

Other presentation software to consider

Google Slides  is part of the Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) office platform intended as an online alternative to Microsoft Office. It may seem a little limited by comparison to PowerPoint, but as it's browser-based that means cross-platform compatibility. Additionally, it allows for collaborative work, and Google Slides really works well here. On top of the fact that it integrates with the rest of the Google Workspace apps, not least Google Drive, and you have a contender. 

Zoho Show  is another of the many, many tools and apps that Zoho has made available for business use. It also operates in the cloud so it's accessible to any device with a browser, and it also allows for collaborative work. You can also easily share the link for users to download, or provide a live presentation online. The updated version has a simpler and easier to use interface and comes with a free version and a paid-for one with expanded features.

Evernote  is normally thought of as just note-taking software, but it does provide the option to create a presentation you can share online or with an audience. In that regard, it's a little more limited than the other options in not being dedicated presentation software. However, as an easy and handy way to pull together a presentation quickly, it could serve as a backup or last-minute option, especially if Evernote is already being commonly used by you.

LibreOffice Impress  is part of the open-source suite offered as a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and comes with a powerful array of tools and editing options for your presentation, not least working with 3D images. It's supported by a large community, so it's easy to find an array of additional templates. If there is a limitation it's that it's software you download and install rather than web-based, but any presentations created should be easily portable to the web if needed.

Adobe Spark  does things a bit differently, as rather than just use images it's geared toward video as well. This makes for potentially more powerful multimedia presentations, especially as Adobe also has a big selection of photos and images available for its users. There is a free tier for core features but requires a subscription for custom branding, personalized themes, and support.

Slides  comes with a lot of features in an easy-to-use interface, and involves setting up presentations using drag and drop into an existing grid. It's also internet-based so there's no software to download, and it only requires a browser to use and access. 

Presentation software FAQs

Which presentation software is best for you.

When deciding which presentation software to download and use, first consider what your actual needs are, as sometimes free platforms may only provide basic options, so if you need to use advanced tools you may find a paid platform is much more worthwhile. Additionally, free and budget software options can sometimes prove limited when it comes to the variety of tools available, while higher-end software can really cater for every need, so do ensure you have a good idea of which features you think you may require for your presentation needs.

How we tested the best presentation software

To test for the best presentation software we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, whether as a download or as an online service. We then tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations. The aim was to push each software platform to see how useful its basic tools were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced tools.

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar .

We've also featured the best alternatives to Microsoft Office .

Get in touch

• Want to find out about commercial or marketing opportunities? Click here
• Out of date info, errors, complaints or broken links? Give us a nudge
• Got a suggestion for a product or service provider? Message us directly
• You've reached the end of the page. Jump back up to the top ^

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

Nicholas Fearn is a freelance technology journalist and copywriter from the Welsh valleys. His work has appeared in publications such as the FT, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, The Next Web, T3, Android Central, Computer Weekly, and many others. He also happens to be a diehard Mariah Carey fan!

• Jonas P. DeMuro

Conductor SEO tool review

Hasleo Backup Suite review

EA announces a new type of The Sims 4 DLC and confirms that The Sims 5 isn’t in the works

Most Popular

• 2 YouTube’s powerful new AI features give new creators everything except the personality
• 3 Google Workspace is bringing your calendar right to your Chrome homepage
• 4 Sony's next State of Play will reportedly be broadcast next week - could we see new PS5 Pro games?
• 5 Google TV Freeplay gets more free channels and a redesign – but it's still exclusive to the US

Due to recent expansions in US sanctions against Russia and Belarus as well as existing country-level sanctions in Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, and the Crimea region (each a “sanctioned country”), Zapier will no longer be able to provide services in any sanctioned country starting September 12, 2024. These sanctions prohibit US companies from offering certain IT and enterprise software services in a sanctioned region.

Starting September 12, 2024, Zapier customers will no longer be able to access Zapier services from a sanctioned country. We understand this may be inconvenient and appreciate your understanding as we navigate these regulatory requirements.

• Presentation Design

The 10 Best Presentation Software for 2023: Complete Guide

There are literally hundreds of presentation software tools in the market today and keeping track is getting increasingly hard. Most of them have been optimized for a specific purpose or type of user from a wide range of possibilities, and it's very likely that THE ideal tool for you is actually one that you've never heard of.

We've created this best presentation software list to shed some light and to give you a comprehensive presentation software list to ensure you make the right call in the platform you select. This article is the result of several weeks of research and review of 50+ presentation tools currently available on the web.

What is a presentation software?

A presentation software is defined as an application built to display information in the form of a slide show. Any presentation tool must have three fundamental functions:

• ‍ A text editor: to input the contents of the presentation.
• ‍ An import function: to insert and manipulate images and other content.
• ‍A slide-show or presenter mode: that displays the content in a nice, formatted way, sometimes synced in real time with the presenter across devices.

Slide shows often consist of a combination of text, video, images and charts. Their primary function is displaying clear, readable and summarized data to an audience.

Most presentations are shared and presented on a larger screen or through a digital projector. In rare occasions, slide presentations are printed out as a replacement for text documents, but this is a really inefficient way to review data, that Garr Reynolds calls ‘ PresDocs ’ (Garr Reynolds is the author of Presentation Zen, one of the most important go-to reference for successful presentations).

Related Read: What Makes Up the Best Presentation Templates?

What makes a good presentation tool?

The functions and results of presentation programs have evolved significantly in the past decades, since the original launch of ‘Presenter’ (the PowerPoint predecessor) in 1984. In 1987 PowerPoint 1.0 was released for the Macintosh and it started a revolution in the way we prepare and consume content in meetings.

For the purposes of this article we are going to classify all presentation tools using 3 variables that we consider extremely important:

Ease of use: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This rating looks at the learning curve, or time required to learn to use the platform. An easy to use interface is fundamentally important to ensure that users feel confortable working with the platform and doesn’t require complex training to take advantage of its features. This also accounts for the average time it takes to build a presentation.

Customization: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The ability to customize a presentation to the smallest details. This varies depending on the number of advanced features in the platform, like the ability to set different transitions to each slide, the ability to add customized elements or to design/code the final outcome of the slides to the last font size and color code.

Final result: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This indicator looks at the outcome of a finished presentation, assuming the user is an average person with basic design skills and intermediate knowledge on the tool itself.

Best PowerPoint Alternatives (Death by Power Point)

As we mentioned before, PowerPoint is the most used presentation builder in the market today. It is distributed by Microsoft as part of their Office Suite, which is estimated to have over 500 million users worldwide. Microsoft has also revealed that approximately 35 Million presentations are delivered every single day, that’s a staggering 400 presentations per second.

But still, PowerPoint’s popularity has decreased significantly in the past few years. Their boring presentation templates, the large learning curve and complexity as well as the terrible slides many users end up making have started the Death to PowerPoint movement.

What presentation software is better than PowerPoint?

For this section, we summarize the top PowerPoint alternatives and examples, that is, presentation tools that work in a fairly similar manner and that provide similar (but significantly better) results. If you are an avid PowerPoint user, then migrating to these platforms should be rather easy for you.

Best 10 presentation software alternative list for 2023

(Updated December 2022)

• Keynote presentation
• Google Slides

1- SLIDEBEAN PRESENTATION SOFTWARE

Ease of use: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ - Fantastic!

Customization: ★ ★ ★ ★ - Very Good

Final result: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ - Fantastic!

Slidebean is an online presentation tool that uses artificial intelligence to design beautiful slides. Simply add content blocks to your presentation without worrying about formatting. Slidebean’s AI finds the best possible design for every element on your slide. This level of automation allows you to create a professional looking presentation in a fraction of the time it normally takes on PowerPoint.

When comparing it to PowerPoint, Slidebean’s interface is much easier to learn and work with, and it lets you create fantastic looking presentations really fast. The platform is web based and allows you to export to both PowerPoint and PDF format. It also lets you track viewer interactions and activity from people you share your slides with!

Slidebean also has a unique advantage which is a rich gallery of presentation outline templates. These are pre-filled decks that work for numerous purposes, like business proposals, classroom decks, thesis presentations and even startup pitch decks : all you need to do is import them and fill in your content.

You can sign up free for Slidebean here

SIGN UP FREE

2- apple keynote.

Ease of use: ★ ★ ★ - OK

Customization: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ - Fantastic!

Final result: ★ ★ ★ ★ - Very Good

Keynote is what PowerPoint should have been all along. Apple's version of the popular presentation tool has improved significantly in the last few years, and has recently included a cloud version that works on any browser on any computer (as long as you have at least one Apple device).

Keynote is basically an improved PowerPoint, it offers the same approach to creating slides, but offers nice and clean customizable templates, a simple interface and great details like smart guides.

The biggest issue with Keynote is the long learning process that it requires. Similar to Microsoft's tool, you'll need to sit down for a few hours to learn to use the platform, and another larger set of hours to make a professional presentation.

More info about Apple Keynote is available here

Final result: ★ ★ ★ - OK

Visme is a web based platform for building presentations. Their familiar interface is similar to PowerPoint, but they have successfully simplified a complex UI to a nicer and more understandable navigation. Still, you'll need to spend a few hours to get a good grasp of where all the customization options can be found.

The platform offers an interesting (but certainly limited) gallery of images, but they succeed at delivering beautiful infographic elements (which they call ‘Charts and Graphs’) that you can use to add some color and make your slides much more dynamic.

You can read more about them here . ‍

4- GOOGLE SLIDES

Customization: ★ ★ - Passable

Google's version of PowerPoint is hosted as part of the Google Apps suite, that you can access from Google Drive or from Google Apps for Work. Sadly, their presentation builder feels like a limited version of PowerPoint, with less features, limited fonts and very little customization options.

Still, Google's platform is available for free, has a lot of integrations and probably one of the best online collaboration systems out there. Checking it out is easy, just visit your Google Drive.

You can find a more detailed review here .

5- FLOWVELLA

Ease of use: ★ ★ - Passable

Customization: ★ ★ ★ - OK

Flowvella is available on the Mac App Store as a desktop application. It provides a simple interface (certainly cleaner than Microsoft PowerPoint and somewhat similar to Apple Keynote) and some very nice design templates, which set good grounds so you can start building a nice looking set of slides on top of them. This is by far their biggest strength! If you want to start from scratch, however, you might feel a little lost creating something that looks good.

We found, however, that the oversimplified interface makes some basic options hard to find, like changing the color of a shape. Also, while running as a desktop app it still requires an Internet connection to download some elements, which can lead to a slower performance than a 100% desktop tool.

Update: We also read recently that they launched a tvOS app for the new AppleTV, making them, as far as we know, the first presentation tool to leverage the new platform.

You can find more details here .

Customization: ★ ★ ★ -

Pitch offers an innovative solution for fast-paced teams looking to quickly create effective, stylish presentations. With a combination of productivity features and design elements, Pitch makes it easy to get professional results—quickly

You can find more information about them here .

Final result: ★ ★ ★ ★ - Very Good!

The premise of Canva is an ‘amazingly easy graphic design software'. It lets you create anything from print design to banners and presentations. They provide an easy to use interface with a huge selection of pre-built designs that you can modify to your liking.

These pre-built elements let you quickly draft a nice presentation even if you have no design skills, but it does require you to drag and drop and arrange the content of your slide, which can become time consuming.

Canva has been gaining significant popularity in the last few years, especially after they hired Guy Kawasaki as a Chief Evangelist. Their platform is beautiful, you can find more about them here .

8- HAIKU DECK

Ease of use: ★ ★ ★ ★ - Very Good

Haiku Deck launched as an iPad app in 2011. They made a big bet towards mobile productivity and came up with a solid iPad application that allowed you to create slides in less time than the then-only alternative of Keynote for iOS.

Haiku Deck has a nice set of custom templates that you can use as a guideline for your slides, and their content input system is clear and easy to learn.

Still, we believe their approach that focused on mobile devices could only take them so far and they've since been working on a web version of their platform that works for any computer. As we mentioned, the personal computer continues to be a much more efficient productivity platform.

'Slides' is a nice website that lets you create and share presentations online. Formerly slides(dot)io and slid(dot)es, they finally settled for slides(dot)com. This startup was founded by Hakim El Hattab and Owen Bossola in Stockholm, Sweden, and it makes use of the reveal.js framework that we mentioned above.

Slides has a nice web interface that encourages you to create a nice and clean presentations, however, it still depends on the user’s ability to manipulate the elements and arrange them in a nice style. Still, their pre-defined formats and their grid system help guide you to a better result.

The platform also allows for custom HTML and CSS coding, which lets experienced users with coding skills, customize their templates even further.

Some more info about them here .

Ease of use: ★ - Bad

Prezi has been around for years and they have had a huge head start compared to any other online presentation tool out there. Their unique zoom styling makes it immediately obvious to the audience that they are looking at a Prezi deck.

Prezi has the advantage of allowing you to create really stunning interactive presentations if you know how to leverage their zoomable, infinite canvas. However, this can become a double edge sword if users overuse the feature and come up with a presentation that is literally capable of making people dizzy.

Still, Prezi's biggest weakness is on its ease of use. There's a long learning curve towards dominating their interface and even if you do, you need to be a designer to make a great presentation on the platform.

This is a huge company that is not going away anytime soon. With 50+ million users, they have proven the world wants and needs a PowerPoint alternative, and we have huge respect for them for doing so.

More information about them here .

Which one to pick?

In the world of presentation software, there's a big bunch to pick from. It's kind of like a crowded market with lots of options. And guess what? The best one for you might not even be on your radar.

Our list is here to help you out. We've put together this bunch of presentation software choices after digging into over 50 of them on the internet. We're here to give you the scoop on what's out there, so you can pick the one that suits you best.

Now, remember, presentation software is like your helper to make cool slideshows. These slideshows could be for showing stuff to people, like at school or work. These helpers, or software, should be good at a few things: putting words and pictures on slides, making things look nice, and showing your stuff in a cool way on a screen.

The options we've found have different things they're good at. Some use fancy computer thinking (AI) to make your slides look great without you doing much. Others let you customize your slides a lot, which is nice if you want them to look exactly like you want. And finally, how your slides look when you're done is super important too.

Picking the right presentation tool is a bit like picking the best tool for a job. You wouldn't use a hammer to write a story, right? So, whether you want something easy, something that lets you be creative, or something that gives you good results, our list has got you covered. Your choice will help you make cool presentations that people will remember. Our recommendation is to give Slidebean a try, but is up to you to consider the options. So, pick smart and happy presenting.

Try Slidebean

Related video.

Upcoming events

From pitch deck to funding: a crash course, crash course in financial modeling, popular articles.

The Startup Financial Model Template by Slidebean

AirBnb Pitch Deck: Teardown and Redesign (FREE Download)

Let’s move your company to the next stage 🚀

Ai pitch deck software, pitch deck services.

Financial Model Consulting for Startups 🚀

Raise money with our pitch deck writing and design service 🚀

The all-in-one pitch deck software 🚀

A pitch deck is an essential tool for startup founders, especially in the early stages, as it helps them connect with potential investors and secure crucial venture capital funding. It serves multiple purposes, all of which are key to a startup's growth path. Here, we outline them.

Preparing to pitch to investors from a VC Firm? This article includes examples and explanations from renowned Venture Capital Firms to guide you on crafting your pitch deck.

This is a functional model you can use to create your own formulas and project your potential business growth. Instructions on how to use it are on the front page.

Book a call with our sales team

In a hurry? Give us a call at 

15 Best Presentation Software for 2021

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter

By Bilyana Nikolaeva

in Insights

4 years ago

Viewed 8,573 times

Spread the word about this article:

On average a presentation takes up to 20 minutes and experts say we make an impression within the first 30 seconds. That is why it’s important to “dress” our great product/idea with an equally exciting design. Most often, presentations are cooked up by non-designers, which creates a specific need – for powerful presentation software, which can help communicate a message beautifully, effectively, and to suit any user’s skill level. We hand-picked 15 of the best presentation software for 2021 , which will help you create presentations online, share them, while shining in your best light. In the meanwhile, check out some useful ideas tips to spice up your presentations .

A web-based presentation tool, which means you can access your presentations wherever you are, with an internet connection. It is known for its animations, cartoons, and infographics, which help the user to create more interactive presentations and explainer-style videos.

Example by Focusky

Best Features:  Very interactive; you can create a unique to your story by combining different “frames” (slides); create your own animations within the presentation Price:  Free, but heavily subscription-based Learning curve:  Very intuitive, nicely organized by categories, but it would require some time to learn the animation controls Available for:  Online Perfect for: Marketing and education

To summarize, this presentation tool is best for marketers and education, where the creator can get the most out of the cool animation and cartoons available. In the last years, there is an increased interest in Powtoon and RenderForest and we expect that more and more people will use them in 2021. No surprise – if you look at our article about Graphic Design Trends in 2022 , everything is moving towards animation, cool 3D-s, cartoons, and illustrations – and these are all things that this software can offer for your presentation.

Prezi is an online presentation software, which resembles a mind map. In comparison, PowerPoint offers a linear way of presenting, whereas Prezi allows you to better show relationships between different elements of your presentation, show details, zoom in and zoom out and show an overall view of your topic. Compared to PowerPoint is more interactive, but with fewer functionalities and a choice of templates.

Example by PreziBase

Best Features:  Interactive presentations and interesting transitions, zoom in/out details Price:  The very basic features are free, but most of the interesting ones are paid, starting from $3/month and reaching up to $59/month. They offer a free trial. Learning curve:  it requires learning and going through a lot of menus and functionalities, similar to PowerPoint Available for:  Online / Limited use for iOS and Android (only viewing, not creating and editing) Perfect for: teachers, businesses, more experienced designers, and specific presentations needs, but not recommended for newbies

Prezi is best in showing relationships between different parts of your presentations. There are some challenges in editing, and viewing across devices and its best features are paid for. We recommend it for quick, mind-map-like presentations without the need for ultra-special design.

3. RenderForest Presentation Maker

RenderForest is an online presentation tool, which is famous for its explainer style and whiteboard animations. The presentation templates often offer various motion/video backgrounds, which helps to grab your audience’s attention. Currently, the company is working on releasing its Graphic Design Software, which will allow users to create printables and beautiful designs for social media. This shows that RenderForest’s team knows the market well and does its best to cater to its needs!

Example by Renderforest

Best Features:  Video holders with text on shapes, cool transitions Price:  There is a free version, the paid ones start at $20.34 per user/month Learning curve:  Relatively easy to use, the simple interface helps the user Available for:  Online / iOS / Android Perfect for:  Education and business

Although not one of the cheapest solutions, it allows you to create engaging and interactive presentations with lots of cool animations. That makes RenderForest a great choice for more educational and marketing explainer-type videos/presentations.

4. Mentimeter

Mentimeter is a very interesting online presentation software. It allows your audience to engage with your presentation in real-time and you can create polls, ask questions, which are then displayed to your presentation. The answers from the audience remain anonymous so people are even more encouraged to participate.

Example by Mentimeter

Best Features:  Launch live, interactive polls, surveys, quizzes and create things like word clouds in real-time Price:  It has a free version, but the paid plans offer most of the attractive features – the basic plan costs $9.99 per user/month and the more advanced plan is $24.99 per user/month Learning curve:  Easy to use; might need to explain to a less tech-savvy audience how to connect to your presentation Available for:  Online / Android / iOS Perfect for:  Educators, speakers, business and competitions

An excellent choice for educators, speakers, and businesses who want to engage the audience in real-time and display the results immediately. Clean, simple designs, that help you focus on the content.

5. Libre Office Impress

Libre Office is free presentation software, an open-source alternative to PowerPoint. As you can expect from a free product, it offers only the main features of its “big brother”, but it’s a good solution for people used to Microsoft’s productivity suite. The interface is very similar to PowerPoint, which again makes it comfortable to use for a certain audience. Users who need collaboration on presentations, clean interface, and more creative design solutions should steer away from this free presentation software because it will simply not cover their needs.

Example by Theodoros Bousios

Best Features:  Free, compatible with older versions (Windows XP for example) Price:  Free Learning curve:  It will take some time to go through all the options and to get familiar with the interface; Available for:  Windows / macOS / Linux / Android / iOS. Perfect for:  people who want to use a free product and people with older operation systems

To summarize, Libre is free, compatible with older versions, it can cover your basic needs for a presentation, but the options are too many and available templates too little.

6. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is also an online presentation software, which has a very friendly user interface and great collaboration features. There are many functionalities, which help you create a beautiful design, but require some time and design knowledge to get it right. The premade templates are limited and this presentation software needs an internet connection to be able to edit and present.

Image by Zoho

Best Features:  Live broadcasting a presentation with live chat and commenting Price:  Zoho Show is free for personal use. For business users, Zoho Show is included in the Zoho Docs enterprise pricing packages – €5 or €8 per user/month Learning curve: Available for:  Online / Android / iOS Perfect for:  non-profits, start-ups, personal use, teachers

To summarize, Zoho offers great collaboration features, but you need a connection to edit and present. It is suitable for quick, non-pretentious presentations, where you need some kind of collaboration.

