how many pages does a business plan have

How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)

Updated: Apr 17, 2024, 11:59am

Table of Contents

Brainstorm an executive summary, create a company description, brainstorm your business goals, describe your services or products, conduct market research, create financial plans, bottom line, frequently asked questions.

Every business starts with a vision, which is distilled and communicated through a business plan. In addition to your high-level hopes and dreams, a strong business plan outlines short-term and long-term goals, budget and whatever else you might need to get started. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to write a business plan that you can stick to and help guide your operations as you get started.

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Drafting the Summary

An executive summary is an extremely important first step in your business. You have to be able to put the basic facts of your business in an elevator pitch-style sentence to grab investors’ attention and keep their interest. This should communicate your business’s name, what the products or services you’re selling are and what marketplace you’re entering.

Ask for Help

When drafting the executive summary, you should have a few different options. Enlist a few thought partners to review your executive summary possibilities to determine which one is best.

After you have the executive summary in place, you can work on the company description, which contains more specific information. In the description, you’ll need to include your business’s registered name , your business address and any key employees involved in the business. 

The business description should also include the structure of your business, such as sole proprietorship , limited liability company (LLC) , partnership or corporation. This is the time to specify how much of an ownership stake everyone has in the company. Finally, include a section that outlines the history of the company and how it has evolved over time.

Wherever you are on the business journey, you return to your goals and assess where you are in meeting your in-progress targets and setting new goals to work toward.

Numbers-based Goals

Goals can cover a variety of sections of your business. Financial and profit goals are a given for when you’re establishing your business, but there are other goals to take into account as well with regard to brand awareness and growth. For example, you might want to hit a certain number of followers across social channels or raise your engagement rates.

Another goal could be to attract new investors or find grants if you’re a nonprofit business. If you’re looking to grow, you’ll want to set revenue targets to make that happen as well.

Intangible Goals

Goals unrelated to traceable numbers are important as well. These can include seeing your business’s advertisement reach the general public or receiving a terrific client review. These goals are important for the direction you take your business and the direction you want it to go in the future.

The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you’re offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit in the current market or are providing something necessary or entirely new. If you have any patents or trademarks, this is where you can include those too.

If you have any visual aids, they should be included here as well. This would also be a good place to include pricing strategy and explain your materials.

This is the part of the business plan where you can explain your expertise and different approach in greater depth. Show how what you’re offering is vital to the market and fills an important gap.

You can also situate your business in your industry and compare it to other ones and how you have a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Other than financial goals, you want to have a budget and set your planned weekly, monthly and annual spending. There are several different costs to consider, such as operational costs.

Business Operations Costs

Rent for your business is the first big cost to factor into your budget. If your business is remote, the cost that replaces rent will be the software that maintains your virtual operations.

Marketing and sales costs should be next on your list. Devoting money to making sure people know about your business is as important as making sure it functions.

Other Costs

Although you can’t anticipate disasters, there are likely to be unanticipated costs that come up at some point in your business’s existence. It’s important to factor these possible costs into your financial plans so you’re not caught totally unaware.

Business plans are important for businesses of all sizes so that you can define where your business is and where you want it to go. Growing your business requires a vision, and giving yourself a roadmap in the form of a business plan will set you up for success.

How do I write a simple business plan?

When you’re working on a business plan, make sure you have as much information as possible so that you can simplify it to the most relevant information. A simple business plan still needs all of the parts included in this article, but you can be very clear and direct.

What are some common mistakes in a business plan?

The most common mistakes in a business plan are common writing issues like grammar errors or misspellings. It’s important to be clear in your sentence structure and proofread your business plan before sending it to any investors or partners.

What basic items should be included in a business plan?

When writing out a business plan, you want to make sure that you cover everything related to your concept for the business,  an analysis of the industry―including potential customers and an overview of the market for your goods or services―how you plan to execute your vision for the business, how you plan to grow the business if it becomes successful and all financial data around the business, including current cash on hand, potential investors and budget plans for the next few years.

