Pitch decks6 min read

Pitch Deck Appendix: What to Put in It and How to Design It

A pitch deck appendix is the set of backup slides that sits after your closing slide. You don't present it. You reach for it when an investor asks something the main deck deliberately skipped, like how your CAC breaks down by channel or what your regulatory path looks like.

It's more common than the sample decks online suggest. Writing for TechCrunch, Haje Jan Kamps estimates that more than 70% of decks used in live investor pitches have one or more appendices. Most of the famous example decks you've seen are the short, shareable version.

The trouble is that most appendices get built by accident. Slides that were cut from the main story get dragged to the end and left there. Below is how I decide what earns a place in the back of a deck, and how I design it so you can actually find the right slide while someone is waiting for an answer.

What the appendix is actually for

Your main deck has one job: tell the fundraising story fast enough to win a second meeting. Investors don't give you long. DocSend's study of more than 200 decks, run with Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann, found investors spent an average of 3 minutes and 44 seconds on a deck.

So the main deck can't carry every detail. And it shouldn't try. Kamps makes the point that investors care about different things: one wants the product roadmap, another the operating plan, a third would rather leave financials for a later meeting. If you go deep on your patent portfolio in the main deck, you spend minutes on something half the room doesn't care about.

The appendix fixes that. Detail stays available for the investor who wants it, and out of the way of the one who doesn't. eChai Ventures has the neatest summary I've seen: "The main deck earns interest; the appendix survives due diligence."

What to put in a pitch deck appendix

Start from the questions you actually get asked. Kamps suggests watching for patterns in the questions that come up in pitch meetings, and asking whether a topic would realistically come up in a board meeting. If it would, it's a candidate.

In practice, the slides that show up again and again across the guides I read, and in the decks I rebuild, fall into a few groups:

  • Financial detail: the full model summary, assumptions behind revenue and hiring, and unit economics with the maths shown. Alejandro Cremades at Startup Fundraising suggests a 3-year projection, monthly for the first 12 to 24 months.
  • A detailed use of funds: the long version of the chart on your use of funds slide, broken down by team and quarter.
  • Product and technology: a 12 to 18 month roadmap, an architecture diagram for complex platforms, and patents or IP strategy.
  • Go-to-market depth: funnel maths, CAC by channel, a pipeline by stage for B2B companies, and plans by region or vertical.
  • Competition in full: the detailed matrix or SWOT that would crowd your main competition slide.
  • Industry-specific material: regulatory approval plans for FDA or FCC routes, or manufacturing and supply chain detail for hardware, both of which Kamps singles out.
  • Customer case studies and expanded team bios for people who didn't fit on the team slide.

What doesn't belong in the appendix

The appendix is not a recycling bin. Cremades calls the unstructured data dump the cardinal sin, and he's right: an investor isn't going to read it.

Here's the test I use. If a slide answers a question someone might reasonably ask, it can go in the back. If it only exists because cutting it felt painful, delete it. A slide about your office culture or a second version of the problem slide doesn't answer anything.

The other mistake runs the opposite way. Anything an investor needs to understand the business belongs in the main deck, not the back. If your traction or your ask is hiding at slide 27, it may as well not be there. eChai's rule is simple: if a slide isn't advancing the narrative, it belongs in the back. The reverse is true too.

How many slides should a pitch deck appendix have?

There's no official number, and the sources don't agree on one. Cremades recommends 10 to 20 slides for the appendix you bring into a live meeting, and says 10 to 30 is a common range. Kamps doesn't give a figure at all; he just says include what helps the story.

My view: fewer than you think. Ten well-labelled slides you can find in five seconds beat thirty you have to scroll through while an investor watches. If the appendix is getting longer than the main deck, that's usually a sign you're answering questions nobody has asked yet. For the main deck itself, I've written separately about how long a pitch deck should be at each stage.

How to design a pitch deck appendix you can use live

This is the part most guides skim over, and it's where an appendix usually fails. The content is fine. Nobody can find anything.

An investor asks about churn by cohort. You know there's a slide for it. You start clicking through the back of the deck, the room goes quiet, and by the time you land on it the moment has passed. Cremades puts it bluntly: "I'll get back to you on that" is the sound of an opportunity dying. Fumbling for the slide isn't much better.

So I design the appendix for retrieval, not for reading. These are the rules I follow:

  • Open it with a contents slide. Cremades recommends labelling slides A1, A2 and so on, so you can say "that's A4" and go straight there.
  • Group slides into clusters with a divider slide for each, such as Financials, Product and Market. The Pitch suggests this cluster structure and calls organisation key.
  • Add internal links. A small, quiet link on your main competition slide that jumps to the full analysis, and a "back to deck" link on every appendix slide, so you're never stranded. The Pitch recommends linking from main slides to the matching cluster.
  • Keep the same grid, type and colours as the main deck. An appendix that looks like it came from a different company makes investors wonder which version of the numbers is current.
  • Allow more density, but not chaos. These slides can carry tables and smaller type because they're discussed one at a time. Each one still needs a headline that states the answer, and labelled axes on every chart.
  • Test it before the meeting. Present from the exact file and software you'll use on the day, click every link, and make sure you know the presenter-view shortcut for jumping to a slide number.

Should you send the appendix with your deck?

Usually not in the first email. Cremades advises keeping two files: a core deck you send, and a separate appendix or deep-dive pack you share only when an investor asks for more. His phrasing: never send the appendix unsolicited.

I agree, mostly for a design reason. A cold investor opening a 40-page PDF sees a long document, not a sharp story. Send the short version, keep the appendix ready, and share it when someone asks. That request is a good sign anyway.

If you'd like help building both versions from one master file, here's how I work and what it costs.

Frequently asked

Where does the appendix go in a pitch deck?

After your closing or thank-you slide. Everything before that slide is the story you present; everything after it is backup you only open when an investor asks a question it answers.

Do you present the appendix slides?

No. You present the main deck and use appendix slides only to answer specific questions in the room. Answer the question out loud first, then offer to show the slide if the investor wants the detail.

Should financial projections go in the main deck or the appendix?

Both, at different depths. Keep a single summary of revenue, burn and key milestones in the main deck, and put the detailed model, assumptions and unit economics in the appendix for investors who want to check the maths.

Want this done for your deck?

I design pitch decks, sales decks and board reports for founders and executives.

Start a project
← All articles