7. ClearSlide Presenter

ClearSlide is a sales engagement platform, including an online presentation tool. Another online tool – SlideRocket, was acquired by ClearSlide and one of the differences is that ClearSlide is more costly and targeted at larger businesses. It’s a great platform for very specific needs – collaborating between sales and marketing teams, to achieve the company’s goals. It’s clear even by the interface:

Image by ClearSlide

Best Features: Analytics for costumers’ engagement, video conferencing, screen sharing Price:  They offer a free trial and you can see more about the payment plans here. Learning curve:  Clear and simple interface, but it requires some time to get used to the tools Available for:  Online Perfect for: Sales/business, managers (for coaching); not suitable for newbies, teachers, students

To summarize, ClearSide is perfect for presenting sales pitch , graphics, collaborate in larger teams. It is somehow restrictive for a non-designer because the templates are specific.

8. Piktochart

Piktochart allows you to make infographics, presentations, and printables quickly. Primarily known for its easy customizable infographics, Piktochart also has simple presentation templates and the company is constantly trying to update its library.

Example by Piktochart Knowledge Base

Best Features:  Turning data-heavy content into simple visuals; nice transitions between slides Price:  There is a free version and a paid one, starting at $29 per user/month. They offer a free trial. Learning curve:  It requires time to get used to the options available and to navigate through Available for:  Online Perfect for:  Designers, teachers; it does not offer collaboration options, which might be needed by teams, students, etc.

Compared to other online presentation software is a bit costly and we could still ask a bit more from the presentation templates. We’d recommend it to someone who often uses infographics and wants to use a single platform to combine the infographics with a presentation. But why not check our free infographics as well?

Slides is online presentation software, initially aimed at developers and covering their presentation needs. Thus said, it does not offer offline editing, but you can present offline, after exporting your presentation.

Best Features:  It allows you to use your phone as a remote control; Live Present Mode allows you to control what your audience sees; drop in code, iframes, and SVGs with ease. Price:  Free, with paid plans starting at $7.00/month and $14-$18/month for pro and team packages. They offer a free trial. Learning curve:  friendly interface, but too many functions and options, which might overwhelm the average user and beginner Available for: Online Perfect for:  developers, designers, a little bit too specific for newbies

To summarize, it’s a very cool tool, giving you complete design freedom, but that is also why we do not recommend it to teachers, non-designers, or marketers. Developers and design gurus will love it.

Canva is a web-based solution that started with a mission – to make beautiful designed content available to everyone. The whole platform is organized so that a person without any prior design knowledge can easily create graphs, images, and presentations to impress. Although it is not the best tool for data visualization, it scores high in any other category. Needless to say, it has become a popular choice amongst non-designers.

Image by Iconfinder

Best Features:  Plenty of beautiful templates to choose from and Canva school has plenty of tutorials and tips for free. It offers more free functionalities compared to other competitors. Price:  Free, the offer different subscription plans, starting at $9.95 per user/month Learning curve:  Very easy to use, most of the actions can be performed by drag-and-drop Available for:  Online / iOS / Android Perfect for:  newbies, marketers (who need a unified look across all their social media), non-profits, and teachers

Canva is becoming one of the most popular tools amongst non-designers for creating beautiful unified content. You can create entire presentations, flyers, and other materials with a single drag and drop.

11. Slidebean

Slidebean is the go-to online presentation software for last-minute projects, that look original and professional. Slidebean offers clean and easy-to-use templates and keeps track of your audience’s engagement.

Source Slidebean

Best Features:  It allows you to arrange your content with the help of AI, which saves time creating a beautiful layout. You just pick a template, upload content, and let the AI offer you a nice layout. Premade animations, effects, and alignments are automatically applied to your content and create a cohesive look. Price:  Free, paid versions starting from $8/month Learning curve:  very easy to use since everything is made to fit the premade templates Available for:  Windows / Mac / Android / iOS Perfect for:  financial, academic, pitch, marketing, sales; everything quick with a clear structure

To summarize, if you are in a hurry, Slidebean will offer several layouts for your slides and speed up the process of creation. The platform targets primarily sales, marketing, and financial fields, and the available templates reflect that.

12. Google Slides

Google Slides is part of the G Suite business application. Its popularity has increased in the last years since it’s a web-based platform, allowing you to store, edit, and share your presentation, without the need of installing presentation software on your computer. All you need is a Google account and you are good to go.

Image by G Suite Updates blog

Best Features:  It’s free for personal use, and offers great paid features for business – for example, seamless collaboration and commenting on a presentation, converting other presentations to Google Slides. Some other great features are the wide variety of fonts available (GoogleFonts, not need installing), easy embedding, plus it’s super intuitive and easy to use! Price:   It’s free for individual use. For business use, the price starts at $5/user/month and plans of $10 and $25/user/month, for unlimited cloud storage and extra features Learning curve:  Simple interface, but it will require some time to pick up. Similar to PowerPoint, only a bit lighter. Available for:  Windows / Mac / Online Perfect for:  businesses, freelancers, who need a user-friendly app with elementary features; great for collaborating teams, not so perfect for complex designs and tools, required by big enterprises

Perfect for personal use, well synchronized across different devices, similar to PowerPoint. Maybe you are a teacher and you like GoogleSlides because it is free and easy to use? Well, we’ve gathered some awesome FREE GoogleSlides and PowerPoint templates , specially made for education needs.

If you need something along the lines of PowerPoint but need the option for collaboration – a paid plan for GoogleSlides is your go-to choice.

13. Keynote

Keynote is an Apple product, very similar to Google Slides. All you need to do is create an iCloud account (similar to a Google account) and start using Keynote from there. Running Keynote on Windows also requires an internet connection and a modern browser. The latest version can also import and export PowerPoint formats if needed. All this sends Keynote higher in the list regarding the accessibility and shareability of this presentation software.

Image by Envato tuts+

Best Features:  Simplicity of design, great drag and drop functions, polished transitions and animations, easy image editing/cropping; works great with multimedia; design templates with better aesthetic than an average slide deck; Price:  Free for macOS and iOS Learning curve:  Pretty easy to use for Mac users, a bit of learning curve for users, having experience with other software. Available for:  Mac / Windows / Online Perfect for:  businesses, marketers, people with not much of a design experience

Bottom line, if you are a Mac user, you love the sleek design and you are looking for cool aesthetics – Keynote is simple to use and free, why not use it?

14. Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is a web and mobile-based media creation application, which helps you create social graphics, short videos, and web pages. What is immediately noticeable is the clean, crisp, simple, and modern designs, which focus you on the content. If you are looking for a funky, ornate design – Adobe Spark is not the right pick for you.

Example by Cikeys

Best Features:  Beautiful templates, user-friendly interface, step-by-step creation, you can add audio to your slides (narrating) Price:  There is a free version, the paid on starts at $9.79. The best templates, as with the competitors, are paid. They do not offer a free trial. Learning curve:  Easy to use Available for:  Online / iOS / Android Perfect for:  quick presentations, teachers, basic presentations without jamming them with too much cool stuff.

Adobe Spark eliminates the cluster of design options and leads you step-by-step in creating elegant, simple presentations. Ideal for basic presentations, not the best for sales and marketing.

15. PowerPoint

PowerPoint certainly is a “classic” – it’s has been the most popular tool for creating presentations so far. What first started as a component of the Microsoft Office suite, now has improved shareability and accessibility. It can be used on the web (as part of Office on the web), works with Android, and iOS, and there is a Mobile app, as well as presentation software for mac.

Example by Abris DC

Best Features:  Many people are familiar with the software, a wide variety of templates; improved accessibility across platforms; extensive tools and options Price: If you want to enjoy the full features of PowerPoint, you’ll need to subscribe to Microsoft 365 – they have payment plans for personal or business use. The price for personal use starts at $5.99/month or $59.99/year, and business plans start at $12.50 per user/month with an annual commitment. You can find more information here . The mobile applications are completely free to use, of course with some limitations. You can compare the available features across different platforms  here. Learning curve: Due to the variety of options and the complexity of the menus, it might take some time to master all of its features. Something that could take a lot of time is editing the text, arranging the visuals, and picking the right transitions – overall, is time-consuming. Still, the interface remained easy to navigate over time and if you trust your design sense, you can achieve satisfying results. Available for: Windows / Mac / Online Perfect for: business, medical, accounting and students; creating concise presentations; but not so suitable for teachers, educators, start-ups and marketers who want to create more interactive and story-based presentations.

To this date, PowerPoint is keeping the lead as the most popular tool for creating presentations. Some of the downsides are that sometimes it can be time-consuming to come up with a good design and PP doesn’t offer collaboration tools and compared to other platforms. But we have a solution for at least one of your problems – we’ve selected 31 Modern PowerPoint templates to set the right tone for your presentation. 

We made a quick summary for you…

Ok, not that we’ve looked at the 15 best presentation software for 2021, we decided to go one step further and compare them by price and popularity. Let’s have a look first at the new-comers:

As you can see, the leaders from the uprising platforms are Canva and Mentimeter, with relatively low prices and with huge success amongst users . Powtoon, Piktochart, and Renderforest are a bit costly , but they are popular since they offer a lot of animation and interactive elements. Hey, but maybe some of the other tools are right for you? We encourage you to go on their websites, contact their support team, and see what they have to offer.

Then, let’s see how the veterans are ranking:

It’s no surprise that PowerPoint and Google Slides are at the top – people are used to their products, have familiar interfaces, and offer a lot of functionalities at a good price. Although, for quick, unpretentious results, their competitors are a very attractive solution.

Final words

We can conclude that there are many useful tools to help you create beautiful presentations. Some of them are well-known and have been here for a while, while others are uprising… No matter the case, we notice a trend for presentation tools catering not only to the designers’ needs but also to the newbies, marketers, and teachers. That way, enabling everyone to create stunning presentations in no time and share them easily.

We hope this presentation software list shed some light on different options out there and that we helped you evaluate quickly what would work for your situation best.

You may also be interested in these related articles:

• 12 PowerPoint Presentation Tips To Dramatically Boost Your Efficiency
• 35 Free Google Slides Infographic Templates to Grab Now
• 23 Online Collaboration Tools for Your Remote Team

Add some character to your visuals

Cartoon Characters, Design Bundles, Illustrations, Backgrounds and more...

Like us on Facebook

Subscribe to our newsletter

Be the first to know what’s new in the world of graphic design and illustrations.

• [email protected]

Browse High Quality Vector Graphics

E.g.: businessman, lion, girl…

Related Articles

Infographic design trends 2019: 6 powerful trends to follow, how to use adobe character animator for free in 2022, material design: what is it and how to get started [+resources], case study: designing hippo cartoon characters, 6 steps to proof-check your infographic design before you publish it, take a look at graphicmama’s infographic templates collection. over 500 premade templates for your presentations:, enjoyed this article.

Don’t forget to share!

• Comments (0)

Bilyana Nikolaeva

Bilyana is an inspiring content writer and illustrator at GraphicMama with years of experience in art and design. When she’s not busy writing for the blog, you will usually see her working hard on new illustrations and graphic resources.

Thousands of vector graphics for your projects.

Take a look at GraphicMama's Infographic Templates Collection. Over 500 premade templates for your presentations:

Hey you made it all the way to the bottom.

Here are some other articles we think you may like:

How to Find the Right Website Design Company for Your Project?

by Lyudmil Enchev

How to Benefit from Your Animated Explainer Videos

by Iveta Pavlova

10 PowerPoint Online Alternatives and Software for Outstanding Presentations

by Al Boicheva

Looking for Design Bundles or Cartoon Characters?

A source of high-quality vector graphics offering a huge variety of premade character designs, graphic design bundles, Adobe Character Animator puppets, and more.

👀 Turn any prompt into captivating visuals in seconds with our AI-powered design generator ✨ Try Piktochart AI!

The 11 Best Presentation Software to Use in 2024

The ability to effectively share ideas, illustrate a concept, and convince an audience is invaluable whether you’re a student or a C-level executive. These days, the presentation software you use to create presentations is just as important as your public-speaking skills.

On top of that, most companies have transitioned to remote work recently due to the current coronavirus situation, and now need to share their stories online through a virtual conference room with their distributed teams and external audience members.

That’s why we’ve come up with a list of some of the best presentation software available right now, so you can choose a compatible and innovative presentation maker that includes the best presentation tools to suit your specific needs.

Choose the best presentation software by weighing the pros and cons

You’ll see some of the most popular presentation apps: from free to paid subscription platforms, and slideshow applications to full-blown visual design presentation software with interactive features and more.

Each presentation software has its pros and cons, so it’s up to you to figure out which suits your needs best; consider the software learning curve, whether your company is made up of Mac users or Windows users and the software compatibility, if you need an enterprise account or free account, etc.

Let’s dive in!

1. Piktochart

Piktochart is a presentation software that can create a variety of design visuals, from infographics to social media stories.

An area in which Piktochart shines is crafting unique presentations. 

On Piktochart, users can choose from a wide range of professionally-designed presentation templates .

These custom templates include everything from monthly marketing reports to employee onboarding templates.

This broad selection of customizable templates is especially useful for those who don’t have much design experience or know-how but need to create a visually stunning unique presentation in a pinch. 

Piktochart’s presentation maker also makes it easy to edit presentations and include design elements such as lists, timelines, comparisons, graphs, and different types of charts through drag-and-drop tools.

You can even make visual maps and interactive charts to keep your audience engaged throughout your presentation. 

And if your company uses a Piktochart TEAM plan , you can enjoy the platform’s ability to store brand assets , color schemes, and bespoke templates. Here, replicating company-branded visuals is a breeze. 

Piktochart comes with a free version but with certain limitations. Active visuals are capped at five per month and published visuals have a Piktochart watermark.

If you want features such as team template collaboration, project sharing, and annotated commenting, you’ll have to get a Team account. To sum it up:

• Lots of professionally-designed templates 
• Good for both design professionals and non-professionals 
• Easy to store brand assets and bespoke templates for future presentations
• Access presentation tools from anywhere via a web browser
• Free presentation app version available
• Might take some getting used to if you’re used to PowerPoint presentations

2. Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is often the first presentation software that comes to mind.

Once considered the “O.G.” and best presentation software available, it is still widely used and has a familiar interface—which means most users are comfortable with it. 

This presentation app has everything you need to create a presentation: from animated transitions for interactive presentations to pre-installed fonts and graphic elements.

Users can also upload their own fonts, graphics, and images into their finished presentation.

Lastly, it’s available as part of the Microsoft Office software package; and you can work on your presentations via the web and mobile devices, for offline viewing as well as online. 

However, PowerPoint is no longer considered the best presentation software, as it has very few templates to choose from, and these tend to fall quite flat compared to modern apps and software.

It’s easy to fall back into boring slideshow PowerPoint files if you don’t know what you’re doing.

And because most people use PowerPoint, you’re likely using the same template as the next guy. 

As standalone presentation software, PowerPoint is pricey at US$139.99—and accessible through only one device unless you upgrade your package.

And while PowerPoint is primarily a slideshow application and presentation maker, its strengths are limited to this category. 

So if you’re looking for the best presentation software, and bang for your buck for a robust presentation tool, you might want to look elsewhere. 

• Market leader in slideshow applications to create slides
• Widely used and familiar interface for the presentation process
• Reliable and usable on most devices as well as being a desktop app
• Flat templates
• Limitations with its standalone-presentation software price

3. Google Slides

Google Slides is a slideshow application that is very similar to PowerPoint.  But there are three main differences: it’s fully online (while also allowing for offline viewing), collaborative, and free. 

The great thing about Google Slides (besides the fact that it’s completely free for anyone with a Google account) is that you can log on via your browser or through its official app. 

You can access all Google Slides presentations from any device (mobile, tablet, and desktop), and share them with other people so you can collaborate in real-time. 

Google Drive allows all your presentations to live on the cloud, accessible to all marketing and sales teams, with unparalleled ease of use.

And there’s no need to worry about disruptions as all changes are saved as they happen, as long as you have an active internet connection. 

Additionally, anyone familiar with PowerPoint will be comfortable using Google’s iteration and likely be delighted by Google Drive and the slide library available. 

It’s also a lot simpler, so even those new to presentation-making will find it easy to navigate. 

However, some might find Google Slides too simple as it lacks the wealth of features available on PowerPoint. 

These include embedding videos from sources other than YouTube, plus adding audio tracks and sound effects, limiting the ability to create unique interactive presentations. 

Some users also encounter issues with downloading and exporting to different formats, including PowerPoint. 

Some slides may even turn out completely different from the original version. 

All in all, Google Slides is a great option for those who are looking for a free application and only need to create simple presentations. 

• The free plan supports professional presentations
• Web-based and collaborative to create presentations
• Simple and familiar interface for an online presentation software
• Too simple for advanced presentation making
• Difficult to export to other formats
• Limited templates and customization options for interactive content

You could say Keynote is Apple’s version of PowerPoint. It’s also a slideshow application—but in typical Apple fashion, it comes with a sleek, minimalist interface and is considered one of the best presentation apps on the market. 

There are 30 different themes to choose from, which serve as templates for those who need a quick fix. And it can do most of what PowerPoint can. 

Keynote’s main perk is that it’s part of the Apple ecosystem. 

That means it has built-in iCloud and Apple Watch support so users can control their presentation from their mobile device or even their wrists with just a click. 

This presentation app comes pre-installed on most Mac devices. Otherwise, you can purchase it from the Apple store for just US$9.99 for mobile and US$19.99 for OS X. 

The big downside is that Keynote is exclusive to Mac OS. 

Non-Apple users can create, upload, and sync their own Keynote presentations through their iCloud Drive, but this presentation app is only truly helpful only for those who use multiple Apple devices. 

And if you’re used to working on PowerPoint, you might find Keynote a bit confusing in the beginning, especially when editing presentations. 

• Sleek, minimalist interface 
• Free with most Apple devices
• No access for PC and Android devices except through iCloud

5. SlideDog

Sliding away from straightforward slideshow applications and other presentation apps, SlideDog is a web-based multimedia presentation tool that lets users combine different types of media to create and edit presentations. 

This includes everything from PowerPoint decks to videos and even PDFs that can all be played side by side without any awkward transitions. 

It’s also extremely easy to customize a SlideDog presentation. 

You just need to upload the files into the SlideDog web browser application, and then drag and drop them according to the order in which you want them to play. 

You can control your presentations and playlists from another device, and audience members can view your slideshow on their devices by clicking a link. 

SlideDog has a free presentation app version that provides all of the basic features. 

However, live sharing and premium support are only available with a Pro account that costs US$99 per year, and not via the free version alone.

While SlideDog is technically considered presentation software, you can’t actually create presentations on it. 

You can simply stitch together different pre-made presentations in various formats into what is essentially a playlist. 

Lastly, SlideDog supports only Windows devices, so Apple and Linux users can’t use it. 

• Supports a lot of different media
• Provides live-sharing
• More dynamic compared to the usual slideshow presentation
• Only collates media; doesn’t create them

6. Haiku Deck 

Ever come across presentations with size-eight fonts and blocks of indecipherable paragraphs on each slide? 

You can avoid such an unfortunate scenario with Haiku Deck. 

HaikuDeck is a web and mobile application that favors images over text. 

It works by limiting the number of words users can put on each slide, and allowing them to search for images on their platform related to the slide’s main idea. 

This makes it ideal for those who want to simplify their thoughts and let the images do all the talking. 

Users have over 40 million royalty-free photos to choose from, plus dozens of simple slide layouts on the platform itself. 

While this certainly simplifies the process of creating a visually rich presentation, it can be limiting for those who need to include more information into their slides. 

It’s a great option for someone giving a TED Talk, for example.

But for others who need to pass on more facts and figures, having a built-in word limit might be too restrictive.  

• Simple and easy to use 
• Access to millions of royalty-free stock images
• May be too simple for some
• No Android support
• Limited features

7. Prezi Business

Among the other presentation software on this list, Prezi Business might be one of the most unique presentation tools. 

Rather than offering a regular slideshow format, Prezi looks more like a 3D interactive mind map where viewers jump dynamically from one idea to the next. 

You can zoom in on one “slide” and then zoom out for the next. 

Prezi has over 100 templates to choose from and comes with a very simple interface and a drag-and-drop style of editing. 

It’s compatible with both Mac and PC desktops as well as smartphones. 

It’s also similar to a regular PowerPoint deck in that you can jump back and forth from one “slide” to the next. 

And like SlideDog, you can send viewers the link to the presentation as you’re presenting. 

Also, up to 10 people can work on a Prezi presentation at the same time, one of its main selling points. 

This is great for collaboration, but having so many hands-on deck at once can get messy. 

• Dynamic and immersive presentations
• Highly visual
• Easy to use
• May not be appropriate for all types of presentations

In a world of slides and presentations, standing out is the key. Ludus brings the flair of graphic design into the world of presentations.

At its core, Ludus is the bridge between presentation tools and design software. It enables users to infuse their slides with the kind of design elements you’d typically find in advanced design platforms.

Not only can you import assets from design giants like Adobe, but its seamless integration with tools like Unsplash and Giphy makes sourcing visuals a breeze.

It’s a fairly affordable tool for all its features compared to the other paid options in this list, as users pay 12.49 euros monthly (if billed annually).

However, while Ludus’ robust design capabilities can elevate the look of your presentation, those unfamiliar with design tools might find there’s a learning curve.