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Julia is a writer in New York and started covering tech and business during the pandemic. She also covers books and the publishing industry.

Kelly Main is a Marketing Editor and Writer specializing in digital marketing, online advertising and web design and development. Before joining the team, she was a Content Producer at Fit Small Business where she served as an editor and strategist covering small business marketing content. She is a former Google Tech Entrepreneur and she holds an MSc in International Marketing from Edinburgh Napier University. Additionally, she is a Columnist at Inc. Magazine.

Business Plan Length: How Long Should a Business Plan Be?

Fifteen to 25 pages is enough room to explain your business’ vision and excite readers to support your company. Importantly, your business plan is not supposed to answer every question someone might possibly have about your business. Rather, it is to give the reader a solid understanding of your business, and allow them to make an informed decision as to whether they should meet with you to take next steps such as to fund or partner with your business.

Having written thousands of business plans over the past 20+ years, Growthink’s business plan consultants have found 15 to 25 pages of text to be the sweet spot. Any more and the time-constrained investor will be forced to skim certain sections of the plan, even if they are generally interested, which could lead them to miss essential information. Any less and the investor will think that the business has not been fully thought through, or will simply not have enough information to make an investment decision.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here

These essential components, taken from our best business plan template , are as follows:

• Executive Summary
• Company Overview
• Industry Analysis
• Customer Analysis
• Competitive Analysis
• Marketing Plan
• Operations Plan
• Management Team
• Financial Plan

Business plans, like other marketing communications documents, should be visually appealing and easy-to-read. This can be accomplished by using charts and graphics and by formatting the plan for readability. Effectively using these techniques will enable the investor to more quickly and easily understand the company’s value proposition within fewer pages.

While a business plan writer should make the body of document between 15 and 25 pages, the Appendix can be used for supplemental information, thus potentially making your full plan longer.

The Appendix should include a full set of financial projections, and as appropriate, technical and/or operational drawings, partnership and/or customer agreements, expanded competitor reviews, and lists of key customers among others.

If the Appendix is long, if you a printing it out, a divider should be used to separate it from the body of the plan, or a separate Appendix document should be prepared. These techniques ensure that the investor is not handed a thick plan, which will make them queasy before even opening it up.

To summarize, the goal of your plan is to create interest – not to have an investor write you a check.

In creating interest, the full story of your company need not be told. Rather, the plan should include the essential elements regarding why an investor should invest and spend more time examining the business opportunity.

The shorter length does not mean that your plan should take less time to prepare. Rather, the entire process will take more time. As Mark Twain once said, “If I had more time, I would write a shorter story.”

So, in answering how long should a business plan be, you can keep it short, yet quite compelling and comprehensive. While condensing your plan to a concise, strong document is challenging and time consuming, fortunately the rewards are significant.

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How Many Pages Is a Business Plan?

How many pages is a business plan? In reality, a quality business plan is not based on page length. 3 min read updated on February 01, 2023

How many pages is a business plan? In reality, a quality business plan is not based on page length. It should be measured by readability and how well it summarizes the business plan. A business plan should give the reader a solid overview and idea of the main contents in under fifteen minutes. If the reader skims the document, proper formatting including headings, white space and graphics will help relay the main points of the business plan.

Pages in a Business Plan

Business plan length will depend on the intended use of the plan and how it will be distributed. Length will also depend on what will be included. Questions to consider when planning a business plan include:

• Will a company description be included?
• Will the management team biographies be listed?
• Will an executive summary be sufficient?
• Will detailed research, blueprints and drawings be included?
• Will the language meet legal requirements if used as part of an investment proposal?

If the writer has a page length expectation rough guidelines are:

• Ten to fifteen pages are sufficient for small, internal reports.
• Corporate business plans can be hundreds of pages long.
• Startup and expansion plans used for potential investors, vendors or other business partners can be 20 to 40 pages.
• Venture contests limit page length (including the appendix with financial information), at a minimum 30 pages, and in some rare instances as many as 50 pages.

