What should the last slide of a presentation be?

The slide that stays up

Every other slide is on screen for a minute or two. The last one often stays for ten, through the closing remarks, the applause, the question period and the moment people take a photograph. That makes it valuable space. It is also the slide most likely to be remembered, because it is the most recent. Guy Kawasaki's ten slide list for pitches ends with summary and call to action, and Nancy Duarte's work on presentation structure describes strong talks as ending with a clear call to action alongside a picture of what the future looks like if the audience acts. Neither ends on gratitude alone.

Four jobs a closing slide can do

A closing slide can ask, stating the decision, investment or commitment being requested. It can summarise, restating the three points that matter so the question period stays anchored. It can connect, giving the contact details, link or next meeting date the audience needs to act. Or it can land the idea, repeating the central claim of the talk in one line. Choose by what should happen after the talk. If the audience is meant to decide, ask. If they are meant to discuss, summarise. If they are meant to follow up, connect. If they are meant to think differently, land the idea.

Why thank you is not enough

Thanking the audience is good manners and belongs in what the presenter says. On the slide, it uses the most looked at space in the deck to say nothing about the content. It also gives the audience nothing to write down, nothing to photograph and nothing to ask about. A thank you can share the slide with something useful, such as the ask or a contact line, which is a reasonable compromise when convention demands it. The one case for a pure thank you is a keynote designed to end on applause rather than discussion, where the final spoken line carries the idea.

Common mistakes

The first is ending on the last content slide, leaving a dense chart on screen during questions. The second is a questions slide with a large question mark and nothing else, which prompts silence rather than questions. The third is a contact slide with six channels when one email address would do. The fourth is an ask buried in the second to last slide and then covered by a thank you. The fifth is a closing line that introduces a new idea the talk never argued. The sixth is links that only work on screen, when the deck will be sent as a PDF in which nothing is clickable, so any address must be written out in full.

Writing the closing line

Chris Anderson's official guide to public speaking from TED recommends that speakers who do not script a whole talk still script the opening and the closing, because those are the parts that matter most and the easiest to fumble under pressure. The same applies to the slide. Draft the closing slide before the middle of the deck, so everything else builds toward it. If the last slide cannot be written, the talk usually does not yet know what it wants from the audience.

Where it shows up in the product

Closing is one of the 26 slide roles here, and a separate closing slide page covers its templates, contact rows and call to action layouts. Takeaway is a separate role for what should be remembered, so a deck followed by questions can end with a takeaway slide and then a closing slide. The brand presentation example on this site ends on the decision the board is asked to make rather than a thank you. When writing the brief, say what the last slide should do and supply the exact email or link you want shown, then check it before sharing. Buttons on slides are artwork with a label rather than working links, and nothing in a PDF export is clickable, so addresses belong on the slide in full.

Questions people ask