• Merges presentation creation with advanced design tools.
• Seamless integration with popular design platforms and visual databases.
• Offers a unique edge in presentation aesthetics.
• Might be a tad overwhelming for non-designers
• Can have a steeper learning curve for those used to more straightforward platforms

9. Slidebean

Crafting a compelling presentation demands not only compelling content but also a design that can captivate your audience. Enter Slidebean.

Slidebean offers an intelligent design solution, using AI to transform raw content into professionally styled presentations. This platform streamlines the design process, allowing you to focus on the message rather than fretting over aesthetics.

The basic plan is free and allows you to create a presentation. But if you want to share or download your presentations, as well as unlock the full suite of features, you’ll need to sign up for the All-Access plan priced at $199 per year.

While it provides a quick and efficient method to produce polished slides, it also offers features for sharing, collaboration, and viewer analytics, adding an edge to your presentation strategy.

However, for professionals who prioritize granular design control, the automated design might feel limiting at times.

• AI-driven design ensures visually appealing presentations.
• Features for collaboration and viewer insights.
• Efficient design process reduces time and effort.
• Might not offer the detailed design customization some users desire.
• Automated choices may not always align with specific branding or style preferences.

10. ClearSlide

Having great visuals to drive your point home can be the difference between getting a sale across the line or customers walking away. ClearSlide stands out in this area as a presentation tool for businesses laser-focused on boosting their sales and marketing game.

At its core, ClearSlide is all about leveling up business presentations. Whether you’re marketing a new product or tracking client engagement, it’s got tools that cater to every need.

Whether it’s a PowerPoint, a PDF, or something from Google Drive or Dropbox, ClearSlide makes it simple to upload and work with these files.

The unique edge? ClearSlide’s virtual meeting space pops open with just a click. It’s all about seamless, professional presentations without the hassle.

Beyond just slides, the platform dives deep into metrics and analytics, ensuring every presentation is backed by data-driven insights. And the tool is available for $35 per month, which isn’t too pricey for medium-sized businesses.

However, its complexity isn’t for everyone. For some, the variety of features might seem a tad overwhelming, and its focus on metrics might be a bit much for those just wanting a basic presentation tool.

• Seamless virtual meetings and presentations
• Integrates with popular platforms
• Offers insightful analytics for sales and marketing
• Might feel complex for some users
• Limited transition and design effects
• Mobile experience could be better

Stepping into the world of animation, Vyond, once known as GoAnimate, allows users to turn their narratives into professional animated videos. For those looking to elevate their content without diving deep into animation complexities, Vyond can be the go-to tool.

This platform is more than just drag-and-drop animations. It integrates AI capabilities with Vyond Go, which transforms text prompts into rough-cut videos.

Fancy a quick draft for your upcoming project? This AI assistant is up for the task. And if perfection is your game, take it to Vyond Studio, filled with an array of characters, templates, and backgrounds.

The Essential Plan at $25 per month is suitable for individuals on a budget. However, if you want to export videos at 1080p and above, have collaboration tools, or different export options, you’ll need to sign up for the Professional Plan at $92 per month.

As robust as the tool is, there are still some kinks to iron out. AI voiceovers might still need some tweaks, and detailed color customizations can be a bit tricky, but the tool’s strengths, especially for businesses, are undeniable.

• Hassle-free video creation for beginners to experts
• Generous library of pre-made assets
• AI-powered video and script creation with Vyond Go
• AI voiceovers might feel a bit robotic
• Some customization limitations for specific props and scenes

The best presentation software is…

 …completely up to you! 

When it comes to presentation software, the world is your oyster. 

Each of these tools either has a free or trial version for you to check out, so you don’t have to commit just yet. 

When it’s time to choose, consider the following aspects to find the right presentation software for you: 

• Ease of use. Is it easy for you to understand or will it require lots of training before you can start creating presentations? 
• Accessibility. Can you access your presentation software from any device or are you limited to carrying your laptop to every presentation? 
• Real-time collaboration. Can multiple people work on the same project or do you have to keep downloading and emailing drafts? 
• Create design tools. Can you create presentations with dynamic design elements or are you stuck with the same kind of slide each time? 
• Template availability. Is this tool only accessible to a design professional or can anyone create stunning presentations through pre-designed and updated templates? 

Piktochart , for example, would be a fantastic presentation software choice among the long list of PowerPoint alternatives for teams looking for a variety of eye-catching designs without requiring much technical know-how. Meanwhile, Microsoft PowerPoint might be the best presentation software for those who are just looking to play it safe. 

Hopefully, this best presentation software list sheds some light on the tools at your disposal. Choose wisely! 

Other Posts

7 Best Practices to a Standout Research Presentation

7 Sales Presentation Examples for Successful Pitches

How to Make a Presentation (Guide With Tips & Templates)

These cookies are required for the website to run and cannot be switched off. Such cookies are only set in response to actions made by you such as language, currency, login session, privacy preferences. You can set your browser to block these cookies but this might affect the way our site is working.

These cookies are usually set by our marketing and advertising partners. They may be used by them to build a profile of your interest and later show you relevant ads. If you do not allow these cookies you will not experience targeted ads for your interests.

These cookies enable our website to offer additional functions and personal settings. They can be set by us or by third-party service providers that we have placed on our pages. If you do not allow these cookies, these services may not work properly.

These cookies allow us to measure visitors traffic and see traffic sources by collecting information in data sets. They also help us understand which products and actions are more popular than others.

The Ultimate Guide to Presentation Software

Presentation software is a technology that helps users create and deliver visual presentations. These programs allow users to create slideshows, which can include text, images, videos, and animations, and can be displayed at a meeting or conference or shared online.

In today's fast-paced business environment, effective communication is essential for success. Presentation software enables businesses to showcase their ideas and products in an engaging and visually appealing way, which can help to capture the attention of potential clients or investors. It also allows businesses to convey information in a clear and concise manner, making it easier for audiences to understand and remember key points.

As we move towards the future of work, the use of presentation software is likely to become even more important for businesses. With the rise of remote work and virtual meetings, it's vital for businesses to be able to present their ideas and products digitally. Additionally, as competition continues to increase across industries, businesses need to find new ways to stand out and make an impact. Presentation software can help them achieve this by creating dynamic and memorable visual presentations that leave a lasting impression on their audience.

Because of its ever growing importance, we’re seeing more and more presentation software companies popping up. So, where do you start in choosing the right software for your business needs? 

Consider this your ultimate guide to the different types of presentation softwares . 

Traditional presentation software

Traditional software refers to computer applications or programs that are typically used to create and deliver visual presentations. These programs are designed to allow users to create slideshows containing text, images, charts, graphs, and other visual aids. Some examples of traditional presentation software include Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Apple Keynote.

These software programs often feature a linear structure where one slide follows another in a predetermined order. The user can customize each slide with their desired content and then present them live or share them digitally.

While traditional presentation software has been widely used for many years and remains popular, there are alternative options available that offer more advanced features and customization options.

Web-based or SaaS presentation software

Web-based or SaaS (Software as a Service) presentation software refers to programs that are accessed through a web browser and do not need to be installed on a user's device. These programs are hosted on the cloud and can be accessed from any internet-connected device.

Web-based or SaaS presentation software typically offers more flexibility and convenience than traditional presentation software like PowerPoint. They often include a wide range of customizable templates, as well as interactive features such as animations, videos, and audio. They also allow for easy collaboration between team members, as changes and updates can be made in real-time and accessed from any device.

Some popular examples of web-based or SaaS presentation software include Visme, Canva, and Beautiful.ai. These programs have become increasingly popular in recent years due to their ease of use, accessibility, and collaborative features, making them a preferred choice for many businesses and individuals.

Examples of SaaS presentation software

Visme’s PowerPoint-alternative presentation software helps users design slide decks, infographics, interactive charts and other visual content. The easy-to-use cloud-based tool allows users to move elements around the workspace, and new content can be added by dragging and dropping it into place. Visme users can build presentations from scratch by starting with a blank canvas, or they can customize a variety of templates. The presentation software also features a collection of thousands of icons, images and data visualizations, and users can even choose to boost engagement by adding elements like video, audio and GIF files.

• Canva Presentations

Canva offers much more than an alternative to PowerPoint. Users can rely on the visual design platform to create social media graphics, posters, invitations, business cards and all sorts of other documents along with presentations. Canva features thousands of professional templates, images and other content elements, as well as features to help teams collaborate with ease. The software tool’s drag-and-drop interface makes it simple for non-designers to customize templates and even edit photos with little experience.

• Beautiful.ai

We’re biased, but our presentation software is one of the best to help you work faster and smarter. By choosing advanced presentation software like Beautiful.ai, users are handing over the bulk of the design work to artificial intelligence. With powerful features like DesignerBot and Smart Slides, Beautiful.ai automates a lot of the presentation design process for you so you can create something brilliant in half the time. The design guardrails ensure teams stay on-brand , while allowing them to collaborate in the same deck at the same time.  

AI presentation software

AI presentation software is a type of presentation software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to help users create and design presentations. AI presentation software typically includes features such as automated design suggestions, layout recommendations and image recognition to streamline the presentation creation process.

Many AI presentation softwares will leverage generative AI to create fully customizable slides and decks from a text single prompt making the design process ridiculously fast. Other capabilities include image generation baked into the software, and content assistance to rewrite or adjust text. 

Examples of AI presentation software include Beautiful.ai, Tome, and Slidesgo. These programs use AI technology to automate and streamline the presentation creation process, making it faster and more efficient for users to develop engaging and visually appealing presentations.

Examples of AI presentation software

With the recent buzz around AI, you’ve likely heard of Tome. Tome is a presentation app that generates your presentation for you with the help of AI. Simply type in a prompt and get a basic presentation to work with, edit, and customize in return. Tome also offers a few select templates for users to choose from if they don’t want to enter a prompt, which acts as a good jumping off point to get the bones of a presentation. While Tome leans heavily on technology and AI, users will still need some design skills to customize their decks once it’s generated. 

Slidesgo is a Spanish-based company that provides high-quality presentation templates for individuals and businesses. The company offers a wide variety of templates, including business plans, marketing presentations, and educational materials. Slidesgo's templates are available for both Google Slides and PowerPoint, and can be easily customized to suit the user's needs. The company is known for its modern and creative designs, which help users create engaging and visually appealing presentations. 

Beautiful.ai’s new DesignerBot makes it easier than ever for non-designers to create a new presentation from scratch, regardless of the content. Users can opt to create a new deck with DesignerBot by entering a short description (or prompt) based on what they need. Teams have the liberty to add as many keywords as they see fit to generate a fully built, totally customized presentation draft populated with appropriate text, layouts, photos, icons and design. Then, our powerful Smart Slides technology can be used to quickly edit slides by adding or removing content and automatically adapting, resizing and laying out the slides, all while maintaining corporate brand guidelines. With Beautiful.ai, businesses can generate entire decks in one click while Smart Slides and Team controls work together to preserve the integrity of the brand. It’s truly an automated zero-to-finish experience.

Video presentation software

Video presentation software is a type of software that allows users to create and deliver video presentations. These presentations can include a combination of video footage, images, text, and audio. Video presentation software typically includes features such as editing tools, visual effects, and transitions to help users create engaging and professional-looking presentations.

Examples of video presentation software include Powtoon and Lumen5. These programs allow users to record or import videos and then edit them with a variety of tools and effects. Video presentation software also enables users to add voice overs, music, and sound effects to their presentations.

Video presentation software is often used for business presentations, educational materials, and marketing campaigns. The use of video presentations has become increasingly popular in recent years due to the rise of remote work and virtual events, as well as the growing trend of online video content consumption. Video presentation software provides an effective way for users to communicate their ideas and messages in an engaging and dynamic way.

Examples of video presentation software

Powtoon— a British company that got their name by combining “PowerPoint” and “cartoon”— launched in 2012 as a more animated approach to otherwise stale presentations. They offer a wide variety of visual communication features like videos, doodles, presentations, animations, and screen recordings. However they’re most known for their ability to turn slides into video animations in an effort to make them more engaging and interactive for audiences. 

Lumen5 is a Canadian-based technology company that provides an AI-powered video creation platform for businesses and individuals. The platform allows users to easily create engaging video content from articles, blog posts, or other written content without requiring any previous experience or special training. Lumen5's platform uses artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to automatically generate video content, including images, animations, and text overlays. 

Nonlinear presentation software

A nonlinear presentation is a type of presentation where the viewer can navigate the content in a non-sequential order, rather than proceeding from one slide to the next in a linear fashion. In a nonlinear presentation, the content is organized using hyperlinks or other interactive elements that allow the viewer to jump back and forth between different parts of the presentation, depending on their interests and needs.

Nonlinear presentations are often used when presenting complex or interconnected information, or when the audience may have varying levels of interest or expertise in different areas. They can be created using specialized software, such as Prezi, or by manually creating hyperlinks within traditional presentation software like Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Nonlinear presentations can be more engaging and interactive than traditional linear presentations, as they allow the viewer to take control of their own learning experience and explore the content in a way that suits them best. They can be particularly effective for educational and training purposes, as well as for sales and marketing presentations.

Examples of traditional presentation software

Prezi’s presentation software is a true alternative to PowerPoint. Rather than design standard slide decks, Prezi users create animated, non-sequential presentations that highlight topics and uncover subtopics with an engaging zoom feature. The PowerPoint-alternative software is an enticing alternative for creating visual presentations, but it’s probably better suited for experienced presentation designers thanks to its unique design. Still, Prezi is a perfect choice for presenters seeking a more creative way to capture an audience's attention.

Comparisons and considerations

Key differences between presentation software types.

The key differences between presentation software types are accessibility and technology. While most businesses are well versed in Microsoft and Google, other web-based (SaaS) softwares offer newer technologies and more flexible features. Each platform comes with its own pros and cons, and will vary based on the use case of the business.

Factors to consider when choosing presentation software

When choosing the right presentation software for your business, you first have to define what your goal is. Is it collaboration for your teams, design guardrails, leveraging AI to work faster, or accessibility and the ability to work in the cloud? Do you prefer linear or non-sequential presentations? What is your budget? These all play a major role in deciding which solution is the best fit for your workflow.

For more on presentation softwares, check out our recommendations for the top 2023 PowerPoint alternatives .

Jordan Turner

Jordan is a Bay Area writer, social media manager, and content strategist.

Recommended Articles

Top powerpoint alternatives in 2020, sales trends in 2024 that you should implement now, how do i create a swot analysis for my team, top 9 powerpoint alternatives in 2018.

15 Popular PowerPoint Alternatives (Full Comparison Guide)

PowerPoint is by far the most popular software for creating and sharing presentations, but it is not the only one!

In this article, we’ll go through the different PowerPoint alternatives you have and the pros and cons of each . Each one of these presentation software options has its own suitable features that will help you create outstanding slides.

In 24Slides, we’re experts at presentations . We know that when talking about slides, PowerPoint is only the tip of the iceberg. That’s why we’ve picked the 15 most popular PowerPoint alternatives that you can use to create outstanding presentations . We’ll go in-depth into each one, covering their price, their options for team collaboration, and if they can be used both online and offline.

Here are the alternative presentation software we’ll go through:

#2. Google Slides

#3. Apple Keynote

#4. Renderforest

#6. Powtoon

#7. Piktochart

#8. Beautiful.ai

#11. Microsoft Sway

#12. DigiDeck

#13. ZohoShow

#15. Haiku Deck

There are so many PowerPoint alternatives that picking one can be a bit tricky. In the end, the best presentation software is the one that fits your needs the most. That’s why we’ve added a ‘best for…’ section at the end of the article.

Hopefully, this will help you decide which PowerPoint alternative is best for your business and more likely to fulfill your goals to keep your audience interested and engaged. Keep reading to the end to find:

- The best free PowerPoint alternative

- The best PowerPoint alternative for enterprises

- The best presentation software for team collaboration

- The best PowerPoint alternative for e-learning and training

- The best PowerPoint alternative for small businesses

Hopefully, this will not only get you a complete overview of the different PowerPoint alternatives you can use, but it will also help you decide which one is the best presentation software for you!

What is the Best PowerPoint Alternative?

Not every PowerPoint alternative is built the same! While some of the presentation software on this list are very similar to Microsoft Office’s options, many have completely different features and work options.

That’s why to figure out which is the best for your business, you’ll need to compare them. In this section, we’ll go through each PowerPoint alternative’s main features, like template options, design elements library, collaboration features, mobile apps, and so on. We’ll also cover

-Presentation software pricing

-Pros and cons of each PowerPoint alternative

-What each presentation design tool is best suited for

When talking about PowerPoint alternatives, Prezi is one of the most popular ones. This presentation software became known for its non-linear layouts and unique take on presentations.

Unlike PowerPoint and many other alternative presentation software we’ll go through in this list, Prezi doesn’t use presentation slides. Instead, it works with a “canvas,” where the presenter can zoom in and out.

This makes Prezi presentations feel more fluid and “free-form” than your typical presentation.

One of the best features of this PowerPoint alternative is that it allows free plans and work online. However, it’s important to note that presentations created through free plans are public and can’t be saved as private , which can be a deal breaker for people working on presentations with sensitive information.

Main features :

• Cloud and desktop app access
• Images and templates library
• Zoom, Google Meets, and Microsoft Team integrations for virtual presentations
• Prezi Video puts presenters next to their graphics in real-time
• Freemium (up to 5 projects)
• Individual prices begin at $9/mo. (billed annually)
• Enterprise solutions begin at $15/mo. (billed annually)
• Non-linear, unique layouts
• SOC2 Security for paid plans
• Offline access with the desktop app
• Free presentations are public
• Steep learning curve
• Can cause motion sickness in audiences unfamiliar with it

Best for : Storytelling and conversational-oriented presentations

2. Google Slides

If you’re looking for a quick and easy alternative to PowerPoint, then Google Slides is the one for you.

It has all the basic features you’d find in PowerPoint, with the added bonus of real-time collaboration options. And the best part, you will only need a Google Account to have immediate access to it.

Not only that, PowerPoint presentations are easy to convert to and from Google Slides. This means that you can use the vast array of presentation templates for PowerPoint, which is a huge bonus compared to other presentation software alternatives in this list.

While it offers business plans for higher storage capacity, most users will find the free plan of 15GB is more than enough and offers all the main features for creating presentations.

• Real-time collaboration
• Cloud-based
• Google Workspace complete integration, including Google Meets for virtual presentations

Price : Free!

• Completely free with a Google Account
• Easy to convert to and from PowerPoint
• SOC Certified
• Limited animations and transitions compared to PowerPoint, only for traditional presentation slides.

Best for : Team collaboration and traditional presentation slides

3. Apple Keynote

For Mac users, Apple Keynote is this developer’s alternative to PowerPoint. And just like PowerPoint, it allows you to create impactful presentations to bring your ideas to life.

One of its main advantages is its user-friendly interface, which makes it easy and intuitive to use. However, this also means that many features available on other presentation software are not part of Keynote.

• Available for all Apple devices
• Touch interface available for iPad working
• Integrated library of photos, videos, music, and charts
• Intuitive and less cluttered workspace, user-friendly interface
• Similar customization options as PowerPoint
• Not available for non-Mac Users
• Limited compatibility when exporting documents to and from PowerPoint

Best for : Mac Users

4. Renderforest

If you’re looking for a PowerPoint alternative to make non-traditional presentations, then you might want to check out Renderforest. This online design platform allows you to create complex videos and slideshows with just a few clicks.

You can use Renderforest to create unique presentations with seamless transitions and animations for a video-like feel.

You can try Renderforest for free but take into account that if you really want to use it as a recurrent tool for your presentations, acquiring a paid plan is a must. This will give you access to the full template catalog and advanced editing tools.

• Animation toolkits
• Templates and scenes library for easy use
• Freemium (up to 500MB)
• Lite $9.99/mo. (billed annually)
• Pro $15.99/mo (billed annually)
• Professional animations with a seamless “video” feel
• Easy to use pre-made building blocks
• Limited library of resources
• Limited customization of templates
• Full use requires a paid account

Best for : Video-like, seamless presentations

If you’re looking for a PowerPoint alternative to help you make the most without being a professional designer, check out Visme ! It is a self-appointed all-in-one content creation tool for non-designers.

As such, you can use Visme to create infographics, mockups, social media graphics, and of course, presentations. Visme also allows you to share your content with your team and collaborate with other people.

• Graphs, charts, and data widgets
• Social Media scheduling integration
• Workspace for team collaboration
• Font pairs and design toolkits
• “Presenter studio” to record yourself
• Freemium (up to 100MB)
• Personal $12.25/mo. (billed annually)
• Enterprise $24.75/mo. (billed annually)
• App integrations for Social Media
• Easy import and export from PowerPoint
• Easy and user-friendly
• Most templates are just for premium accounts
• Free download in just one format

Best for : Wide range of design tasks

Looking for a unique PowerPoint alternative that gives your presentations that seamless feel? Then Powtoon will help you create eye-catching presentations for your brand!

It’s an excellent option for those looking for animated characters, as you can customize them to fit your audience and brand identity. It also offers a wide library of stock photos, music, and other design elements. Its templates make Powtoon easy to use, even for those with no previous experience.

However, just like other PowerPoint alternatives in this list, if you really want to make the most out of this tool, then a paid plan is a must.