Elements of a Business Plan

All business plans should be:

• Easy to read.
• Text should be properly spaced.
• Formatting, including bullets, should be used for increased readability.
• Include illustrated charts and tables.
• Have an appendix with all relevant financial details.

Business plans should never be shortened by removing pertinent graphics. For the reader, graphics are an easier way to absorb important information including tables for:

• Income statements
• Balance sheets
• Annual numbers

Photographs and drawings are helpful when showing:

• Samples menus

While graphics, photographs and drawings are very beneficial, don't include material that is not relevant to the business plan. The irrelevant material will distract the reader.

Business Plan Mistakes

Many business plans do not successfully showcase their viable business because the plan is not written well. Mistakes and elements that should be reviewed include the following:

• The plan is written poorly and includes significant issues with spelling, grammar and punctuation. Investors see these types of errors as a lack of attention to detail and raise the concern of what else is wrong with the business. If the plan is riddled with errors, investors are likely to move on to the next plan without hesitation. To avoid this, you should use spell check and have other people edit and proofread the document.
• Authoritative
• Margins that are inconsistent throughout the document.
• Page numbers are missing.
• Charts are not properly labeled or show incorrect units of measurement.
• Tables do not have headings.
• Technical terms are not explained.
• A table of contents is not included.
• Products and services
• Management team
• Competitors
• Industry trends
• Market growth (positive or negative)
• Financial Projections
• Monthly cashflow
• Annual balance sheets covering three years
• The plan should not be vague and difficult to follow. If the plan includes proprietary information, consider showing an executive summary first. Executive summaries can show important information while not including any confidential information. If interest exists after reading the executive summary, using nondisclosure and noncompete will protect the information included in the business plan. In some cases, investors and venture capitalists will not agree to sign any agreements due to the associated legal fees.
• The plan includes too much information. If there is technical information overload, investors may be overwhelmed. The technical information should be in an appendix, rather than the main body of the business plan.

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How to Write a Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + Examples

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated May 7, 2024

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. 

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

• The basics of business planning

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan . 

You understand that planning helps you: 

• Raise money
• Grow strategically
• Keep your business on the right track 

As you start to write your plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. 

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. 

After completing your plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business. 

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create. 

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

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• What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. 

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

• A summary of the problem you are solving
• A description of your product or service
• An overview of your target market
• A brief description of your team
• A summary of your financials
• Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

This is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service. 

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business. 

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market. 

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.” 

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market. 

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers. 

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service. 

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics. 

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement . 

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning. 

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy . 

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services. 

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer. 

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process. 

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

The operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like. 

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

• Supply chain management
• Manufacturing processes
• Equipment and technology
• Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains. 

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

• A description of each task
• The proposed due date
• Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap. 

Possible milestones might be:

• Website launch date
• Store or office opening date
• First significant sales
• Break even date
• Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs
• Profit per customer
• Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality. 

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before? 

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

• Sole proprietor
• Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided? 

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

Last, but certainly not least, is your financial plan chapter. 

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast. 

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

• Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
• Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
• Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
• Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
• Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business. 

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

• Company logo
• Business name
• Value proposition (optional)
• Business plan title
• Completion and/or update date
• Address and contact information
• Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI for your business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity. 

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers. 

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

• Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .  

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project. 

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure. 

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it. 

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template. 

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses. 

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples . 

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started. 

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

• Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality. 
• Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
• Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
• Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
• Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas. 

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

• Did you meet your sales goals?
• Is spending following your budget?
• Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets. 

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees. 

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

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How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Having a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

• Write a brief executive summary
• Describe your products and services.
• Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
• Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
• Outline your organizational structure and management team.
• Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
• Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

• 1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
• Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
• Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
• Failing to establish a sound business model.
• Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

• How will your business make money?
• Is there a need for your product or service?
• Who are your customers?
• How are you different from the competition?
• How will you reach your customers?
• How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Use AI to help write your plan
• Common planning mistakes
• Manage with your business plan
• Templates and examples

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How to Write a Business Plan in 9 Steps (+ Template and Examples)

Every successful business has one thing in common, a good and well-executed business plan. A business plan is more than a document, it is a complete guide that outlines the goals your business wants to achieve, including its financial goals . It helps you analyze results, make strategic decisions, show your business operations and growth.

