Tome had more than 20 million users and a pitch that AI would replace PowerPoint. In March 2025 it announced it was shutting down its presentation product, switched it off at the end of April, pivoted the company to sales automation as Lightfield, and later sold the Tome brand to AngelList. All those users had turned into about $3.5 million in annual recurring revenue.
Over the same years, Gamma charged early and charged firmly. By late 2025 it had passed $100 million in ARR while staying profitable, then raised $68 million from Andreessen Horowitz at a $2.1 billion valuation. The two companies were in the same category with very different results.
The lesson for buyers in 2026 is simple. A good-looking deck is now a commodity. Dozens of tools make one for less than the price of lunch. The hard part comes after you hit send. Did the buyer open it? Which pricing option did they linger on? Can the quote configure itself? Can they sign without a printer? Does any of that reach your CRM?
That splits the market into two camps. AI deck generators make slides fast. Proposal platforms close deals, and most have added AI writing in the last two years. If you send proposals for a living, the second camp usually matters more, even though the first gets most of the search traffic. Industry estimates put the market at around $1.94 billion in 2025, rising toward roughly $2.43 billion in 2026. Many of the "best AI presentation maker" lists that rank well were written by vendors who placed their own product first. Our ranking rewards winning deals, not pretty slides, and your order may differ depending on how you sell.
Ten tools on one screen
| Tool | Best for | Entry price | Proposal strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Qwilr | Proposals that behave like microsites | $35 per user per month | Block-level engagement scoring, interactive quotes |
| 2. PandaDoc | Quote to signature in one place | $19 to $49 per user per month | E-signature, CPQ and payments |
| 3. Gamma | Fast AI-built decks | $8 to $18 per month | Strongest pure AI generation |
| 4. Proposify | Managers who need process control | Mid double digits | Approvals and follow-up automation |
| 5. Storydoc | Scroll-based visual pitches | From about $20 per user per month | Section drop-off analytics |
| 6. Beautiful.ai | Brand-locked corporate decks | Paid plans only | Outline-first AI workflow |
| 7. GetAccept | Buying committees | Quote based | Digital sales rooms |
| 8. Plus AI | Native slide files | Low double digits | Clean PowerPoint and Google Slides output |
| 9. Microsoft Copilot | Microsoft 365 enterprises | Bundled or add-on | Model choice inside PowerPoint |
| 10. DealHub | Complex configured pricing | Quote based | CPQ-grade quoting |
1. Qwilr: the proposal becomes a web page
Qwilr treats a proposal as a web page, not a document. Buyers scroll through embedded video, set their own pricing in interactive quote tables and sign from the same link, which updates live when you edit it.
The analytics put it first. Qwilr tracks engagement block by block, and its Engagement Algorithm scores each proposal from highly engaged to highly disengaged against thresholds you set. That tells you much more than "they opened the PDF." It integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Zoho, and holds a 4.6 out of 5 rating across more than 1,270 reviews on G2 and Capterra.
The weaknesses: PDF export is poor, layout control is limited, and it won't handle complex contract workflows. Business costs $35 per user per month billed annually, or $39 monthly. Enterprise is $59 per user per month with a 10-seat minimum, which comes to more than $7,000 a year. Salesforce is only on Enterprise. Business keeps just 120 days of analytics history, and teams usually find that out when they try to look back at last quarter.
2. PandaDoc: the deal never leaves the building
PandaDoc is the safest bet for most teams. It covers proposals, quotes, contracts, e-signatures, configure-price-quote and payment collection, so a deal can go from first draft to signed agreement on one platform. With more than 3,000 verified G2 reviews, it also has the most user feedback of anything here.
The pricing is less comfortable. There's a free e-signature tier capped at five documents a month, Starter at $19 per user per month annually, Business at $49, and custom Enterprise. A newer Launch plan charges per document. Otherwise every plan is per seat, so a ten-person Business team costs around $5,880 a year before add-ons, including managers who only approve documents. The Essentials tier was also cut back a couple of years ago, with templates capped and pricing tables removed.
3. Gamma: the best way to build the story
If building the deck is your bottleneck, Gamma is the clear answer. It turns a one-line prompt into a fully designed, card-based deck in under a minute, and version 3.0 added an AI design agent that works from rough notes, documents or links.
Its business record suggests it will be around for a while: roughly 70 million users, more than 400 million pieces of content, over 600,000 paying subscribers, profitable since 2023, all built by about 50 people on $23 million of initial funding. Gamma says 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies have at least one user. Plus costs $8 a month, Pro $18 and Ultra $100.
For proposals, though, there's no e-signature, no quoting engine and no CRM deal tracking, and PowerPoint export flattens the design. Gamma builds the narrative half of a pitch. Pairing it with a proposal tool is a sensible plan.
4. Proposify: built for the person running the pipeline
Proposify is for sales leaders more than individual reps. It focuses on process: approval workflows, governance, a managed content library, pipeline-level analytics and built-in follow-up automation. It has around 1,000 G2 reviews at 4.6 out of 5, with steady praise for the editor and templates. One practical detail: Salesforce is a paid add-on on the Business plan with no seat minimum, so a small Salesforce team will usually pay less here than with Qwilr.
5. Storydoc: see exactly where they stopped reading
Storydoc makes animated, scroll-based proposals that feel more like landing pages than documents. AI handles content and layout, and the analytics show where readers stop scrolling. It suits founders and marketers who pitch visually. Starter is around $20 per user per month. Reported Pro pricing ranges from about $36 to $60 per user per month annually, and there's a custom Teams tier. AI credits reset each month and don't roll over.
6. Beautiful.ai: nobody goes off brand
Beautiful.ai enforces design rules so no one on your team can make an off-brand slide. In March 2026 it released a Context-Aware AI Workflow that drafts a text outline for your approval before designing anything. That fixes a common complaint about early AI tools: twelve finished slides you then had to rebuild. There's no free plan.
7. GetAccept: one room for the whole buying committee
GetAccept is closer to sales enablement than slide design. Its digital sales rooms give every stakeholder one shared space with video, chat and documents, which fits how enterprise purchases work now. If live buyer engagement moves your deals, it beats any deck tool on this list. Pricing is by quote.
8. Plus AI: when procurement demands a .pptx
Some proposals have to arrive as a real PowerPoint or Google Slides file. Plus AI generates directly in those formats instead of exporting to them, so the layout holds up. If your final deliverable is a .pptx, start here.
9. Microsoft Copilot: the vendor you already have
Copilot is the practical choice for organisations that won't approve another vendor, and it now lets you pick faster or more deliberate models inside PowerPoint. Like Gemini in Google Slides, it's better at improving a deck you've already started than building one from a prompt. Use it as a supplement.
10. DealHub: for pricing that breaks spreadsheets
DealHub is for complicated pricing: usage tiers, multi-year ramps, bundled services and regional variation. If reps build quotes by hand and sometimes get them wrong, those mistakes cost more than any subscription. It's sales operations software with a proposal layer on top.
How to choose
Start with what you send. If it's a narrative pitch, Gamma or Storydoc. If it's a priced, signable offer, Qwilr, PandaDoc or Proposify. If it's a mandatory slide file or a complex quote, Plus AI or DealHub. Got a favourite web tool your team couldn't work without? Add it to our vote for the world's most useful websites.
Which tool is best for a small team on a budget?
Gamma is the cheapest way to make a strong deck, and PandaDoc's Starter plan adds signatures without enterprise pricing.
Do these tools replace a CRM?
No. The proposal platforms connect to CRMs such as HubSpot and Salesforce, but they don't replace them.