• Customizable cartoon characters
• Brand identity tool-kits
• Convert PowerPoint to video with the Office add-in
• ISO Certified Cloud security
• Several social media and apps integrations
• Freemium (up to 2GB)
• Pro starting at $20/mo. (billed annually)
• Agency starting at $40/mo. (billed annually)
• Dynamic, video-like presentations
• Full customization options
• Needs a premium account to make the most out of it
• Videos made with free plans have Powtoon watermark

Best for : Educational presentations

7. Piktochart

Similarly to Visme, Piktochart is an online design platform for non-designers. You can use it to create all types of graphic content, like cards, brochures, infographics, and of course, presentations.

It offers a wide range of tools to create graphs and charts, making it ideal for reports and data-oriented products. You can also choose to download your presentations in PowerPoint format or present them online directly through the platform.

While some of the advanced brand features are exclusively for paid plans, this PowerPoint alternative’s free plan can be a great pick for those on a budget. Most features are still available for free, and you don’t need to worry about watermarks even without a Pro plan.

• Export graphs and charts from Excel and Google Sheets
• Cloud-based work
• Template library
• “Brand Assets” ($) for automatically updating brand guidelines
• Team collaboration and project organization in folders
• Pro starting at $14/mo. (billed annually)
• Smart and customizable charts and maps
• Traffic and views tools for all accounts
• Download in .ppt format or present online
• Color scheme customization only for paid plans

Best for : Infographics and data showcasing

8. Beautiful.ai

Looking for the most efficient way to create presentations? Beautiful.ai is a Powerpoint alternative that uses AI technology to generate professional presentation slides according to your needs automatically.

Its main selling point is to limit the time you spend creating presentations. That’s why it offers a library of smart templates and automatic brand guidelines to make your design experience more efficient.

And, if you’re willing to invest in it, the team plans really offer the most out of Beautiful.ai features.

• Brand guidelines for team plans
• Wide library of smart templates
• DesignerBot
• Pro $12/mo. (billed annually)
• Team $40/mo. (billed annually)
• $45 for single projects
• Custom price for enterprise solutions
• Great report-oriented templates: charts and data
• PowerPoint + Google Slides integration
• Lots of customization options
• No freemium options
• Most features are best for Team Plans and above

Best for : Business reports, low-effort beautiful professional presentations.

On the other hand, are you looking for a powerful design tool? If you’re missing a PowerPoint alternative that focuses on design features, Emaze’s HTML5 editor allows you to customize even the smallest details of your presentations.

Emaze also offers advanced features concerning analytics, so you can track your results and improve conversion rates.

All paid plans include questionnaires, collaboration options, and importing to and from PowerPoint and pdf documents.

Its freemium plan is an excellent option for trying out all the different features it offers, but take into consideration that presentations created with this plan come with a watermark.

• E-learning questionaries
• Analytics options
• Remote presenting options
• HTML5 Editor
• Pro $13/mo (billed annually) (30 projects)
• Executive $40/mo. (billed annually)
• Business $125/mo. (billed annually)
• Amazing customization options
• Powerful design tools
• Advanced analytics
• Making the most out of it requires a steep learning curve
• Branding tools are available just for Executive plans and above

Best for : Business and professional presentations

Vyond, previously known as GoAnimate, is a PowerPoint alternative that will help you create video-like content for your presentations.

Similarly to Powtoon, Vyong allows you to animate cartoon characters to convey your information in a more dynamic way. It offers 3 visual styles, Contemporary, Business Friendly, and Whiteboard, so you can pick which one fits your brand the best. And even better, you can sync the characters’ lips to match your message, making it look seamless and more professional.

Vyond enterprise-level security makes it a perfect fit for companies that are looking for a reliable and secure option to create videos and presentations on the cloud.

• Enterprise level security
• Unique, dynamic videos
• Animated characters in 3 different styles
• Essential $25 /mo. (billed annually) (with logo)
• Premium $54/mo. (billed annually)
• Professional $92/mo. (billed annually)
• Enterprise-level security
• Character customization and lipsync
• Detailed animation options
• All projects are watermarked unless Premium or above
• Collaboration options are only available for Professional plans and above

Best for : Online training and learning

11. Microsoft Sway

If you think Microsoft's only option for presentation is PowerPoint, then think twice! Microsoft Sway is great for creating interactive presentations and reports, as it works wonders for content that doesn’t have a live presenter guiding it.

This makes it ideal for creating websites, bulletins, infographics, all overall anything where you‘d need to convey information in a visually appealing way.

And, Sway is completely free for anyone with a Microsoft Account!

However, one big drawback is that its workflow is very different from PowerPoint and other presentation software from this list. If you’re used to this kind of workspace, learning to use Microsoft Sway can feel overwhelming.

• Interactive elements
• Different visualization options than PowerPoint
• Microsoft Office integrations
• Steep learning curve - different work model than PowerPoint

Best for : Interactive presentations, bulletins, and infographics

12. DigiDeck

For a PowerPoint alternative that is 100% focused on your sales team’s presentations, then DigiDeck has no match.

It offers advanced analytics so you can track how your clients interact with your content and optimize your results. You can get real-time alerts when your presentations are being viewed so your sales team can use it as a lead opportunity. And it offers integrations with Salesforce and other CRM tools.

And, of course, it also enables you to customize your presentation in order to showcase your information in the most visually appealing way possible.

Since DigiDeck is a product aimed at enterprise-level customers, you must request a demo to understand how DigiDeck can help you and your business. They will give you a custom quote as well as help you develop your perfect enterprise solution.

• CRM integrations
• Data Analytics + real-time alerts for sales reps

Price : Custom quote

• SOC2 Certified
• Limited number of users
• Need to provide your own photos and graphics to make the most out of the templates

Best for : Sales-oriented design products

13. ZohoShow

Looking for a free alternative to PowerPoint? ZohoShow is a completely free online platform for presentation slides!

Just like Google Slides, ZohoShow is a cloud-based presentation software with a very similar workspace to PowerPoint. Its minimalistic layout and user-friendly interface make it perfect for non-designers.

ZohoShow also offers different apps for you to both work and present on your mobile devices. This makes it perfect to work on a tablet or to present on a Smart TV. It also features a wide array of integrations with other apps, like Google Workspace or Slack!

• Mobile app for working and presenting
• PowerPoint integration
• Chrome extension + mobile apps
• Real-time collaboration for teams
• Limited animations and transitions

Best for : Presentation slides on a budget

For a versatile PowerPoint alternative that can cover different design needs beyond presentations, Canva is worth checking out.

Canva’s design center allows you to create logos, flyers, banners, cards, and much, much more. Its library offers thousands of templates to pick from and to make your design process more efficient.

While you can use it freely, to truly make the most out of its collaboration and design tools, a paid plan is a must. This will allow you complete access to their resources and make teamwork much easier.

Canva also features mobile apps for both Mac and Android, so you have access to your designs whenever you need them.

• Real-time collaboration ($)
• Wide library of visual resources and templates
• Brand kits ($)
• Freemium (limited storage)
• Pro $12.99/mo. (billed annually)
• Teams $14.99/mo. (billed annually) (for the first 5 people)
• Wide array of templates
• Easy drag-and-drop interface
• Desktop apps: online and offline modes
• Best features are limited to premium plans

Best for : Versatile design tasks

15. Haiku Deck

If you’re looking for a user-friendly PowerPoint alternative, Haiku Deck might be the one for you. It allows you to create beautiful presentations with its huge library of photos and design elements.

Its interface is also pretty user-friendly, making it a great option to use for those who are not experienced in presentation design. And all their tools are focused on presentations’ best practices from experts, so you can rest assured that your message is being conveyed in the best way possible.

While Haiku Deck doesn’t offer a Freemium plan, you still have the option to try it out to see if it is the presentation software for you. You can register for the Basic plan to create your first free presentation. Just be aware that you’ll need to register after that and that you’ll not be able to download it.

Main features:

• Privacy controls
• Custom branding
• Analytics (only for Premium)
• Cloud-based workspace
• Pro $9.99/mo. (billed annually)
• Premium $29.99/mo. (billed annually)
• Big royalty-free photo library
• Easy export and import from PowerPoint and Keynote
• Simple and user-friendly
• No freemium option
• Limited customization options

Best for: Creative presentations for non-designers

Choosing the Most Suitable PowerPoint Alternative for You

When talking about the best possible alternative to PowerPoint, it all comes down to what you’re looking for. While each of the presentation software we’ve presented in this article has its pros and cons, some might work better than others depending on the use you’re planning to give them.

The best free PowerPoint alternative

If you’re looking for a free presentation software that can do pretty much the same thing as PowerPoint, then Google Slides is definitely the best !

Google Slides workspace is pretty similar to PowerPoint, making it easy to work with for those who are already familiar with this type of software. It also has the added bonus that you only need a free Google account to gain access to it and, of course, full integration with other Google Workspace software.

Some PowerPoint features, like complex animations, for example, might not be available for Google Slides. However, other features like real-time collaboration compensate for it.

Another option for a free PowerPoint alternative is ZohoShow . Its mobile apps will allow you to create and edit your slides on the go with pretty much the same design options as PowerPoint.

The best PowerPoint alternative for enterprises

When talking about PowerPoint alternatives for enterprises, you should look for software that truly elevates your presentations and offers the most with their paid plans.

Beautiful.ai is a great option for enterprises looking for presentation software options . Its AI doesn't only help you design outstanding presentation slides, but its smart tools will help you create more presentations in a more efficient way.

If your focus is sales-oriented content, then you can’t go wrong with DigiDeck . Its advanced analytics and integration with CRM tools make it the perfect option for sales presentations.

The best presentation software for team collaboration

If you need a PowerPoint alternative that will allow different people to work together on a single project, you also have several good options.

Google Slides' real-time collaboration can work wonders for teams that need to go back and forth on the same document. Its free plan allows you to add several different collaborators to your workspace, which is also a plus.

Visme’s collaboration workspace is also worth checking out, as its organization and commentator options can be a huge asset for teams that need to work together on a single document.

The best PowerPoint alternative for e-learning and training

When talking about presentations for e-learning and online training, making them dynamic and didactic is key. That’s why some of the best presentation software alternatives for educational purposes are Powtoon and Vyond.

Powtoon offers a wide array of customization options for its animated characters, making it easy to develop your brand voice and identity. And Vyond’s character lipsync feature will help you make your presentations and video feel more seamless.

If you’re looking for an e-learning PowerPoint alternative, you might also want to check out Emaze . It features options to add questionnaires and exams to your presentations!

The best PowerPoint alternative for small businesses

For small businesses looking for PowerPoint alternatives for their presentations, it might be useful to hire software that also offers them a wide array of design options beyond just slides. That’s why Piktochart or Canva can be great presentation design options for small businesses .

Their both offer a template library that can be used for a whole range of design tasks. And their paid plans feature brand options that will help small businesses create a sense of unity between their different visual channels.

Hopefully, this PowerPoint alternative list will have offered you a good option for your presentation design!

However, there’s one thing they all have in common: whichever option you pick, you will still have to invest time and effort in creating presentation slides. So why not forget all about presentation design? 24Slides can take this time off your hands while you focus on more important tasks. Just sit back and relax while our professional presentation designers do all the heavy lifting and convert your slides into a true work of art!

Create professional presentations online

Other people also read

9 Ideas For Your Next PowerPoint Presentation

10 Ways to Make Academic Presentations More Interesting

10 Tips to Make Your PowerPoint Presentation Effective

• Video Editing
• Animation Tips
• Website Tips

13+ Best Presentation Software to Bid Farewell to PowerPoint

Renderforest Staff

07 Dec 2023

11 min read  

Attention, all presenters, innovators, and knowledge sharers! Brace yourselves, because the era of boring and forgettable presentations is officially over. 

We all know that presentations are the beating heart of every business, work endeavor, and educational pursuit. And let’s face it, captivating your audience is an art form that can make or break your success.

Plain slides filled with text and bullet points will no longer do the job! To grab your audience’s attention, you need to shake things up a little.  

Luckily, we’ve done the legwork and compiled the ultimate list of the best presentation software in one place to help you make creative and captivating presentations.

No more dull slides. No more snooze-fest presentations.

By the time you’ll have finished reading this article, you’ll have discovered: 

• The 13 best video presentation software  to upgrade your presentations – their advantages and disadvantages. 
• How does each software compare to PowerPoint, and what are their unique features? 
• How to use each software to convert your ideas into strong narratives and keep your audience hooked. 

Consider these presentation software gems as your trusty sidekicks, ready to transform your ideas into captivating narratives that will leave your audience begging for more.

So buckle up and join us as we explore each presentation software individually, unveiling the best presentation software for your unique needs. Let’s dive right in!

The Finest Online Presentation Tools to Try Now!

Imagine you have an important project coming up, and you need to create a cool presentation to share your ideas with others within a short amount of time. Instead of just plain slides, you can make your presentation awesome by using some really impressive online presentation tools – tools you may not have heard of before. 

These tools make it easy to add pictures and videos and make your slides look super interesting as they take your regular presentation and turn it into something that will make everyone go, “Wow!” 

So, let’s check out some of the best presentation software you can try right now to make your presentations stand out!

1. Renderforest

You can use Renderforest’s slideshow video maker online and completely free of charge to create videos, branding, presentations, and graphics. 

If you upgrade to the lite version, you can enjoy an early-stage growth boost plan for promotional and explainer videos, powerful presentations, and graphics.

Now, if you choose to have the Pro plan, you can make use of advanced growth tools, the highest quality videos, outstanding designs, and a professional website.

For much larger projects, the Business plan gives you advanced-level solutions for teams and businesses to deliver high-end results for your campaigns.

The presentation software goes beyond the ordinary by providing you with a treasure trove of ready-made presentation templates that cater to every occasion, from personal projects to business endeavors. With just a few clicks, you can unlock a realm of visually stunning designs that are guaranteed to captivate your audience from the very first slide.

Extended Template Library

Whether you’re seeking to dazzle clients, engage students, or simply impress your peers, Renderforest has your back with an extensive library of slideshow video templates . From mesmerizing 3D animations to sleek corporate slideshows and whiteboard animations, the possibilities are limitless.

EXPLORE MORE!

Pre-Made Color Palettes

Give yourself a break from doing all the work of finding the perfect font and color palette for your presentation. Renderforest provides you with a large selection of ready-to-use, pre-designed sets that give your presentation a modern and professional look. 

All color palettes align with the main design principles, so you can rest assured that your presentation is aligned. 

Go to the left-side editor in your presentation template, open the color and font sections and click on your favorite mix.

GIFs, Stickers, Icons, and So Much More

Renderforest presentations are like a magic toolbox for making your presentations extra awesome. With it, you can do way more than just stick to regular pictures and words. 

One of the best presentation software out there, Renderforest lets you sprinkle some fun into your slides by adding GIFs, which are short, moving pictures that can make your points pop! Not just that, you can throw in stickers and icons to make things more lively and interesting. 

All of these elements help you show your ideas without even saying a word. 

Renderforest gives you all these tools to help you turn your presentation into a masterpiece that everyone will remember!

Premium Images

With Renderforest, you can access a treasure trove of amazing pictures through a royalty-free premium stock images library.

These are high-quality images that you can use in your presentations without worrying about any copyright stuff. It’s like having a secret stash of amazing pictures at your fingertips.

But here’s the exciting part – you can also bring pictures to the party! So, if you have some awesome photos you took on a family trip or nice shots you found on the internet. You can toss them into your presentation as well.

Ultimately, you have your gallery of pictures that makes your presentation uniquely yours. With Renderforest, you’re not just limited to what it provides – you can mix and match to create a presentation that tells your story in your style!

Prezi is offered in three different subscription tiers, including access to all three main parts of the suite – Prezi Video, Prezi Design, and Prezi Present.

Prezi’s Standard plan costs just $5 per month, the Plus plan costs $15 per month, and the Premium plan costs $19 per month.

The presentation software is built from the ground up to remove as many of the traditional limitations imposed by web applications as possible and enable users to create stunning, rich presentations with minimal effort and design skills.

It doesn’t take long to get used to how Prezi works and where everything is located, including some of the more advanced features of the application.

Its price is quite attractive compared to most of its competition, too, making Prezi a great offer for you in general!

General Overview

Prezi is a feature-rich online presentation suite that aims to enable anyone to create stunning presentations, including those without any in-depth knowledge of design and related practices.

It comes with various advanced tools that can help you do pretty much anything you want with your presentation, and it doesn’t take a lot of time to get used to how everything works.

It’s important to note that Prezi does have some minor flaws in its UI, but those are mostly limited to features that aren’t used that often to begin with.

There are three main tiers to Canva subscriptions. You can use it completely free to design anything, on your own or in collaboration with others, and you can choose from 250,000+ templates.

However, there are a lot of wonderful templates that are labeled as premium, as well as the option to integrate your own Brand Kit, which can only be accessed when you upgrade to the Pro plan at $12.99 USD/month.

Canva for Teams includes all the features of Canva Pro but also allows large teams to collaborate easily and efficiently together, and it is priced at $29.99 USD/month. 

The key selling point of Canva is how easy it is to use, even for people with no design background. It offers a range of design options, from social media posts to presentations, all in one place.

You can create professional-looking presentations at the tip of your fingers, especially with the newly released Magic Media™ apps that use AI to help you create consistent imagery.

Instead of wasting precious time scrolling through image libraries,you can try some of the AI image generator apps in the Canva Apps Marketplace. Simply type what you’d like to see, and watch it come to life.

Canva works as a web-based tool, so you don’t have to download it. It offers many ready-to-use templates and design elements like fonts, images, and illustrations.

You can either start from scratch or use these templates to create various designs, including social media graphics, presentations, flyers, and more. It also allows for collaboration, enabling multiple people to work on a project simultaneously.

Once you sign up, you can create designs by selecting a template or starting from scratch. You can then customize your design using the drag-and-drop editor, where you can easily add and adjust text, images, shapes, and other elements.

So, whether you’re one of the many small business owners, marketers, bloggers, or creative freelancers—Canva has something for everyone!

4. Google Slides

There are free trials available. For Personal and Free Business Starter plans, it is priced at $6 USD/month per user, for Business Standard, it is priced at $12 USD/month per user, while for Business Plus, it is priced at $18 USD/month.

Enterprises can contact Google to find out about pricing details for their needs.

Google Slides is very handy if many slideshows are required for certain projects. The presentation software acts as an easier alternative to PowerPoint because you don’t need to download anything in order to use Slides.

It’s as easy as going online and opening the program, while with PowerPoint, you need to download the program to start using it.

Google Slides is a cloud-based office suite that helps create, edit, and collaborate on presentations. It has features like themes and fonts, embedded videos, animations, and transitions.

The presentation software lets users create personalized presentations using ready-to-use templates with custom fonts and styles, color schemes, animations, transitions, and background images. If you’re a larget team, you can also upload files from Google Drive or Dropbox.

5. Microsoft Sway

Microsoft Sway is free to use for anyone with a Microsoft Account (Hotmail, Live, or Outlook.com).

This presentation tool dynamically adapts online to any screen and can be shared or co-edited with a URL.

It is best for people who are too occupied with work to spend time creating presentations, as it literally helps produce interactive reports, newsletters, presentations, and other personal stories in a matter of minutes, thanks to the help of AI.

Sway helps create presentations and other documentation in minutes by adding photos, videos, and other multimedia.

It’s connected to the Microsoft account, so the users can easily add files from OneDrive, or turn their Word or OneNote documents into a dynamic Sway.

6. Beautiful.ai

The Pro plan is for individuals and is priced at $12 USD/month. The Team plan is for team collaborations and starts at $40 USD/month, while the Enterprise plan boasts advanced security, support and control and require you to contact the sales team to get a quote.

Beautiful.ai saves you time and provides everything necessary for making great presentations.

You can use the right colors, font, and logo every time with its foolproof features, and when you sign up, the presentation software unlocks millions of modern images and icons that reflect your own brand guidelines. What else could you ask for?

With the Team Plan, you can also control your brand from one account and scale productivity across all departments of your organization.

Beautiful.ai is an AI presentation maker you can use to visualize your ideas easily. It offers 50+ beautifully designed customizable templates that are enhanced with presentation design best practices to keep your projects professional and clean. Besides, you can find and add stock images and icons from the image library.

7. Keynote (for Mac users)

The software comes free with most Apple devices.

This interactive business presentation software allows you to create engaging and dynamic slides, add charts and graphs to them, edit photos, and add effects to sharpen your project.

Now, you can remove backgrounds from supported images a lot more easily. You can even remove live videos or adjust them accordingly.

The software also lets you know when people join, edit, or comment on your collaborative presentations and lets you get in touch with your team using Messages and FaceTime.

Apple Keynote is the most successful competitor of PowerPoint among other Mac free presentation software solutions.

Access your presentations either online with iCloud, with a mobile app, or download a desktop version for Mac.

8. Haiku Deck

The Edu plan starts at $5 USD/month, Pro at $10 USD/month, and the Volume plan is at $100 USD/month.

Haiku Deck helps you focus on one idea at a time, letting you choose a powerful image from a library of 40M+ royalty-free photos and applying consistent formatting across your presentation in just one click.

All presentations you create with this software are hosted online and allow for easy audio narration recording and the ability to save as videos or export to PowerPoint/Keynote format for offline viewing and editing.

Haiku Deck is labeled as the “Instagram for pitch decks” by Mashable, for a good reason!