If you want to start a business or already have one and need to pitch it to investors for funding, writing a good business plan improves your chances of attracting financiers. As a startup, if you want to secure loans from financial institutions, part of the requirements involve submitting your business plan.

Writing a business plan does not have to be a complicated or time-consuming process. In this article, you will learn the step-by-step process for writing a successful business plan.

You will also learn what you need a business plan for, tips and strategies for writing a convincing business plan, business plan examples and templates that will save you tons of time, and the alternatives to the traditional business plan.

Let’s get started.

What Do You Need A Business Plan For?

Businesses create business plans for different purposes such as to secure funds, monitor business growth, measure your marketing strategies, and measure your business success.

1. Secure Funds

One of the primary reasons for writing a business plan is to secure funds, either from financial institutions/agencies or investors.

For you to effectively acquire funds, your business plan must contain the key elements of your business plan . For example, your business plan should include your growth plans, goals you want to achieve, and milestones you have recorded.

A business plan can also attract new business partners that are willing to contribute financially and intellectually. If you are writing a business plan to a bank, your project must show your traction , that is, the proof that you can pay back any loan borrowed.

Also, if you are writing to an investor, your plan must contain evidence that you can effectively utilize the funds you want them to invest in your business. Here, you are using your business plan to persuade a group or an individual that your business is a source of a good investment.

2. Monitor Business Growth

A business plan can help you track cash flows in your business. It steers your business to greater heights. A business plan capable of tracking business growth should contain:

• The business goals
• Methods to achieve the goals
• Time-frame for attaining those goals

A good business plan should guide you through every step in achieving your goals. It can also track the allocation of assets to every aspect of the business. You can tell when you are spending more than you should on a project.

You can compare a business plan to a written GPS. It helps you manage your business and hints at the right time to expand your business.

3. Measure Business Success

A business plan can help you measure your business success rate. Some small-scale businesses are thriving better than more prominent companies because of their track record of success.

Right from the onset of your business operation, set goals and work towards them. Write a plan to guide you through your procedures. Use your plan to measure how much you have achieved and how much is left to attain.

You can also weigh your success by monitoring the position of your brand relative to competitors. On the other hand, a business plan can also show you why you have not achieved a goal. It can tell if you have elapsed the time frame you set to attain a goal.

4. Document Your Marketing Strategies

You can use a business plan to document your marketing plans. Every business should have an effective marketing plan.

Competition mandates every business owner to go the extraordinary mile to remain relevant in the market. Your business plan should contain your marketing strategies that work. You can measure the success rate of your marketing plans.

In your business plan, your marketing strategy must answer the questions:

• How do you want to reach your target audience?
• How do you plan to retain your customers?
• What is/are your pricing plans?
• What is your budget for marketing?

How to Write a Business Plan Step-by-Step

1. create your executive summary.

The executive summary is a snapshot of your business or a high-level overview of your business purposes and plans . Although the executive summary is the first section in your business plan, most people write it last. The length of the executive summary is not more than two pages.

Generally, there are nine sections in a business plan, the executive summary should condense essential ideas from the other eight sections.

A good executive summary should do the following:

• A Snapshot of Growth Potential. Briefly inform the reader about your company and why it will be successful)
• Contain your Mission Statement which explains what the main objective or focus of your business is.
• Product Description and Differentiation. Brief description of your products or services and why it is different from other solutions in the market.
• The Team. Basic information about your company’s leadership team and employees
• Business Concept. A solid description of what your business does.
• Target Market. The customers you plan to sell to.
• Marketing Strategy. Your plans on reaching and selling to your customers
• Current Financial State. Brief information about what revenue your business currently generates.
• Projected Financial State. Brief information about what you foresee your business revenue to be in the future.