Even if you’re not a designer, the software helps you deliver presentations that connect with your listeners, spice up your social media feed, illustrate your blog, promote your product, inspire a movement, and more. It is centered around the best practices that presentation experts are after.

You can quickly design slides that don’t look like PowerPoint, and you can find related pictures to your keywords.

You can even view what other designs people have done on the same topic and use it as inspiration for your own presentation.

Recommended Reading

• 40+ Ready-to-Use Instagram Templates to Set Your Own Trends!
• Lights, Camera, Renderforest! Animation Movie Maker 101 Guide

9. Slidebean

The Slidebean All-Access Advanced plan for founders starts at $149 USD/year, and this includes features such as pitch deck templates, unlimited fundraising kit, sharing and exporting decks, and tracking presentation views.

There is also the Slidebean Incorporation plan at $649 USD/year, which includes everything in the All-Access Advanced plan but allows businesses to incorporate their company in the US.

Slidebean offers everything you need for a successful creation process – images, icons, fonts, to name a few.

It is very easy to use and has beautiful graphic design elements. Even if you’re not a graphic designer, Slidebean makes your presentations look great.

It also helps you create pitch decks. Through its advanced analytics section, individuals can see which investors viewed their decks and how long they viewed each slide or whether the investor finished the deck, which is very helpful information to have on hand.

Slidebean is an easy-to-use and simple presentation software that provides professional templates to present your ideas with simple styling features.

Its target market includes startups, marketers, and small and medium-sized businesses that are trying to get their powerful ideas across to professional thinkers.

Streamline the process with the help of integrated automation features. Choose the templates depending on your field to simplify the creation even more. You can see insights into how users interact with the slides.

Visme is an all-in-one online presentation maker that offers custom, high-quality templates. Pick a template and customize it according to your needs, or create a presentation from scratch.

The tool offers 50+ charts and other data visualization tools, 120+ custom fonts, stock images, and vector icons. You can add website links, emails, and pop-ups. When your presentation is ready, share it online, embed it on your website, or download it.

11. SlideDog

There are 3 plans available. The first is $19/month per 2 seats, billed monthly, and you can cancel anytime. You also have a yearly plan at $99/month (1st year) per 2 seats, $79 2nd year with a 20% renewal discount. The last option is a lifetime purchase of $299 per 2 seats, where you only pay once and can access it forever.

SlideDog is a presentation software that lets its users create playlists from presentation files and easily switch between them.

The features include real-time sharing, interactive elements, and remote control with various devices to streamline the presentation process.

12. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is completely free for individuals, while larger teams and organizations are billed $2.70 USD/month.

The tool can be used by those who need to tell a story, such as educators, authors, and business owners, helping them create and publish presentations with stunning visuals in a short period.

Choose from a variety of integrated themes designed to fit all kinds of needs. Make your slides more interactive by adding transitions and animation, using charts, tables, images, videos, and more.

Zoho Show is a dedicated online presentation tool, simplistic and easily customizable. From creating and collaborating to broadcasting and publishing, you will surely find solutions to your every need.

The tool is also available on mobile devices. To access your presentations remotely on your smartphone, simply download the app and log in.

It also lets you import your existing PPTX, PPT, ODP, PPSX, and PPS files and edit them without any formatting issues.

Gamma offers three pricing plans. Upon signing up, you get 400 credits to test the Free plan with various features and create a few documents.

The Plus plan starts at $8/month, and you get to gain access to additional features like PDF export.

The Pro plan starts at $16/month, and you receive unlimited AI creation and advanced AI models.

Gamma takes just one prompt and a bit of refining to produce a beautiful presentation.

It uses the chatbot to improve existing slides, and you can incorporate live websites and applications into your presentations. It’s a great way to demonstrate your ideas in real time.

This is an opportunity to monitor how your creations perform and if they have the ability to engage your audience.

Gamma is an AI-powered tool that lets you create impressive and engaging presentations for anyone.

Besides creating your presentations, it also offers a great editing experience where you can improve your work simply by interacting with an AI chatbot.

There is a free trial available. The Personal plan for teams of up to 15 people starts at $14.99 USD/month, and the Enterprise plan for teams of 16 people and over requires you to contact Ludus directly for a quote.

Other than being incredibly easy to use, this tool is very intuitive, and presentations can be customized as you play around with unique fonts, drawings, code, interesting transitions, and much more.

Ludus combines creativity with simplicity. Ludus is more than a presentation tool; it is also a tool for communicating, collaborating, learning, and playing.

The presentation software has many features that designers are already familiar with. You can create anything without limitations, from fonts and graphics to blending modes.

It also allows you to integrate with Unsplash, GIPHY, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc., so you can add anything you want.

Ludus is a tool that allows you to create presentations with unlimited creative possibilities.

This presentation software will solve your problems regarding sharing, compatibility, collaboration, creativity, and more.

It is recommended for everyone to use, especially for creatives and designers. Everyone can use it, too, but it has a bit of a learning curve that is worth the time if you want to use it properly.

This app might be the solution to the problems that our presentation tools have nowadays. It is not restrictive, so you can let your imagination run wild and express your creativity.

This presentation tool is affordable, especially for big teams. With remote work on the rise, Ludus is a great presentation assistant to have nearby.

Still Looking for the Best Presentation Software?

And there you have it. The 13+ best presentation software that you should bear in mind if you’re thinking of trying something a little bit different to the software you’re used to hearing about all the time – PowerPoint.

Each software has its benefits, but if you’re aiming for presentation software that offers a blend of creativity, versatility, and user-friendly features, Renderforest stands out as your go-to choice.

With a vast library of templates and the ability to add GIFs, stickers, icons, and even your own images, Renderforest empowers users to create visually stunning and uniquely personalized presentations.

Renderforest also provides different pricing plans, including a free option, making it accessible regardless of your need and budget.

So, stop wasting hours of your life trying to create your presentations manually and with predictable designs, and start taking your presentations to the next level with Renderforest, your ultimate presentation companion that goes beyond the ordinary!

Dive into our Forestblog of exclusive interviews, handy tutorials and interesting articles published every week!

How to make an AI animation in 4 steps 

13 min read

05 Sep 2024

11 best examples of product videos 

13 great examples of corporate videos 

The 9 best presentation software platforms in 2023

You’re in the middle of a busy work week, and you‘re winding down after a particularly productive day. There’s still a lot more to accomplish, but you’ve got momentum and you’re making good progress. As you check your calendar for the following day, you see a two-hour morning time slot blocked out for a company-wide meeting. What’s your gut reaction?

Is it something like “I can’t wait—this is going to be so fun and interactive!” Or is it something more like “Ugh—I’ve got so much to do, and this is going to be such a long presentation. Maybe I can get some actual work done while it’s on in the background.”

If your inner monologue sounds more like the second example, you’re not alone. Research from Zippia shows 65% of employees believe meetings inhibit them from getting their work tasks done and that people are multitasking in at least 41% of meetings.

With so many potential distractions lurking in inboxes, Slack channels, and smartphones, meeting leaders must do everything they can to make their presentations interactive and engaging.

Fortunately, many presentation software platforms offer powerful tools to help presenters tell more captivating stories. Let’s take a look at a few of the factors that separate good apps from great ones.

What makes a great presentation app?

From pitch decks to progress updates, presentation apps have countless uses within the modern business environment. But regardless of the content being shared, there are a few things the best presentation software all has in common.

Intuitive, user-friendly interfaces

If an application is loaded with incredible features that are difficult to use, most users will prefer to take the path of least resistance rather than spending hours Googling how to accomplish their goal. Best-in-class presentation software makes it easy for users to learn the basics and get started, often with built-in tutorials.

Easy customization

Platforms that make it easy to plug in your logo, colors, fonts, and photos create polished presentations that wow internal and external audiences alike. Look for an app with a variety of tweakable templates that allow teams to share different types of information while sticking to your brand and identity standards.

Visual storytelling

If you’re squeezing several hundred words onto each presentation slide and then reading them all aloud, your audience’s attention is likely to wane. Research has long shown people absorb a combination of visual and verbal content much better than spoken lectures alone. All the best presentation software streamlines the use of visual aids to help your audience retain information more effectively.

Sharing and collaboration features

As asynchronous work becomes increasingly common, it’s important for your presentation software of choice to streamline collaboration between teams who may not be in the same location (or even the same hemisphere). When done well, sharing and collaboration features can save time and confusion regarding the latest versions or revisions.  

Integrations with other apps

Software that plays nicely with its binary counterparts can elevate a typical presentation into something compelling and visually stunning. Apps which enable embedding and presenting interactive features make outstanding add-ons that improve audience engagement while using your main slideware or communication tools.

1. Poll Everywhere

A versatile and customizable software platform for engaging your audience and encouraging participation, Poll Everywhere adds interactive elements to your presentation like polls, surveys, quizzes, word clouds, and much more. Made to turn dry lectures into two-way conversations, Poll Everywhere makes it easy to set up a variety of interactive activities for audience members. People can share their input via text, smartphone app, or web browser, which is then reflected on the screen in real time (don’t worry, there are moderation features for open-ended text responses).

Not only does Poll Everywhere enable more interactive presentations, it’s also a useful tool for things like employee surveys, group brainstorms, or submitting questions and agenda items ahead of meetings. It’s intuitive for new users to pick up and enables more open communication and team collaboration at every level of your organization.

For larger organizations, Poll Everywhere’s Enterprise plans let you customize the platform to reflect your company’s branding, logos, and colors (and remove the Poll Everywhere branding to give your presentations a more bespoke look). You also get additional features like Shared Activities for cross-team collaboration, upgraded security protocols, and robust reporting tools to translate audience responses into actionable insights.

• Easy integration with most industry-standard slideware and communication apps
• Encourages audience participation and engagement
• Wide variety of functions and activities
• Paid plans required for audiences larger than 25 people
• Audience members must have Internet or cellular access to participate

Poll Everywhere offers a free plan that allows polling limited audience sizes and paid plans starting at $120 per year. Higher-tier plans include additional users, greater audience sizes, and increased moderation and support tools. Custom enterprise solutions for large organizations are also available.

Powtoon takes your presentations to the next level by helping you create polished, professional-looking videos that are more captivating than your traditional text on a screen. Users edit “slides” similarly to how they would with most presentation software, except when you’re done, your deck becomes a seamless video complete with animations of your choosing. The software even figures out the correct timing based on how much content you add to each slide.

In addition to making your presentations sparkle, Powtoon is also useful for creating other marketing or social media assets. You can orient your videos to fit different dimensions and publish your finished creations directly to YouTube, Meta’s Ads Manager, and other platforms.

• Makes your presentations more captivating and memorable
• Useful for creating all types of videos
• Wide variety of templates, animations, and characters
• Limited templates on free version
• Paid plan required for MP4 downloads

Powtoon’s free offering is somewhat limited, though paid plans start at a reasonable $20 per month. Premium plans include more storage space, unlimited exports, and the ability to customize characters and add your own branding.

3. Genially

In the era of remote teams working across different time zones, not every presentation needs to have a presenter. Genially makes it easy to create interactive, self-led presentations that engage your audience much more than simply sending them a deck or a document to review. A huge variety of templates include predefined interactive elements, or users can customize their own.

A well-planned assortment of content blocks lets you showcase everything from image galleries to data visualizations. And while it takes a bit of work upfront, you can also create your own template using your organization’s branding and then have anyone on your team use it to create their own presentations.

• Anyone can create entertaining and interactive self-led presentations
• Solid variety of templates, even on free version
• Unlimited creations for all tiers, including free version
• Paid subscription required to view presentations offline
• Variety of options can be overwhelming at first

Premium plans range from $7.49 per month to $80 per month. As you go up the pricing tiers, you get access to more privacy and personalization features, plus integration with other platforms like PowerPoint and Google Analytics.

A software platform that’s shaking up the linear-presentation model, Prezi takes users out of the sometimes stifling flow of traditional slide deck design in favor of a more free-flowing approach. Prezi users list out ideas or topics they want to cover before threading them together into a compelling, visually striking presentation that’s more conducive to group conversations.

Prezi integrates particularly well with video conferencing tools, making it a great option for remote-first teams. You can even build your presentation as a Zoom overlay, which means your audience can see you and your slide content at the same time. It’s a nice way to maintain a human touch in video presentations, where audiences often miss out on seeing the presenter’s body language and facial expressions.

• Can inspire more creative thinking when developing content
• Robust library of templates and features
• Excellent integration with video conferencing platforms
• Can be a challenging transition for people used to the traditional slide deck model
• Free version limited to five projects

While you can create five projects for free, paid plans starting at $19 per month include much greater import and export options. The $59 per month Premium plan includes phone support, presentation analytics, and advanced training tools. Custom enterprise packages are also available for large teams.

5. Google Slides

Truly free presentation software—not just a free trial or a limited feature set—is increasingly difficult to come by. However, anyone with a Google account can use the full version of Google Slides, with no recurring subscriptions or trial periods to speak of. And because it’s fully cloud-based, teams can collaborate on the same presentation without having to keep track of multiple versions.

While its offerings of features and premade templates may not quite equal some of its subscription-based peers, Google Slides remains a viable solution due to its simple interface and easy integration with the rest of Google Workspace. You can also add powerful third-party add-ons to make your presentations more interactive and visually appealing.

• Cloud-based platform enables easy collaboration
• Shorter learning curve than some other platforms
• Can utilize add-ons to supplement the simple functionality
• LImited templates and transition effects
• No built-in asset library

The full version of Google Slides is free to use for anyone with a Google account.

If you need to create a beautiful presentation really fast, Canva is a fantastic software option. Its free plan offers some of the best-looking templates around, and because it’s a self-contained solution, you won’t need other apps like Photoshop to create eye-catching visuals. Drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy to add your own content and visual assets, or you can pick from an extensive library of free photos and graphics (even on the free version).

While it’s an excellent tool for creating polished presentations, Canva has other uses too. It’s incredibly helpful for creating marketing materials like videos, social posts, and even logos. While it’s not a replacement for your design team, it can free them up for other tasks while empowering anyone in your organization to embrace their creative side.

• Simplifies the creation of eye-popping presentations
• Massive variety of templates, even on free version
• Versatile platform for creating all types of materials
• Can be difficult to make complicated charts or graphs
• Cloud-based platform has limited offline functionality

Canva’s free version is excellent, though cloud storage space is limited. Paid plans start at $120 per year and include 24/7 support and an even bigger library of templates, photos, animations, and audio.

7. Beautiful.ai

If you’re the hawk-eyed type who spends just as much time fixing those annoying spacing issues as you do developing the actual content of your presentation, Beautiful.ai could be the software you’ve been looking for. As you might suspect from the name, it’s an AI-enhanced presentation platform that automates many aspects of layout to keep your slides looking professional and visually pleasing.

To help you get inspired when first starting a new project, you can browse through a number of slide types to find a layout you like, which then automatically applies to the rest of your presentation-in-progress, even on slides with other types of content. While templates and themes are somewhat limited compared to other platforms, all the included options are clean, modern, and well-designed.

• Automated layout for polished and professional designs
• Clean and intuitive user interface
• Helpful tutorial videos to minimize the learning curve
• Template, theme, and color options are somewhat limited
• Bare-bones collaboration features on the free version

Individual subscriptions start at $12 per month and unlock most of the app’s best features. Monthly Team plans with added customization and collaboration tools start at $40 per user, and large–scale enterprise plans are also available.

8. PowerPoint

We’d be remiss if we didn’t include this category-founding behemoth in our list, as it’s still one of the most popular presentation softwares in use around the globe. (There’s a reason many other presentation apps feature PowerPoint integration as a selling point.)

With a wide variety of templates, effects, animations, and customization options, experienced PowerPoint users can create presentations every bit as compelling as you’ll get with any other platform. And with useful extension apps available for both Mac and Windows versions, you can integrate additional interactive elements to make your next meeting more memorable.

• Compatible with the world’s most popular software suite
• Solid selection of templates and effects
• Easy to get started creating simple presentations
• Steep learning curve for advanced features
• Can take longer to create visually stunning presentations

PowerPoint is included in the Microsoft 365 software suite with plans starting at $6.99 per month. Standalone licenses are also available at a flat rate of $159.99.

If your organization makes heavy use of Apple products, Keynote is an excellent free presentation software option that rivals PowerPoint in terms of rich functionality. The interface is mostly intuitive, though perhaps slightly more complicated than the ultra-stripped-down feel of Google Slides (which makes sense, given Keynote’s additional features).

Built-in templates and asset libraries are plentiful, and in keeping with Apple’s brand aesthetic, help you create contemporary-looking presentations that wow your audiences. And while PowerPoint may have a wider variety of add-ons, Keynote still works with numerous third-party apps to incorporate interactive elements like polls, quizzes, word clouds, and more.

• Excellent variety of templates and built-in assets
• Creates clean, modern, and polished presentations
• Mobile, desktop, and web-based platforms
• Requires some time to master
• Few truly unique features

Keynote is free to use for all Apple users.

When done well, presentations are still one of the best ways to inform and invigorate an audience and align everyone regarding goals, priorities, and progress toward achieving them. With so much user-friendly presentation software available in 2023, there’s no need to host boring, lecture-style meetings that test your attendees’ attention spans.

If you’re looking for more ideas about how to make your presentations more engaging and interactive, check out our free guide detailing best practices for prese nters .

Related articles

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

At ConsumersAdvocate.org, we take transparency seriously.

To that end, you should know that many advertisers pay us a fee if you purchase products after clicking links or calling phone numbers on our website.

The following companies are our partners in Presentation Software:  Prezi , and  mysimpleshow .

We sometimes offer premium or additional placements on our website and in our marketing materials to our advertising partners. Partners may influence their position on our website, including the order in which they appear on the page.

For example, when company ranking is subjective (meaning two companies are very close) our advertising partners may be ranked higher. If you have any specific questions while considering which product or service you may buy, feel free to reach out to us anytime.

If you choose to click on the links on our site, we may receive compensation. If you don't click the links on our site or use the phone numbers listed on our site we will not be compensated. Ultimately the choice is yours.

The analyses and opinions on our site are our own and our editors and staff writers are instructed to maintain editorial integrity.

Our brand, ConsumersAdvocate.org, stands for accuracy and helpful information. We know we can only be successful if we take your trust in us seriously!

To find out more about how we make money and our editorial process,  click here.

Product name, logo, brands, and other trademarks featured or referred to within our site are the property of their respective trademark holders. Any reference in this website to third party trademarks is to identify the corresponding third party goods and/or services.

Best Presentation Software Based on In-Depth Reviews

• 200+ Hours of research
• 25 Sources used
• 19 Companies vetted
• 4 Features reviewed
• 6 Top Picks

• Assess your visual presentation needs
• Focus on software with multiple design elements
• Go for software that will visually complement your narrative
• How we analyzed the best Presentation Software Providers
• Our Top Picks: Presentation Software Reviews

As our work lives gradually migrate to virtual spaces-with Zoom meetings and video conference calls now becoming the daily norm- we’ve had to spruce up how we communicate, educate, and transmit ideas. Part of reshaping how we communicate involves getting creative about how we can convey ideas and messages with the same enthusiasm as before. Presentation software has everything to do with this. It’s no longer just a visual aid but an integral part of how we virtually communicate our stories and ideas. 

PowerPoint has long reigned supreme in the world of presentation software, and for good reason. PowerPoint is simple and easy to use, and it’s got a host of features that make it convenient for students and professionals looking to share their ideas. Over the past years, however, innovative presentation platforms have emerged that have enriched the way we can present information by offering video creation and animation development tools. 

Presentation software is also increasingly moving towards AI use to create your decks, so that you spend as little time as possible creating visually stunning and informative decks. This software has re-shaped traditional presentation formats and styles, and have widened the range of ways we can use images, text, and video. Point being, presentation software has evolved a lot over the past years. There’s no longer any excuse why your lecture or business proposal decks should look like they’re stuck in the past. With the right presentation software and free image database , you can make your ideas look as stunning as they are.

• PowerPoint review

Classic Deck Presentations 

Compatibility : Web-based and desktop-installed app

Design Library : Around 40 different themes with multiple color variations

Free Version : Yes (web-based)

Mobile App : Yes

Screenshot microsoft.com, August 2020.

Microsoft’s PowerPoint (PP) needs no introduction. The software is arguably the most well known and ubiquitous of all presentation software on the market. Though it may seem like old news next to all the young and innovative competitors it has had in the past years, PP is still king when it comes to simplicity, ease of use, and reliability. 

PP is now available to use through the web, meaning you can create, edit, share, and present your slides wherever you are and on any device with a supporting app. This ease and mobility put it ahead of many software companies that still lack mobile apps. 

Microsoft has also added AI Design to PP, which works by identifying the most important elements of your images and generating potential theme options that work best with your content. Additionally, PP includes animation features, where you can create animated explainer videos using gifs, as well as animate 3D objects. PP also has a feature called Zoom where, much like in Prezi, you can jump to and from specific sections and portions of your presentation as you present, so that your deck doesn’t have to be strictly linear. Like all other software on this list, you can insert online videos into your presentation in PP for Microsoft 365 or PP 2019 and onwards, but you must be connected to the internet for it to play properly. 

PowerPoint is only available for purchase with Microsoft 365, which includes PP, Word, Excel, and other Microsoft Office programs, plus continuous updates to the Microsoft ecosystem ($69.99/ per year) or with Office Home, which includes all of the above but does not include access to latest updates or cloud storage (one-time payment of $149.99). AI Designer and advanced customer support tools are only included in Microsoft 365. 

• Prezi review

Best for Dynamic Presentations

Design Library :  Hundreds of designer templates offered by Prezi, millions of reusable presentations from other users; more than 500,000 images and 80,000 icons

Free Version : Yes

Mobile App : Yes, but not for editing (only viewing and presenting) 

Screenshot prezi.com, August 2020.

Next to PowerPoint, Prezi is probably the most well-known presentation software out there. Its spatial format, which allows the presenter and audience to move from idea to idea in a dynamic way, makes it stand out from most presentation software currently available. 

The creative possibilities are endless with Prezi, as they offer millions of usable Prezi presentations to all users. Although there is a bit of a learning curve (especially if you decide to start a presentation from scratch), Prezi offers dozens of video tutorials on Youtube and plenty of  online articles that can help steer you in the right direction. You can also collaborate on a project with up to 10 users, adding comments and feedback as you edit.  

One of the best things about Prezi is that it offers several design and video features not included in other software. For example, you can record videos using a template and fonts to make your presentation more engaging and dynamic. You can also make stunning infographics to complement your presentations with Prezi Design. Finally, the Prezi viewer mobile app will allow you to view your presentation from your phone and use your mobile device as a remote control clicker to manage your deck as you present it.

Prezi offers Free, Standard ($5/mo), Plus ($15/mo), and Premium (for business professionals) plans. They also offer a special plan for students and educators that includes everything on the Plus plan for a reduced price (at $3/ mo). 

• Google Slides review

Best Fully Free Software

Compatibility : Web-based 

Design Library : 25 templates, but hundreds more available in external sites

Free Version : GoogleSlides is completely free

Screenshot google.com, August 2020.

GoogleSlides is probably the most effective and useful free presentation software out there. Not only is this the most useful software for casual presenters who don’t want to spend money on tools they’ll likely never use, but Slide’s portability and shareability make it a great option for students and team members alike. 

Slides is perfect for those who want to make simple, but modern looking presentations in a brief amount of time. Its format is simple and easy to use, mimicking that of Power Point’s. Google also offers articles providing tips on how to better your experience. Its Slide’s mobile app is also great for editing and reviewing content before the start of your presentation. Although its template library may not be as robust as other software, external website libraries such as Slidesgo , offer hundreds of free downloadable templates. You can also easily integrate media such as videos and audio to your Slides presentation. Finally, unlike other paying presentation software, Slides lets you export your final presentation into PowerPoint, PDF, and JPEG formats, so you can download your presentation and present it wherever you are, internet available or not. 

• Slidebean review

Best For AI Use

Compatibility : Web-based, but offers offline viewing 

Design Library : Dozens of pre-made templates available for five different categories (Businesses, Academics, Sales, PR, and Marketing) 

Mobile App : No 

Screenshot slidebean.com, August 2020.

Slidebean is a web-based software that works through AI so you can build a modern and professional-looking presentation in minutes. Signing up is easy and Slidebean offers a brief tutorial on how to work the system before you begin. With Slidebean, you don’t have to spend hours trying out colors and template formats, to see what works. Slidebean encourages you to focus on your text and ideas, and the AI software will do all the formatting and color coordination for you. If you don’t like the options generated for you, the AI will keep mixing and matching until you find something that works. You can choose from one of the hundreds of pre-made templates or create a custom theme. You can invite collaborators on both private and shareable decks. For premium members, you can also track your viewers behavior while they look at your content. One downside is that you can’t upload existing PowerPoint (PPT) presentations to edit. Paying users can, however, download your presentation into HTML and PPT, so you can view it offline, although this could affect certain design elements in your presentation 

Slidebean has a Free, Starter ($8/mo billed annually), and Premium ($19/mo billed annually) version with different privacy and collabo-sharing settings, as well as design library access settings and access. They also have a Founder’s Edition plan, aimed at entrepreneurs and startups which provides everything on the Premium plan plus design tune-up, proofreading, and direct access to Slidebean’s founders.

• Genially review

Best for Students and Educators

Design Library : Hundreds of templates for categories including Corporate and Education 

Screenshot genially.com, August 2020.

Genially’s interactive focus on presentations, as well as their considerably reduced prices for educators makes it particularly appealing to students and teachers alike. Genially has several different animation tools and templates. They offer templates for video presentations, interactive games and quizzes, infographics, and interactive image layouts where you can make any image interactive and glean from it a wealth of information, among others. 

With paid versions, you also have the opportunity to import PowerPoint presentations and edit them using Genially features. On the support side, Genially offers articles on how to get started with your software, as well as provide a wide range of YouTube tutorials to help you navigate your presentation maker. 

• Powtoon review

Best for Video Presentations

Design Library : Hundreds of pre-made video templates in categories that include Education, Marketing, Product and Engineering, Learning and Development, and Digital Management 

Mobile App : Yes, but not for editing

Screenshot powtoon.com, August 2020.

PowToon is a video creation software that will allow you to completely break the mold when it comes to visual presentations.  With PowToon, you get hundreds of pre-made video templates you can manipulate and use to transmit your own ideas, so no advanced knowledge of video editing is needed. PowToon offers pre-designed animation, customizable characters, royalty-free images and soundtracks, and a drag and drop interface so that both beginners and pros alike can take advantage of the software. Of course, you can also create a video from scratch. Powtoon offers a Help Center database with dozens of articles regarding the video editing process. Pro members also get 24/7 priority support as well as the right to download their videos into MP4 format. Both free and paid versions allow users to export videos to different social media channels or content websites.

PowToon currently offers a Free, Pro ($19/mo), Pro+ ($39/mo), and Agency ($99/mo) plan. There are also special prices for students ($ 4/mo and access to Pro content), and teachers ($10/mo unlimited access to all content).

• More insight into our methodology

Good presentation software should cover all your basic needs, but it should also offer features that make your presentation stand out from the rest. 

We evaluated multiple companies in the visual presentation field, and tested them to gauge how easy they were to use and how comprehensive the library they offered was. 

We gave preference to companies that offer alternative modes of presentation such as video, animation, and design tools so that your slide deck is more than just a set of static words and images. All our picks also have free versions so you can test them out and decide if upgrading to fancier features is worth it for you. 

Presentation software can include many features, but we focused specifically on the following: 

Design library  - The design library is one of the most important elements of any software. They include templates and color schemes. Some companies offer hundreds of different premade templates you can edit and make your own. They'll also split templates into useful categories such as business, marketing and sales, and education.  

• AI features - Over the last few years, several companies have moved towards including artificial intelligence features in their software, making it even easier for users to create their own presentations. AI-based software will usually work so that you can focus on getting your ideas on text while the program takes care of formatting the rest. 
• Collabo-sharing features - Collaboration tools make it so that multiple people can edit your document, whether in real-time or not. Sharing tools allow you to upload your work on different platforms, as well as export the presentation in formats that don’t require an internet connection. 
• Media integration  - In this digital age, presentations should include text, images, videos, and/or GIFs. Good presentation software will integrate different media in a seamless and coherent way so your presentation will be engaging but also run smoothly. The companies we chose provide different graphic, animation, and video capabilities so that you can craft modern and engaging content.

Presentation software can range from zero to a couple of hundred dollars a year, since most of the paid ones offer subscription plans. Although companies may have several different tiers, they often include special education and business plans that may reduce the cost considerably.  All our companies have at least a free version, and several have free trial versions for premium subscription plans.

• Compatibility

Compatibility is everything when it comes to presentation software. Even though most software is now offered through web-based apps, this may not necessarily mean it’s the most convenient for everyone. Exporting your presentations to PDF or PowerPoint may be necessary in order to present in places with poor or no internet connection. Not all companies do this, however, so it’s important to keep this in mind before signing up for any one plan. We looked at companies that have both offline and online options.

• Ease of Use/Educational Material

Some companies have a steeper learning curve than others, but these usually include more advanced graphic design features—such as video editing and animation creation. Regardless of the difficulty, companies should provide users with as much helpful information on different topics as they can. Some companies provide databases with plenty of helpful articles. Others provide video tutorials on how to navigate specific areas of the software. We paid attention to how much of this educational support companies provide to make the process as easy as possible for the user.

• Helpful information about Presentation Software

Assessing your Presentation Needs

Before picking any one presentation software, it might be a good idea to consider what you're looking to get from it. If you’re a casual or infrequent presenter, chances are that free software will be enough to address your needs. On the other hand, if you’re a frequent presenter tackling several audiences or topics, you probably want software that provides more creative and functional leeway, along with practical analytical tools that will help you improve your presentations in the long run. 

Assessing what you need presentation software for is key in helping you decide whether you should go for a free option, or invest in a pricier but more robust software. Are you an educator? An entrepreneur? Part of company leadership?  Are you working as a graphic designer for a marketing or creative company?  For example, as a burgeoning entrepreneur, you’ll likely want software that offers a vast number of pitch and business presentation templates. If you’re part of a team at work or school, you’ll likely need software that allows you to easily share and collaborate on presentations. Meanwhile, educators and business professionals who need to constantly churn out presentations will likely appreciate AI-based software that takes care of formatting their multiple decks so that they can focus on the information at hand. Moreover, some presentation software will be tailored for specific industries, and will include a wide range of templates and layouts catering to that professional niche, as well as analytic reports on audience engagement and participation. 

The good news is that many presentation software companies now cater to different audiences and lines of work, so that it doesn’t matter if you’re a student or the CEO of a small but growing business, you’ll likely find the templates and collaboration features you need. Nonetheless, how many features you’ll be able to access on your software usually depends on whether you’re a paying user or if you opt for a free version. 

Free vs Paid Software

Many companies offer free versions of their software, so that you don’t need to pay a cent to enjoy unique creative features. However, free versions can be limited— you’ll generally have access to only a few templates, or a set number of projects per month, and won’t be able to enjoy all the available formatting tools that paying users get. 

Free versions can also limit your privacy options. For example, they will allow you to use many of the software’s features, but require you to make your presentation publicly available to anyone on the web. This is likely not an ideal option for anyone who needs to present sensitive or confidential information meant to remain in-house. 

Additionally, using free versions could mean that you’re only able to view and present your information online and through the software company’s platform. Exporting and downloading your presentations is usually restricted to paying users, which could be a problem for those that wish to download and store their work on their computer and/or a USB device. 

It’s important to note that fully free, or open-source, software, such as Google Slides, will often provide a host of features that are not dependent on pay. However, free software won’t be able to provide as wide a diversity of templates and formatting options. They might also lack the power to properly handle different types of media in a single deck, causing your presentation to lag or slow down. Still, for infrequent presenters, open-source software is an excellent and free alternative to make simple and quick presentations. 

Tips for Great Presentations 

It’s easy to get carried away with pumping your decks full of information and unnecessary graphics. However, presentation software shouldn’t eclipse what you have to say with distracting animations and excessive text. Instead, it should complement your ideas and allow you to convey your message in a cogent and powerful way. 

Picking software is just the first step in crafting a fantastic presentation. After that, the fun begins. We talked to our in-house senior graphic designer, Jose “Yuyu” Velez, to determine what goes into making an effective and stellar presentation.

Tip #1 Pick presentation tools that offer versatility and creative leeway 

There are very basic things I should be able to do with presentation software such as import images, export to different formats, add gifs or other video media, etc. Adding transitions is always a plus, as well as having an icon library. Ideally, I should also be able to share a presentation seamlessly with others so that they [collaborators] can edit.

Tip #2 Keep your designs clean and simple

I've always found that keeping the layout as simple as possible helps to avoid the viewer from becoming distracted when presenting. This simplicity translates to a lot of things, like the use of color sparingly, 2-3 bullets per slide (flushed left with images or videos on the right so that it's natural to the viewer), and the use of animation only when necessary.

For example, a simple slide would be a white or very light-colored background, 2-3 bullets on the left, and a contextual image to the right that helps compliment the bullet points.

Tip #3 Keep it fun and eye-catching  

I've found that animation always helps keep the viewer engaged with a presentation, especially the use of gifs to drive the message home.

  Tip #4 Aim for an engaging, but coherent presentation

I've seen a lot of excellent presentations that use humor, gifs, and other types of animations that really kept me engaged. But when you take it home with you and try to watch it alone on your computer most of it doesn't make sense. To avoid this you can do one of the following:

Make sure that the presentation makes sense with or without you presenting it.

Make 2 versions, one to be presented live and the other as a more complete take-home version.

Tip #5: Be mindful about how you use design elements 

Keep text to a minimum : 2 to 3 bullet points should be more than enough on each slide. More than that might be too much for the viewer to process.

Synthesize your information : Most speakers get a 15 to 30 min window for a presentation. I recommend trying to have a max of 1 slide per minute. You should be able to simplify all the information without the need for 100+ slides.

Use color sparingly : Keep the background either very light with black text or very dark with light text. Any other color should be used as an accent to highlight a detail on screen. Too much color can be distracting.

Use videos and animations strategically : Too many videos or animations can slow down the presentation or make the file way too heavy. They should be placed purposefully and sparingly, same as with the colors. Think of them as secret weapons that help to break up the content on the slides so that you have a chance to give the viewer's brain a rest from listening to you while also reading bullet points.

Make people laugh! : Nobody wants to be bored and everyone can use a laugh. Throwing in a joke can help hold your viewers’ attention. This can especially be accomplished with the use of the right gif. Just make sure the joke is in line with what you're presenting.

• What To Watch Out For With Presentation Software

Picture it, it's zero hour and you’re about to show your bosses that business proposal you’ve been working on for weeks. Your slides are minimalistic and captivating. You’ve got stunning images to drive your point home. And to top it all off, you’ve included a video that captures all your important points in a condensed and appealing way. You plug in your USB stick where you’ve saved your presentation and...a nightmare occurs. Your image and video links are all broken, and the presentation you’ve worked on for weeks is nothing more than a pile of text. Worst of all you can’t make any adjustments because your software is strictly desktop version and you’re miles away from home. The culprit? Compatibility issues.

Software can be desktop installed, web-based, or both. Desktop-installed software allows you to download the editing and presenting tools you need straight to your laptop or desktop computer, without an internet connection. In the last couple of years, presentation software has migrated to web- or cloud-based software, meaning you do all your creating, editing, and presenting through the company’s platform. This is especially great if you want to work on your presentation from multiple devices, such as your tablet or smartphone. The downside to this is that you almost always need an internet connection to work on your presentation, and this may not always be readily available to you. 

It’s important that when you finally settle on a company that fits your design needs, you also check software compatibility. Most presentation software in the market is web-based, meaning you can run it on any computer or device as long as you have a working internet connection. Although this is great for portability and shareability purposes, it may be a problem if you need to present somewhere with poor internet. 

Most of these web-based companies will allow you to export your presentation into PDF, HTML, and sometimes even PPT presentations, so you should always check this feature is included in the plans you opt to choose. However, these features are oftentimes only included in the software’s paid versions. Downloading your presentations into these formats can also sometimes affect elements in your presentation. For example, embedded YouTube videos won’t work without an internet connection, and some templates that are exclusive to a company may not be available if you download them into a PowerPoint format. 

Some software companies like Prezi and PowerPoint, though, will have installable desktop options so that you can create, edit, and present your presentation hassle-free in the event that there’s no internet connection.

• FAQs about Presentation Software

What kinds of presentation software are available?

Who uses presentation software.

• Our Presentation Software Review Summed Up

We use essential cookies to make Venngage work. By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.

Manage Cookies

Cookies and similar technologies collect certain information about how you’re using our website. Some of them are essential, and without them you wouldn’t be able to use Venngage. But others are optional, and you get to choose whether we use them or not.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are always on, as they’re essential for making Venngage work, and making it safe. Without these cookies, services you’ve asked for can’t be provided.

Show cookie providers

• Google Login

Functionality Cookies

These cookies help us provide enhanced functionality and personalisation, and remember your settings. They may be set by us or by third party providers.

Performance Cookies

These cookies help us analyze how many people are using Venngage, where they come from and how they're using it. If you opt out of these cookies, we can’t get feedback to make Venngage better for you and all our users.

• Google Analytics

Targeting Cookies

These cookies are set by our advertising partners to track your activity and show you relevant Venngage ads on other sites as you browse the internet.

• Google Tag Manager
• Infographics
• Daily Infographics
• Popular Templates
• Accessibility
• Graphic Design
• Graphs and Charts
• Data Visualization
• Human Resources
• Beginner Guides

Blog Beginner Guides 8 Types of Presentations You Should Know [+Examples & Tips]

8 Types of Presentations You Should Know [+Examples & Tips]

Written by: Krystle Wong Aug 11, 2023

From persuasive pitches that influence opinions to instructional demonstrations that teach skills, the different types of presentations serve a unique purpose, tailored to specific objectives and audiences.

Presentations that are tailored to its objectives and audiences are more engaging and memorable. They capture attention, maintain interest and leave a lasting impression. 

Don’t worry if you’re no designer —  Whether you need data-driven visuals, persuasive graphics or engaging design elements, Venngage can empower you to craft presentations that stand out and effectively convey your message.

Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface, extensive presentation template library and customizable design options make it a valuable tool for creating slides that align with your specific goals and target audience. 

Click to jump ahead:

8 Different types of presentations every presenter must know

How do i choose the right type of presentation for my topic or audience, types of presentation faq, 5 steps to create a presentation with venngage .

When it comes to presentations, versatility is the name of the game. Having a variety of presentation styles up your sleeve can make a world of difference in keeping your audience engaged. Here are 8 essential presentation types that every presenter should be well-acquainted with:

1. Informative presentation

Ever sat through a presentation that left you feeling enlightened? That’s the power of an informative presentation. 

This presentation style is all about sharing knowledge and shedding light on a particular topic. Whether you’re diving into the depths of quantum physics or explaining the intricacies of the latest social media trends, informative presentations aim to increase the audience’s understanding.

When delivering an informative presentation, simplify complex topics with clear visuals and relatable examples. Organize your content logically, starting with the basics and gradually delving deeper and always remember to keep jargon to a minimum and encourage questions for clarity.

Academic presentations and research presentations are great examples of informative presentations. An effective academic presentation involves having clear structure, credible evidence, engaging delivery and supporting visuals. Provide context to emphasize the topic’s significance, practice to perfect timing, and be ready to address anticipated questions. 

2. Persuasive presentation

If you’ve ever been swayed by a passionate speaker armed with compelling arguments, you’ve experienced a persuasive presentation . 

This type of presentation is like a verbal tug-of-war, aiming to convince the audience to see things from a specific perspective. Expect to encounter solid evidence, logical reasoning and a dash of emotional appeal.

With persuasive presentations, it’s important to know your audience inside out and tailor your message to their interests and concerns. Craft a compelling narrative with a strong opening, a solid argument and a memorable closing. Additionally, use visuals strategically to enhance your points.

Examples of persuasive presentations include presentations for environmental conservations, policy change, social issues and more. Here are some engaging presentation templates you can use to get started with: 

3. Demonstration or how-to presentation

A Demonstration or How-To Presentation is a type of presentation where the speaker showcases a process, technique, or procedure step by step, providing the audience with clear instructions on how to replicate the demonstrated action. 

A demonstrative presentation is particularly useful when teaching practical skills or showing how something is done in a hands-on manner.

These presentations are commonly used in various settings, including educational workshops, training sessions, cooking classes, DIY tutorials, technology demonstrations and more. Designing creative slides for your how-to presentations can heighten engagement and foster better information retention. 

Speakers can also consider breaking down the process into manageable steps, using visual aids, props and sometimes even live demonstrations to illustrate each step. The key is to provide clear and concise instructions, engage the audience with interactive elements and address any questions that may arise during the presentation.

4. Training or instructional presentation

Training presentations are geared towards imparting practical skills, procedures or concepts — think of this as the more focused cousin of the demonstration presentation. 

Whether you’re teaching a group of new employees the ins and outs of a software or enlightening budding chefs on the art of soufflé-making, training presentations are all about turning novices into experts.

To maximize the impact of your training or instructional presentation, break down complex concepts into digestible segments. Consider using real-life examples to illustrate each point and create a connection. 

You can also create an interactive presentation by incorporating elements like quizzes or group activities to reinforce understanding.

5. Sales presentation

Sales presentations are one of the many types of business presentations and the bread and butter of businesses looking to woo potential clients or customers. With a sprinkle of charm and a dash of persuasion, these presentations showcase products, services or ideas with one end goal in mind: sealing the deal.

A successful sales presentation often has key characteristics such as a clear value proposition, strong storytelling, confidence and a compelling call to action. Hence, when presenting to your clients or stakeholders, focus on benefits rather than just features. 

Anticipate and address potential objections before they arise and use storytelling to showcase how your offering solves a specific problem for your audience. Utilizing visual aids is also a great way to make your points stand out and stay memorable.

A sales presentation can be used to promote service offerings, product launches or even consultancy proposals that outline the expertise and industry experience of a business. Here are some template examples you can use for your next sales presentation:

6. Pitch presentation

Pitch presentations are your ticket to garnering the interest and support of potential investors, partners or stakeholders. Think of your pitch deck as your chance to paint a vivid picture of your business idea or proposal and secure the resources you need to bring it to life. 