The executive summary is the make-or-break section of your business plan. If your summary cannot in less than two pages cannot clearly describe how your business will solve a particular problem of your target audience and make a profit, your business plan is set on a faulty foundation.

Avoid using the executive summary to hype your business, instead, focus on helping the reader understand the what and how of your plan.

View the executive summary as an opportunity to introduce your vision for your company. You know your executive summary is powerful when it can answer these key questions:

• Who is your target audience?
• What sector or industry are you in?
• What are your products and services?
• What is the future of your industry?
• Is your company scaleable?
• Who are the owners and leaders of your company? What are their backgrounds and experience levels?
• What is the motivation for starting your company?
• What are the next steps?

Writing the executive summary last although it is the most important section of your business plan is an excellent idea. The reason why is because it is a high-level overview of your business plan. It is the section that determines whether potential investors and lenders will read further or not.

The executive summary can be a stand-alone document that covers everything in your business plan. It is not uncommon for investors to request only the executive summary when evaluating your business. If the information in the executive summary impresses them, they will ask for the complete business plan.

If you are writing your business plan for your planning purposes, you do not need to write the executive summary.

2. Add Your Company Overview

The company overview or description is the next section in your business plan after the executive summary. It describes what your business does.

Adding your company overview can be tricky especially when your business is still in the planning stages. Existing businesses can easily summarize their current operations but may encounter difficulties trying to explain what they plan to become.

Your company overview should contain the following:

• What products and services you will provide
• Geographical markets and locations your company have a presence
• What you need to run your business
• Who your target audience or customers are
• Who will service your customers
• Your company’s purpose, mission, and vision
• Information about your company’s founders
• Who the founders are
• Notable achievements of your company so far

When creating a company overview, you have to focus on three basics: identifying your industry, identifying your customer, and explaining the problem you solve.

If you are stuck when creating your company overview, try to answer some of these questions that pertain to you.

• Who are you targeting? (The answer is not everyone)
• What pain point does your product or service solve for your customers that they will be willing to spend money on resolving?
• How does your product or service overcome that pain point?
• Where is the location of your business?
• What products, equipment, and services do you need to run your business?
• How is your company’s product or service different from your competition in the eyes of your customers?
• How many employees do you need and what skills do you require them to have?

After answering some or all of these questions, you will get more than enough information you need to write your company overview or description section. When writing this section, describe what your company does for your customers.

The company description or overview section contains three elements: mission statement, history, and objectives.

• Mission Statement

The mission statement refers to the reason why your business or company is existing. It goes beyond what you do or sell, it is about the ‘why’. A good mission statement should be emotional and inspirational.

Your mission statement should follow the KISS rule (Keep It Simple, Stupid). For example, Shopify’s mission statement is “Make commerce better for everyone.”

When describing your company’s history, make it simple and avoid the temptation of tying it to a defensive narrative. Write it in the manner you would a profile. Your company’s history should include the following information:

• Founding Date
• Major Milestones
• Location(s)
• Flagship Products or Services
• Number of Employees
• Executive Leadership Roles

When you fill in this information, you use it to write one or two paragraphs about your company’s history.

Business Objectives

Your business objective must be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.) Failure to clearly identify your business objectives does not inspire confidence and makes it hard for your team members to work towards a common purpose.

3. Perform Market and Competitive Analyses to Proof a Big Enough Business Opportunity

The third step in writing a business plan is the market and competitive analysis section. Every business, no matter the size, needs to perform comprehensive market and competitive analyses before it enters into a market.

Performing market and competitive analyses are critical for the success of your business. It helps you avoid entering the right market with the wrong product, or vice versa. Anyone reading your business plans, especially financiers and financial institutions will want to see proof that there is a big enough business opportunity you are targeting.

This section is where you describe the market and industry you want to operate in and show the big opportunities in the market that your business can leverage to make a profit. If you noticed any unique trends when doing your research, show them in this section.