Business presentations aside, individuals can also create a portfolio presentation to showcase their skills, experience and achievements to potential clients, employers or investors. 

Craft a concise and compelling narrative. Clearly define the problem your idea solves and how it stands out in the market. Anticipate questions and practice your answers. Project confidence and passion for your idea.

7. Motivational or inspirational presentation

Feeling the need for a morale boost? That’s where motivational presentations step in. These talks are designed to uplift and inspire, often featuring personal anecdotes, heartwarming stories and a generous serving of encouragement.

Form a connection with your audience by sharing personal stories that resonate with your message. Use a storytelling style with relatable anecdotes and powerful metaphors to create an emotional connection. Keep the energy high and wrap up your inspirational presentations with a clear call to action.

Inspirational talks and leadership presentations aside, a motivational or inspirational presentation can also be a simple presentation aimed at boosting confidence, a motivational speech focused on embracing change and more.

8. Status or progress report presentation

Projects and businesses are like living organisms, constantly evolving and changing. Status or progress report presentations keep everyone in the loop by providing updates on achievements, challenges and future plans. It’s like a GPS for your team, ensuring everyone stays on track.

Be transparent about achievements, challenges and future plans. Utilize infographics, charts and diagrams to present your data visually and simplify information. By visually representing data, it becomes easier to identify trends, make predictions and strategize based on evidence.

Now that you’ve learned about the different types of presentation methods and how to use them, you’re on the right track to creating a good presentation that can boost your confidence and enhance your presentation skills . 

Selecting the most suitable presentation style is akin to choosing the right outfit for an occasion – it greatly influences how your message is perceived. Here’s a more detailed guide to help you make that crucial decision:

1. Define your objectives

Begin by clarifying your presentation’s goals. Are you aiming to educate, persuade, motivate, train or perhaps sell a concept? Your objectives will guide you to the most suitable presentation type. 

For instance, if you’re aiming to inform, an informative presentation would be a natural fit. On the other hand, a persuasive presentation suits the goal of swaying opinions.

2. Know your audience

Regardless if you’re giving an in-person or a virtual presentation — delve into the characteristics of your audience. Consider factors like their expertise level, familiarity with the topic, interests and expectations. 

If your audience consists of professionals in your field, a more technical presentation might be suitable. However, if your audience is diverse and includes newcomers, an approachable and engaging style might work better.

3. Analyze your content

Reflect on the content you intend to present. Is it data-heavy, rich in personal stories or focused on practical skills? Different presentation styles serve different content types. 

For data-driven content, an informative or instructional presentation might work best. For emotional stories, a motivational presentation could be a compelling choice.

4. Consider time constraints

Evaluate the time you have at your disposal. If your presentation needs to be concise due to time limitations, opt for a presentation style that allows you to convey your key points effectively within the available timeframe. A pitch presentation, for example, often requires delivering impactful information within a short span.

5. Leverage visuals

Visual aids are powerful tools in presentations. Consider whether your content would benefit from visual representation. If your PowerPoint presentations involve step-by-step instructions or demonstrations, a how-to presentation with clear visuals would be advantageous. Conversely, if your content is more conceptual, a motivational presentation could rely more on spoken words.

6. Align with the setting

Take the presentation environment into account. Are you presenting in a formal business setting, a casual workshop or a conference? Your setting can influence the level of formality and interactivity in your presentation. For instance, a demonstration presentation might be ideal for a hands-on workshop, while a persuasive presentation is great for conferences.

7. Gauge audience interaction

Determine the level of audience engagement you want. Interactive presentations work well for training sessions, workshops and small group settings, while informative or persuasive presentations might be more one-sided.

8. Flexibility

Stay open to adjusting your presentation style on the fly. Sometimes, unexpected factors might require a change of presentation style. Be prepared to adjust on the spot if audience engagement or reactions indicate that a different approach would be more effective.

Remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and the best type of presentation may vary depending on the specific situation and your unique communication goals. By carefully considering these factors, you can choose the most effective presentation type to successfully engage and communicate with your audience.

To save time, use a presentation software or check out these presentation design and presentation background guides to create a presentation that stands out.    

What are some effective ways to begin and end a presentation?

Capture your audience’s attention from the start of your presentation by using a surprising statistic, a compelling story or a thought-provoking question related to your topic. 

To conclude your presentation , summarize your main points, reinforce your key message and leave a lasting impression with a powerful call to action or a memorable quote that resonates with your presentation’s theme.

How can I make my presentation more engaging and interactive?

To create an engaging and interactive presentation for your audience, incorporate visual elements such as images, graphs and videos to illustrate your points visually. Share relatable anecdotes or real-life examples to create a connection with your audience. 

You can also integrate interactive elements like live polls, open-ended questions or small group discussions to encourage participation and keep your audience actively engaged throughout your presentation.

Which types of presentations require special markings

Some presentation types require special markings such as how sales presentations require persuasive techniques like emphasizing benefits, addressing objections and using compelling visuals to showcase products or services. 

Demonstrations and how-to presentations on the other hand require clear markings for each step, ensuring the audience can follow along seamlessly. 

That aside, pitch presentations require highlighting unique selling points, market potential and the competitive edge of your idea, making it stand out to potential investors or partners.

Need some inspiration on how to make a presentation that will captivate an audience? Here are 120+ presentation ideas to help you get started. 

Creating a stunning and impactful presentation with Venngage is a breeze. Whether you’re crafting a business pitch, a training presentation or any other type of presentation, follow these five steps to create a professional presentation that stands out:

• Sign up and log in to Venngage to access the editor.
• Choose a presentation template that matches your topic or style.
• Customize content, colors, fonts, and background to personalize your presentation.
• Add images, icons, and charts to enhancevisual style and clarity.
• Save, export, and share your presentation as PDF or PNG files, or use Venngage’s Presentation Mode for online showcasing.

In the realm of presentations, understanding the different types of presentation formats is like having a versatile set of tools that empower you to craft compelling narratives for every occasion.

Remember, the key to a successful presentation lies not only in the content you deliver but also in the way you connect with your audience. Whether you’re informing, persuading or entertaining, tailoring your approach to the specific type of presentation you’re delivering can make all the difference.

Presentations are a powerful tool, and with practice and dedication (and a little help from Venngage), you’ll find yourself becoming a presentation pro in no time. Now, let’s get started and customize your next presentation!

Discover popular designs

Infographic maker

Brochure maker

White paper online

Newsletter creator

Flyer maker

Timeline maker

Letterhead maker

Mind map maker

Ebook maker

Learn more ProPresenter is now available as a subscription!

Different Types of Presentation Software & Use Cases

Historically, presentation software has been pretty straightforward. People used apps like PowerPoint in the office or the classroom to provide slide-based reinforcements to their speech, lecture, or business presentation.

But over time, technology became more and more capable, enabling more intricate uses for presentation software. New software companies and developers joined the fray, some targeting highly specific use cases or offering new levels of professional features .

As more and more professional users saw the benefits outside the office, the market expanded and the variety of softwares continued to grow with it.

Fast forward to today – presentation softwares are everywhere, from your smartwatch to massive billboards in Times Square, to smart screens in restaurants.

In this post, we’ll walk through the most common types or use cases for presentation software in the modern era — and show you why many of them benefit from a tool that surpasses what PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides can do.

What Are the Most Common Use Cases or Types of Presentation Software?

There are hundreds of use cases: anyone who needs to manually display visuals will likely use a presentation software. We’ve narrowed our list down to five of the most common and significant use cases, which we’ll outline below.

One quick note: we’re defining presentation software as any software solution (whether a cloud-based presentation solution or a desktop app) that can be used as a tool for creating slide presentations and can use those slides to enhance the live presentation itself. All worthwhile presentation apps will include slide templates and have the ability to drag and drop content and share presentations with others.

This is where the presentation software game started, and it’s an absolutely massive market. It’s standard for office spaces to have a presentation solution in the boardroom, with PowerPoint being very well-known in this space for a reason.

Most office scenarios involve shooting a presentation up on a projector, or sharing one over a video conferencing meeting. So a presentation mode is ideal, but it tends to be a simple setup, with a single screen for the audience, and one for the presenter’s notes. Nothing complex for inputs or outputs.

This is also why office-style tools rarely support multiple outputs, they’re not needed when it’s a single screen in the board room.

The office market is saturated with free and low-cost options, and most businesses are already paying for Microsoft 365 , which includes PowerPoint. These tools are generally sufficient for the meeting room, and work okay in a Zoom call. But as office AV setups expanded, these tools didn’t grow with them, became limited, and are progressively being replaced by better options. For instance, Google Slides and it’s Google Suite integration are a significant attractant, which Microsoft hasn’t been able to compete with.

Houses of Worship

Religious institutions are one of the largest non-business markets for presentation software, and one that was never considered when building software for the board room.

Houses of worship have unique needs that simply don’t exist in the typical business or in business presentations. There’s also significant variety in the House of Worship sector, from small gatherings of 20 people to multisite megachurches streaming presenting across campuses.

Most Houses of Worship use presentation software to project song lyrics for the congregation to, passages of Scripture, live video from remote speakers, announcement videos, and images to accompany the sermon. Since Covid, even in smaller churches it’s become more common to live stream to congregants at home, or add extra screens in-house to overflow rooms or nurseries.

For larger ministries, sending different visual feeds to different screens or areas of the facility is now a staple in design. These ministries need presentation tools that allow for high levels of customization, and support multiple outputs in multiple formats.

A common scenario for many larger houses of worship could be something like:

• A main presentation feed for the auditorium or sanctuary.
• Image magnification (IMAG) of the speaker for the audience.
• A secondary “main” feed for other locations and live stream that includes video of the stage or speaker
• A lobby feed that rotates Announcements or the live video of the service.
• A stage screen with presentation notes, clocks, and other information.
• Various behind-the-scenes views for the production crew or worship team.

There are also specific features needed in Houses of Worship, like access to lyrics for quick import, multiple versions of Scripture for easy access, copyright information with songs, and automation options if the band is using tracks.

Live Events

Live events share many of the complexities as Houses of Worship – church services are a kind of live event, after all.

In live event environments, reliability is a higher priority. You only have one shot with any given audience, and you can’t have a show failing due to underpowered or unreliable software.

You’re also often dealing with higher level, pro-grade hardware in live event venues, and traveling shows may have to adapt to different hardware combinations in every new location. Solutions here need to support SDI and NDI as well as the more common HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, and possibly old-school VGA.

Visuals for live events tend to be professionally produced, relying on graphic designers rather than DIY content. So the right presentation solutions for live events are those that support every conceivable media type, including professional formats.

Last, presentations at live events are often extremely visually heavy, relying on video and animated content much more extensively. Both hardware and software must be robust enough to handle everything that’s needed—without screen tearing, visual artifacts, and with minimal latency.

Live Production & Broadcasting

Live production and broadcast environments are some of the most strenuous and high-stakes of all. They take the “gotta get it right” nature of live events and turn up the pressure even higher.

Users are looking for features around video production as well as a slide deck. The visual content needs to look good, there might be requirements around HDR, 4K, or higher numbers of audio channels than just stereo playback, and they need presentation tools that can output multiple formats for audiences.

Of all the categories we’ve considered thus far, production and broadcasting teams need professional tools way beyond what’s used in the office. They need solutions that can broadcast main content simultaneously with lower thirds, overlays, chyrons, bugs, while powering multiple screens for the audience. Having redundant presentation machines is often a requirement, and needs expert Support that specializes in the software and uses it in the field.

Alpha/linear keying, variety of outputs, variety of formats, and various layers of upstream and downstream keys are all needed for a broadcast environment. Even if it’s the simplest use case, of a speaker with a slide deck of images, you’ll still need a software that plays nicely with your broadcast gear.

Academics & Education

The field of education has its own set of presentation needs . Of the categories included here, the education market is the most similar to the office/business market, but there are still plenty of distinctives worth noting.

In this environment, users create much of their own content, and need easy-to-use tools with easy-to-learn interfaces. They want to be able to do a lot with their presentations but don’t want to be overwhelmed with too many choices.

Academic customers may also be looking for tools that offer free and paid plans, especially if the free tier allows students to use the tool without cost, or paid plans with support for faculty. Prezi is one example: teachers may need paid plans (and business customers certainly will), but the free tier is enough to get students creating.

Academic environments also tend to gravitate toward visually rich, engaging templates and content, with less charts and more media content. Fair Use laws are generally favorable towards showing copyrighted videos in classrooms, so you need a software that you can load a full 90 minute movie into, with the ability to play, pause, and skip around in it.

Office-oriented tools can come up short here, and it’s increasingly common to see presentation spaces like auditoriums and large lecture halls, using higher powered software like ProPresenter. This allows them to throw in any presentation assets, be they video, audio, slides, images, or full-length videos and have a high degree of control over what’s shown. As recording lectures is increasingly a thing, the ability to send content both to the projector and the recording is becoming more valuable too.

Wrapping Up

We hope this guide to the different types of presentation software has helped you learn what’s out there and what would be best for your needs. And if you’re looking for more capabilities than you can get from your typical office presentation product, then consider ProPresenter.

Across all the use cases we covered, ProPresenter can handle every advanced feature or function we mentioned — and plenty more.

But you don’t just have to take our word for it. You can see for yourself! Download the trial now to see how ProPresenter can transform your presentations.

By subscribing, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.

Experience the power of ProPresenter

Take your production to the next level with ProPresenter's intuitive suite of tools.

ProPresenter is now available as a subscription!

The basics of video keying

ProContent: The best resource for church motion graphics

Stay updated with our newsletter.

Get the latest news, updates, and exclusive offers delivered straight to your inbox.

Browse our FAQs or our Knowledge base that we’ve made to answer your questions. Need additional help? Connect with a support team agent!

• Design for Business
• Most Recent
• Presentations
• Infographics
• Data Visualizations
• Forms and Surveys
• Video & Animation
• Case Studies
• Digital Marketing
• Design Inspiration
• Visual Thinking
• Product Updates
• Visme Webinars
• Artificial Intelligence

7 Types of Presentations You Should Be Using Right Now [Including Templates]

Written by: Olujinmi Oluwatoni

Presentations are no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have skill for professionals.

Whether you're pitching to clients, providing updates to your team, or submitting management proposals, presentations are a necessity.

In fact, 70% of employed Americans admit that presentation skills are critical for career success.

However, specific presentation scenarios require a different approach to effectively communicate unique ideas. To create an excellent presentation, you need to choose the presentation type suitable for the specific context, audience and purpose of the presentation.

In this article, we will discuss the 7 types of presentations you should be using now to drive your point home effectively, depending on your goal, audience and context. We've also included 12 amazing presentation templates you can customize in minutes.

Here’s a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit presentation templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below.

Table of Contents

Benefits of using different types of presentations, what are the different types of presentations, 12 presentation templates you can use right now.

• Using different types of presentations helps you to adapt to different settings, improves audience interest and response, enhances the quality of presentations and increases the likelihood of recognition and promotion.
• The different types of presentations include; Educational, Instructional, Motivational, Persuasive and Problem-solution presentations. You can also create presentations to show progress or sell a product or service.
• With the help of Visme's presentation software and customizable template collection, you can easily create different types of professional presentations.

Understanding the different types of presentations and using them in the right situations will set you up for success.

Here are some benefits of using different types of presentations.

You Can Adapt to Different Settings

The type of presentation you use in an educational or academic setting is not the same one you'd use if you were trying to sell a product or pitch to an investor. Being able to effectively create a presentation for a specific setting can be beneficial in different professional settings.

Improves Your Audience's Interest and Response

Understanding who your audience is can guide you in picking the appropriate presentation type. Once you get this right, you'll be able to grab the attention of your audience from the onset and get a better response at the end of your presentation.

Improves the Quality of Your Presentations

Knowing what type of presentation to use for a specific audience and setting really improves your presentation and communication. With this, you're able to constantly deliver excellent presentations, get recognized and even get promoted!

If you want to know more about how to deliver excellent presentations, check out this guide that talks about it in detail!

Projecting the outcome of your presentation can help you choose what type to prepare.

For example, at the end of your presentation, do you want your audience to be more inspired? More informed? Or equipped with knowledge on what to do next?

Having clear objectives will guide you in deciding what type of presentation to use.

Let’s dive straight into the seven different types of presentations.

Educational

As the name implies, the purpose of an educational presentation is to ‘educate or inform’ people about a topic.

Usually, this type of presentation is used in settings where your audience is unaware or relatively new to the topic being discussed. Thus, your goal is to enlighten your audience and increase their understanding of the topic. Questions such as “What is”, “How to” and “Why is” are answered in detail.

The educational presentation type combines a lot of definitions, data analysis, or more analytical projections to break down complex topics to a specific audience. So a lot of tables, charts and graphs are used where necessary.

Take a look at this example below:

To effectively educate your audience, this educational presentation template has a good mixture of these elements:

• Definitions
• Differences
• Quotes from industry professionals
• Statistics and reliable data
• Charts, tables and more!

While preparing your educational presentation, remember that there may be a lot of questions or discussions at the end. Since you’re introducing a relatively new topic, your audience may need further clarification at some point, so ensure you create room to accommodate them.

Nevertheless, educational presentations are usually delivered over a long period of time and can be found mostly during training, workshops, academic environments and more.

Use this type of presentation if you’re reporting research findings, educating employees on new policies or processes, or teaching customers how to use or maximize your product.

Create a stunning presentation in less time

• Hundreds of premade slides available
• Add animation and interactivity to your slides
• Choose from various presentation options

Sign up. It’s free.

Instructional

The instructional type of presentation is very similar to the educational presentation. Both presentation types address “how to” questions. However, the purpose of the instructional presentation is to communicate precise directions.

Unlike an educational presentation that gives the audience free will to apply the new information learned, instructional presentations focus on passing step-by-step instructions that the audience is required to follow.

For example, in the instructional presentation template below, more emphasis is placed on how marketers or salespeople should write a perfect call-to-action (CTA).

What makes this presentation template stand out is the use of multiple examples to drive the points across. That way, you’re not just teaching your audience how to do something. You’re also showing them with examples and visual aids.

This type of presentation can come in handy when teaching a new skill or giving direction to your team on how to go about completing a task. At the end of the instructional presentation, your audience should feel confident and equipped with enough knowledge to perform the task.

Keep in mind that visual aids, relevant examples and scenarios can help boost the understanding of your audience. Be sure to incorporate this into your instructional presentation.

Use the instructional presentation type when you’re teaching a step-by-step process or answering a “how to” question with specific guidelines or commands.

Motivational

The motivational presentation type is a popular type of presentation usually seen during Ted talks, conferences, or even networking events.

The goal is to inspire your audience to see things clearer and take action based on a renewed mindset.

Motivational presentations usually incorporate storytelling and humor to pique the interest of their audience and gain their trust till the end. This type of presentation thrives in a more relaxed setting and doesn't necessarily need to run for a long time.

At the end of your motivational presentation, your audience should be inspired or convinced to make a change to how they usually approach a situation.

Your goal is not to force them to take action in a certain way but to guide them through a series of concepts that will propel them to make a personal decision to change.

An important thing to note when preparing this presentation is the need to foster an emotional connection with your audience from the onset.

So don't be scared to use personal anecdotes or draw from personal experiences.

Take a look at this Tedtalk by Shankar Vedantam which has garnered over 2 million views since it was published last year. Shankar began his presentation with a personal story that immediately drew the interest of his audience.

One thing we can learn from Shankar’s approach is the principle of less text, more visuals.

He delivered his presentation in an engaging manner that appealed to the emotions of his audience. The excellence of Shankar's presentation got him a standing ovation at the end of the speech. Take a cue from Shankar's presentation and make your motivational presentations more visually and emotionally appealing.

You can tweak any of our presentation templates for different purposes. Here’s an example of a great multipurpose template:

If you’re looking to influence the thoughts, actions, or decisions of a group of people, persuasive presentations work.

You can utilize this persuasive style if you want your audience to embrace a new point of view and take action in that regard. But the solution you’re offering won’t just be based on hearsay. You should introduce data, facts, statistics and more to inspire conviction and confidence in your audience.

Salespeople use persuasive presentations to communicate their client’s pain-point and to present their solution as the best fit. These presentations answer the questions “why” and “what’s the best way out.”

This women empowerment presentation template fits perfectly in this category. It explains the true meaning of women's empowerment and showcases the background and history.

It then shows principles backing up their cause from a recognized organization. Lastly, it answers questions like “Why is women's empowerment important”? And “how can I empower women”?

In your presentation, you can convince your audience to prioritize the education and empowerment of women globally by addressing these questions.

To convince your audience to take action, it's important to position your solution as the superior option and highlight its advantages.

Problem-solution

Unlike the persuasive presentation, where you are trying to convince your audience of the best solution, the problem-solution presentation is slightly different. It discusses various solutions that may benefit your audience and back them up with suggestions.

The main purpose of this type of presentation is to facilitate the decision-making process.

While presenting, you may comprehensively discuss the problem, the cause, the negative impacts and more. You’ll then list the various solutions that will serve your audience and expand on each one to aid better decision-making.

The solutions must be backed up by research or relevant data, including a pros and cons list. Try to project an overall angle on each solution in order to equip your audience with adequate information.

This type of presentation can be used in workplace settings where employees or managers present various solutions to challenges that may sprout occasionally. Thus, the company's leadership has ample information and options to make the best move for the company.

Let’s consider this problem-solution presentation template below:

This presentation begins by exploring the problem the audience faces: finding a home. It lists all the various pain points home buyers or renters have, building a connection with the audience.

After discussing the problem, two options or solutions are presented to the audience. However, there’s a recommendation so the audience can make a well-informed decision.

Hey executives! Looking to cut design costs?

• Spend less time on presentations and more time strategizing
• Ensure your brand looks and feels visually consistent across all your organization's documents
• Impress clients and stakeholders with boardroom ready presentations

The progress presentation delivers updates or progress on a task, project, or goal to a specific audience.

This presentation type aims to enlighten your audience and bring them up to date with the processes that have taken place on a given project. It combines a report, discussion and future projections into the presentation and is usually delivered during a task or project.

The progress presentation can include the current status of the project , important metrics, the problems and how they were addressed and the agenda for completion.

You can also discuss if any deadlines need to be extended or goals need to be refined. The benefit of the progress presentation is that everyone involved in your project can get acquainted with your progress and offer help or solutions along the way.

A great example of this presentation type is the shareholder presentation template.

This progress presentation template updates the company’s shareholders on their current assets, yearly performance revenues and key performance indicators.

This way, shareholders can see the improvement from past years and the current effort the company has made so far to increase its revenue and assets.

Shareholders regain confidence in the company and those who need further clarification are given the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation.

Your progress presentation should always include an overview of the project, task, or company you are sharing progress on.

Don't assume everyone knows what you have been doing. So take your time to explain the concept behind the project before you show your audience your progress.

Selling a Product or Service

If you think you need a separate type of presentation to sell your product or service, you’re absolutely right. And here it is!

You can use this type of presentation if you are trying to sell a new product or gather customer feedback about your product or service. It takes a deep dive into what your product or service is, why it was created, a step-by-step process on how to use it and how your product serves your audience.

What makes this type of presentation stand out is the active demonstration involved in the presentation. You could have live props of your product, including various scenarios where your product is used and demonstrate how your product is utilized in those instances.

If you don't have live props, you can include pictures, videos and other demonstrative material so that your audience can relate and picture themselves using your product, which boosts sales.

It’s best to go all out when you’re using this type of presentation because if you don’t viciously promote your product or service, who will? Utilize body language and gestures when presenting in order to keep the attention of your audience.

This quick recipe product presentation template perfectly fits into this type of presentation.

It first presents a problem that the audience can resonate with and goes on to showcase an ideal client or persona for the product. By giving your ideal customer a name and a face and describing their pain point, your audience can easily relate to them and adopt your solution.

This presentation template gives a step-by-step guide on how to use the product and answers some frequently asked questions in the presentations.

Include a review of your product's features and benefits, with a good CTA after your presentation. This will increase the response rate and prompt your audience to enquire more or purchase your product.

Here are 12 professionally designed presentation templates you can customize right away!

But first, let’s hear what one of our customers has to say about Visme:

I love to present concise information (i.e. sweet and easy) both for PC and mobile devices. Therefore, Visme is great and the learning curve was very manageable. Templates are inspiring. Once in a while I browse through them and use bits and pieces from good looking templates”

Wolfgang H.| Adjunct Professor

Let’s get to the templates.

1 Effective Study Techniques Presentation Template

Expose new study techniques to your students using this stunning presentation template.

This template falls under the educational presentation category. This is because it gives the audience detailed information about concepts that are relevant to them.

The use of high-quality vector icons and vibrant colors makes the presentation slides visually appealing. Remember, your students are learning something new and complex for the first time. Try to make your educational presentation fun, simple and easy to understand.

2 Product Training Interactive Presentation Template

Here we have another educational presentation template that answers a “How to” question.

Use this template to educate your customers on how to effectively use your product, app, tool, or platform to solve their business needs.

This presentation template is fun and engaging because it includes interactive features in its design. You can create an interactive presentation that stands out with popup icons, clickable links and more!

Instead of scheduling meetings, you can instantly produce presentations with Visme's presentation studio and let your audience see them whenever they choose. This can save time for remote teams by lowering the number of hours needed for meetings.

3 Onboarding Presentation Template

This onboarding presentation template is the perfect way to inform your new hires of the key personnel and processes in your company while also instructing them on the first things they need to focus on.

The simple design portrays a calm and inviting layout. This template also creates room to include pictures and visual aids which will boost your employee’s understanding.

This instructional presentation template provides a simple list of important documents that your new employee needs to submit to you, informs them on the office hybrid setup and gives clear instructions on daily reporting times.

This is a perfect instructional presentation template you can customize for your onboarding presentation right away!

4 Instagram Sponsorship Interactive Presentation Template

Who said presentations had to be serious all the time? Host your live training or webinar with this lively instructional presentation template!

This template utilizes colors and pictures that resonate with the intended audience. If you want to customize this template to suit your brand or workshop, you can utilize Visme’s huge library of high-resolution photos and videos.

With a step-by-step process, you can teach your audience exactly how to get sponsored on social media, the best posting times and even the optimal number of hashtags to use in each post.

At the end of your presentation, your audience will leave your workshop with confidence and knowledge to achieve their sponsorship goal.

5 Luxury Safari Presentation Template

If you’re looking to create awareness regarding a cause and inspire others to participate, this is a great presentation template to use.

This template highlights various wildlife, adventures and memorable experiences waiting to happen. It utilizes more photos than words, giving you the opportunity to present from your heart and connect with your audience.

At the end of your presentation, your audience will be motivated to take action toward sustaining wildlife and being an active part of it.

Every great motivational presentation ends with a clear CTA. Do this to ensure you’re guiding your audience to the right places after they’ve been motivated to drive a cause.

6 Charity Presentation Template

Use this template to convince your audience of the importance of their generosity to their immediate community. Show them how giving benefits them the most and present channels where they can give.

If you can’t find the perfect picture that supports your cause, you can check out Visme’s AI graphics generator and have specialized graphics generated for your presentation.

7 Home Appliance Presentation Template

Display your product as the best solution for your client's needs with this home appliance presentation template.

Begin your presentation by exposing the hidden pain points of your customer and how it is impacting their day-to-day living. Back up your findings with research or statistics to help them see the danger of continuing with their problem.

Your customers should know you really care about their pain and want to offer a solution that’ll be of great help to them.

With this template, you can present strong points for your product and even include a tutorial or demonstration video in the presentation! Showcase all the benefits of your product and even offer an incentive or discount to persuade people to buy your product!

8 SEO Tool Product Presentation Template

This interactive and engaging presentation template is perfect if you want to persuade potential customers to use your tool or app to solve their SEO or tech needs.

This presentation template doesn't just state the problem but poses it in question form. It presents statistics that inform the customers of what they’re really missing out on.

Engaging with your customers in this manner simplifies the process of persuading them to utilize your app since they feel like they are making the decisions independently.

Need to be on the move and still meet your presentation deadline? Not to worry, with Visme’s app, you can always create your presentations and collaborate with your team members on the go.`

There are also various ways you can connect with your customers when discussing their pain points and offering solutions. You can check out this guide that shares 29 killer presentation tips to remember for your next presentation.

9 Affordable Housing Non-Profit Presentation Template

Discuss the different solutions that aid affordable housing with this professionally designed presentation template.

This template begins with a problem statement. Here, you can outline your vision or problem statement that guides you to offer various solutions or partner with various organizations for the same cause.

Expand on each solution by presenting stats, quotes from recognized authorities and benefits of each one.

10 Business Development Presentation Template

Showcase your company as the best solution for your client’s needs with this stunning business development presentation template. This template has a clean layout that makes information easy to read and understand.

Highlight your company’s strength, team and history to create a connection with your clients and gain their confidence.

This template also displays the specific services your company offers along with the pricing system. This helps them to make more informed decisions. You can also recommend the best price based on your customer’s needs and budget.

Allow team members to share feedback and make comments on your presentations using Visme’s collaboration feature, ensuring that everyone is on page.

We highly recommend Visme for creating your presentations. However, if you’re still unsure, you can take a look at this article which compares some of the best presentation software .

11 Cryptocurrency Presentation Template

If you own an investment institution or a cryptocurrency firm, then you can use this presentation template to bring your team or clients on board with the current industry rates and trends.

You can update your clients on the following

• Current market cap
• New cryptocurrencies that have entered the market, as well as
• Promising growth trends and projections.

Easily project big data with various charts, graphs and tables in your presentation with Visme’s data visualization tool for better assimilation by your clients.

12 Lifestyle Product Presentation Template

Effectively sell your lifestyle products or services to potential customers using this amazing product presentation template.

Your goal here should be to highlight the best features of your product and the numerous advantages.

This template does justice to that by first engaging the audience in a series of questions that make them aware of a problem. It then talks about the current solution the customer is using but highlights shortcomings.

Ensure to give room for any queries that may arise during or after your presentation and also include a clear CTA that will guide your customers to where and how they can purchase your product.

Use Visme for All Your Presentation Needs

Choosing the right type of presentation will not only help you retain your audience's attention but also drive your point home effectively.

We are confident that with the knowledge you've gained from this guide, you'll be able to deliver your next presentation with ease and success.

If you are ready to start creating amazing presentations and engaging documents, Visme has everything you need.

Visme's presentation software makes it easy for anyone to design and customize presentations, even without graphic design experience. Apart from creating presentations, Visme also provides numerous solutions for project management, sales, marketing, training, HR and more.

Sign up for your Visme account and start creating excellent presentations and visual content today.

Create stunning presentations with Visme

Trusted by leading brands

Recommended content for you:

Create Stunning Content!

Design visual brand experiences for your business whether you are a seasoned designer or a total novice.

About the Author

Olujinmi is a Content writer for Visme who creates human-first SEO content. She loves helping businesses smash their ROI goals with strategic content development and optimization. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her composing songs.

11 Critical Types of Business Presentations (+ Templates)

Learn about the different types of business presentations with examples that drive results. Discover how to choose the right type of presentation for your use case.

Dominika Krukowska

8 minute read

Short answer

What are the main types of business presentations?

There are 11 main types of business presentations:

• Pitch deck presentations
• Sales deck presentations
• Product marketing presentations
• White papers
• Case studies
• Report presentations
• Education & academic presentations
• Business proposal presentations
• Sports sponsorship proposals
• Business plan presentations

You need the right collateral for every aspect of your business in order to succeed.

In today's business world, delivering a compelling presentation isn't just a nice skill - it's a vital one. But if you're not familiar with all the types of presentations your business might need, it's like trying to build a house without all the necessary tools.

Some parts of your business might not get the support they need to stand strong. This can lead to unclear messages, disengaged audiences, and missed opportunities.

That's where this post comes in. Consider it your blueprint for building a solid presentation foundation. You'll learn about all the different types of business presentations, when to use them, and how to make them work wonders for you. In just a few minutes, you'll be ready to turn every presentation into a sturdy pillar for your business success.

Let’s get started!

What are the main business presentation types?

Business presentations come in various forms, each serving a unique purpose and fitting into a specific stage of the sales funnel.

There is a basic set of presentations that no business can flourish without. You should become familiar with these critical presentation types.

11 essential types of business presentations:

1. Pitch deck presentations

Pitch deck presentations are designed to showcase a product, startup, or idea to potential investors. They are typically used during fundraising rounds and are crucial for securing the necessary capital for your business.

Here’s an example of a pitch deck presentation:

Cannasoft - Investment pitch deck

A hard-hitting investment deck of a publicly traded tech company dedicated to medical cannabis manufacturers.

If you want to learn more about pitch decks and how to create one, check out our guides:

What Is a Pitch Deck? A Beginner's Guide to Greatness

What to Include in a Pitch Deck (Slides 99% of Investors Want)

Create a Winning Pitch Deck Investors Love (Examples & Tips)

2. Sales deck presentations

Sales deck presentations are aimed at convincing prospects to buy your product or service. They highlight the unique selling points and benefits of your offering, and explain why you’re the perfect solution provider for your prospects’ specific pain points.

Here’s an example of a sales deck presentation:

Orbiit - Visually narrated sales deck

Visually narrated sales deck of a virtual networking platform telling AND showing readers what's in it for them.

To find out more, read our article on how to make a sales pitch deck that turns ‘Maybe’ to ‘Yes!’ .

3. Product marketing presentations

Product marketing presentations are used in the awareness stage to introduce a new product or feature to the market. They focus on the benefits of the product and how it meets the needs of the target audience.

Here’s an example of a product marketing presentation:

Mayku - Physical product deck

A welcoming physical product deck for immersive introduction to a revolutionary vacuum-forming solution.

4. White papers

A white paper is an in-depth analysis of a problem and its solution. It's a way to establish your expertise and thought leadership in a particular area. White papers are often used in the consideration stage of the funnel to educate potential customers about a complex issue related to your industry or product.

Here’s an example of a white paper:

Drive - Automotive research white-paper

A white-paper showing high-level research on electric vehicle charging wrapped in a stunning interactive experience.

5. Case studies

Case studies showcase a customer success story or outcome. They provide real-world examples of how your product or service has helped a customer, making them a powerful tool for building trust and credibility.

Here’s an example of a case study:

Boom25 - Interactive case study deck

Fun, engaging, and interactive case study of a UK cashback service: mixing business with entertainment.

If you want to learn more, check out our guides:

What Is a Case Study & Customer Success Story?

5 Steps for Writing a Case Study for Business (+Templates)

12 Steps to Create a Business Case Study That Converts

Case Study Format Types: Match Format with Business Goals

6. Report presentations

Report presentations are used to share data-driven insights and findings in the consideration stage. They make complex data accessible and engaging, helping your audience understand and remember the information.

Here’s an example of a report presentation:

Meta - Interactive corporate report

Insights and trends from Israel's thriving consumer-facing industry. A comprehensive review of the B2C ecosystem's performance and future prospects.

7. One-pagers

A one-pager is a brief, informative overview of your solution sent to potential customers in the awareness stage. It's a quick way to communicate the key features and benefits of your product or service, meant to pique the prospects’ curiosity enough to move them down the sales funnel.

Here’s an example of a one-pager presentation:

Octopai - Outbound sales one-pager

An outbound one-pager identifying a problem in modern-day analytics and offering an easy-to-grasp solution.

To find out more about one-pagers, read these guides:

What Is a One-Pager: Types, Benefits & Main Use Cases

Make One-Pagers That Grab Attention, Engage & Convert

Create a Sales One-Pager (Examples, Writing Tips, Templates)

Create a Business Plan One-Pager (+ Proven Templates)

How to Create a Startup One-Pager That Wows Investors

How to Create a Product One-Pager (That Gets People Excited)

8. Education and academic presentations

Education and academic presentations are used for teaching or presenting research findings. They are designed to simplify complex concepts and foster deep understanding.

Here’s an example of an academic presentation:

Research proposal

This school research presentation template is perfect for students who need to present their findings from a research project. The template includes space for a title, introduction, main body, conclusion, and bibliography.

If you need more guidance, we have a blog post on how to write a research proposal , including tips and templates.

9. Business proposal presentations

Business proposal presentations are used to close deals at the end of a sales cycle. They summarize your offering and why it's the best choice for the prospect.

Here’s an example of a business proposal presentation:

RFKeeper - Retail proposal deck

A dynamic, highly visual proposal deck for a retail software provider, designed to grab and keep attention.

For tips on how to create your own, check out our posts:

How to Write a Business Proposal (Examples & Templates)

Make a Winning Business Proposal Presentation in 12 Steps

10. Sports sponsorship proposals

Sports sponsorship proposals are used to secure funding and support for a sports team. They highlight the benefits that the sponsor will receive in return for their investment.

Here’s an example of a sports sponsorship proposal presentation:

Football sponsorship proposal

This bright and energetic template reflects the dynamic nature of sports. With a combination of text-based and interactive slides, you'll easily convey the history of your organization, as well as the team's main drivers and objectives, to make sponsors instantly realize the value for their money.

11. Business plan presentations

Business plan presentations detail a company's strategy and objectives. They are often used to secure funding from investors or to align team members around a common vision and plan.

Here’s an example of a business plan presentation:

General Business Plan

This template has everything you need to create a visual summary of your business idea. Thanks to a range of interactive slides, you'll be able to convey your vision in a way that impresses investors and gets you the necessary buy-in.

If you want to see real-life examples of each presentation type, check out our master post containing 52 perfect presentation examples to set you apart .

What are the main types of presentation use cases?

Presentations are a versatile tool that can be used in a variety of scenarios, both within and outside an organization. Here are some of the key use cases for presentations:

External use cases

Sales: Persuading potential customers to purchase your product or service through compelling storytelling and showcasing benefits.

Funding : Convincing investors to provide capital for your business by demonstrating potential for growth and profitability.

Thought leadership: Establishing your expertise and authority in a specific field by sharing unique insights and perspectives.

Investor relations: Communicating important company information to investors to maintain trust and transparency.

Donor communication: Engaging and updating donors on the impact of their contributions to maintain their support and involvement.

Conference or event presentations: Sharing insights or research findings at a public event to engage the audience and build your reputation.

Partnership presentations: Proposing a collaboration or partnership to another business by highlighting mutual benefits.

Product launch presentations: Introducing a new product to the market with a compelling narrative that highlights its unique features.

Client presentations: Updating clients on progress or delivering project results to maintain their satisfaction and trust.

Training and education presentations: Teaching a new skill or concept to an external audience to enhance their knowledge and skills.

Public relations presentations: Managing the public image of your company by addressing public concerns and highlighting positive actions.

Government or regulatory presentations: Communicating with government agencies or regulatory bodies to ensure compliance and maintain good relations.

Social responsibility presentations: Showcasing your company's efforts to give back to the community to enhance your company's reputation and public image.

Internal use cases

Team meetings: Discussing project updates or new initiatives with your team to ensure everyone is aligned and informed.

Training and onboarding: Introducing new employees to company policies and procedures through employee onboarding software to ensure they are well-equipped to perform their roles.

Strategic planning: Outlining your company's strategic goals and plans to ensure all employees are working toward the same objectives.

Performance reviews: Providing feedback on an employee's performance to help them improve and grow in their role.

Internal reporting: Sharing company performance data with internal stakeholders to keep them informed and make data-driven decisions.

Town hall meetings: Addressing the entire company on key updates or changes to ensure transparency and maintain employee trust.

Change management: Guiding employees through a period of significant change to ensure smooth transition and maintain morale.

Employee engagement and recognition: Celebrating employee achievements and fostering a positive company culture to boost morale and productivity.

Training workshops and seminars: Providing in-depth training on specific topics to employees to enhance their skills and knowledge.

Internal marketing and branding: Promoting company values and culture to employees to foster a sense of belonging and commitment.

How do I choose the right type of presentation for my business?

Choosing the right type of presentation for your business is like picking the right tool for a job. It's all about understanding your needs and resources.

Here's a simple guide to help you make the right choice:

1) Presentation objectives

Start by defining what you want to achieve. Are you aiming to educate, persuade, or inspire? Your objective will shape the type of presentation you need. For instance, if you're looking to secure funding, a compelling pitch deck is your ticket.

2) Target audience

Your audience is your compass. Their needs and expectations will guide your presentation's content and style. For example, a sales deck might resonate with potential customers, while a thought leadership white paper could be more suitable for industry peers.

3) The message

What key message do you want to convey? Ensure your presentation type allows for this message to be communicated effectively. For example, if you're eager to share your company's green thumb, a social responsibility white paper can beautifully showcase your eco-friendly initiatives and their positive effects.

4) Resources

Finally, always take stock of your resources. Time constraints and available data can influence your choice. A one-pager could be more practical than an extensive sales deck when you’re short on time or manpower.

What are the best types of tools to create and improve my presentation?

Creating a compelling presentation is not just about the content, but also about the delivery.

Here are some tools that can help you elevate your presentation game:

Storydoc: This tool allows you to transform static slides into highly-engaging and converting interactive web presentations. It's perfect for creating memorable narratives that captivate your audience from start to finish and gets them to take action.

Think-Cell: If your presentation involves data, Think-Cell is a must-have. It simplifies the creation of complex charts and enhances data visualization, making your insights more digestible and impactful.

VideoScribe: Want to add a touch of animation to your presentation? VideoScribe allows you to create high-quality whiteboard-style animation videos, adding a dynamic element to your content.

Mentimeter: This gamified presentation software allows you to engage your audience with live polls, quizzes, and Q&A sessions, making your presentation a two-way conversation.

Pitcherific: Pitcherific helps you create and practice your pitch speech, making it a great tool for preparing investor presentations.

Create your presentation from a template

Your digital presentation is your passport to powerful communication. Why settle for static, lifeless slides when you can turn your presentation into a dynamic, interactive adventure?

Think of your key messages as stepping stones on an exciting journey, one that keeps your audience engaged from the opening slide to the grand finale. Interactive presentation templates are the perfect vehicle for this journey.

Each template is a canvas waiting for your unique touch.

Grab a template and use it to create your best presentation yet.

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

Found this post useful?

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Get notified as more awesome content goes live.

(No spam, no ads, opt-out whenever)

You've just joined an elite group of people that make the top performing 1% of sales and marketing collateral.

Create your best presentation to date

Try Storydoc interactive presentation maker for 14 days free (keep any presentation you make forever!)