Market analysis alone is not enough, you have to add competitive analysis to strengthen this section. There are already businesses in the industry or market, how do you plan to take a share of the market from them?

You have to clearly illustrate the competitive landscape in your business plan. Are there areas your competitors are doing well? Are there areas where they are not doing so well? Show it.

Make it clear in this section why you are moving into the industry and what weaknesses are present there that you plan to explain. How are your competitors going to react to your market entry? How do you plan to get customers? Do you plan on taking your competitors' competitors, tap into other sources for customers, or both?

Illustrate the competitive landscape as well. What are your competitors doing well and not so well?

Answering these questions and thoughts will aid your market and competitive analysis of the opportunities in your space. Depending on how sophisticated your industry is, or the expectations of your financiers, you may need to carry out a more comprehensive market and competitive analysis to prove that big business opportunity.

Instead of looking at the market and competitive analyses as one entity, separating them will make the research even more comprehensive.

Market Analysis

Market analysis, boarding speaking, refers to research a business carried out on its industry, market, and competitors. It helps businesses gain a good understanding of their target market and the outlook of their industry. Before starting a company, it is vital to carry out market research to find out if the market is viable.

The market analysis section is a key part of the business plan. It is the section where you identify who your best clients or customers are. You cannot omit this section, without it your business plan is incomplete.

A good market analysis will tell your readers how you fit into the existing market and what makes you stand out. This section requires in-depth research, it will probably be the most time-consuming part of the business plan to write.

• Market Research

To create a compelling market analysis that will win over investors and financial institutions, you have to carry out thorough market research . Your market research should be targeted at your primary target market for your products or services. Here is what you want to find out about your target market.

• Your target market’s needs or pain points
• The existing solutions for their pain points
• Geographic Location
• Demographics

The purpose of carrying out a marketing analysis is to get all the information you need to show that you have a solid and thorough understanding of your target audience.

Only after you have fully understood the people you plan to sell your products or services to, can you evaluate correctly if your target market will be interested in your products or services.

You can easily convince interested parties to invest in your business if you can show them you thoroughly understand the market and show them that there is a market for your products or services.

How to Quantify Your Target Market

One of the goals of your marketing research is to understand who your ideal customers are and their purchasing power. To quantify your target market, you have to determine the following:

• Your Potential Customers: They are the people you plan to target. For example, if you sell accounting software for small businesses , then anyone who runs an enterprise or large business is unlikely to be your customers. Also, individuals who do not have a business will most likely not be interested in your product.
• Total Households: If you are selling household products such as heating and air conditioning systems, determining the number of total households is more important than finding out the total population in the area you want to sell to. The logic is simple, people buy the product but it is the household that uses it.
• Median Income: You need to know the median income of your target market. If you target a market that cannot afford to buy your products and services, your business will not last long.
• Income by Demographics: If your potential customers belong to a certain age group or gender, determining income levels by demographics is necessary. For example, if you sell men's clothes, your target audience is men.

What Does a Good Market Analysis Entail?

Your business does not exist on its own, it can only flourish within an industry and alongside competitors. Market analysis takes into consideration your industry, target market, and competitors. Understanding these three entities will drastically improve your company’s chances of success.

You can view your market analysis as an examination of the market you want to break into and an education on the emerging trends and themes in that market. Good market analyses include the following:

• Industry Description. You find out about the history of your industry, the current and future market size, and who the largest players/companies are in your industry.
• Overview of Target Market. You research your target market and its characteristics. Who are you targeting? Note, it cannot be everyone, it has to be a specific group. You also have to find out all information possible about your customers that can help you understand how and why they make buying decisions.
• Size of Target Market: You need to know the size of your target market, how frequently they buy, and the expected quantity they buy so you do not risk overproducing and having lots of bad inventory. Researching the size of your target market will help you determine if it is big enough for sustained business or not.
• Growth Potential: Before picking a target market, you want to be sure there are lots of potential for future growth. You want to avoid going for an industry that is declining slowly or rapidly with almost zero growth potential.
• Market Share Potential: Does your business stand a good chance of taking a good share of the market?
• Market Pricing and Promotional Strategies: Your market analysis should give you an idea of the price point you can expect to charge for your products and services. Researching your target market will also give you ideas of pricing strategies you can implement to break into the market or to enjoy maximum profits.
• Potential Barriers to Entry: One of the biggest benefits of conducting market analysis is that it shows you every potential barrier to entry your business will likely encounter. It is a good idea to discuss potential barriers to entry such as changing technology. It informs readers of your business plan that you understand the market.
• Research on Competitors: You need to know the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and how you can exploit them for the benefit of your business. Find patterns and trends among your competitors that make them successful, discover what works and what doesn’t, and see what you can do better.

The market analysis section is not just for talking about your target market, industry, and competitors. You also have to explain how your company can fill the hole you have identified in the market.

Here are some questions you can answer that can help you position your product or service in a positive light to your readers.

• Is your product or service of superior quality?
• What additional features do you offer that your competitors do not offer?
• Are you targeting a ‘new’ market?

Basically, your market analysis should include an analysis of what already exists in the market and an explanation of how your company fits into the market.

Competitive Analysis

In the competitive analysis section, y ou have to understand who your direct and indirect competitions are, and how successful they are in the marketplace. It is the section where you assess the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, the advantage(s) they possess in the market and show the unique features or qualities that make you different from your competitors.

Many businesses do market analysis and competitive analysis together. However, to fully understand what the competitive analysis entails, it is essential to separate it from the market analysis.

Competitive analysis for your business can also include analysis on how to overcome barriers to entry in your target market.

The primary goal of conducting a competitive analysis is to distinguish your business from your competitors. A strong competitive analysis is essential if you want to convince potential funding sources to invest in your business. You have to show potential investors and lenders that your business has what it takes to compete in the marketplace successfully.

Competitive analysis will s how you what the strengths of your competition are and what they are doing to maintain that advantage.

When doing your competitive research, you first have to identify your competitor and then get all the information you can about them. The idea of spending time to identify your competitor and learn everything about them may seem daunting but it is well worth it.

Find answers to the following questions after you have identified who your competitors are.

• What are your successful competitors doing?
• Why is what they are doing working?
• Can your business do it better?
• What are the weaknesses of your successful competitors?
• What are they not doing well?
• Can your business turn its weaknesses into strengths?
• How good is your competitors’ customer service?
• Where do your competitors invest in advertising?
• What sales and pricing strategies are they using?
• What marketing strategies are they using?
• What kind of press coverage do they get?
• What are their customers saying about your competitors (both the positive and negative)?

If your competitors have a website, it is a good idea to visit their websites for more competitors’ research. Check their “About Us” page for more information.

If you are presenting your business plan to investors, you need to clearly distinguish yourself from your competitors. Investors can easily tell when you have not properly researched your competitors.

Take time to think about what unique qualities or features set you apart from your competitors. If you do not have any direct competition offering your product to the market, it does not mean you leave out the competitor analysis section blank. Instead research on other companies that are providing a similar product, or whose product is solving the problem your product solves.

The next step is to create a table listing the top competitors you want to include in your business plan. Ensure you list your business as the last and on the right. What you just created is known as the competitor analysis table.

Direct vs Indirect Competition

You cannot know if your product or service will be a fit for your target market if you have not understood your business and the competitive landscape.

There is no market you want to target where you will not encounter competition, even if your product is innovative. Including competitive analysis in your business plan is essential.

If you are entering an established market, you need to explain how you plan to differentiate your products from the available options in the market. Also, include a list of few companies that you view as your direct competitors The competition you face in an established market is your direct competition.

In situations where you are entering a market with no direct competition, it does not mean there is no competition there. Consider your indirect competition that offers substitutes for the products or services you offer.

For example, if you sell an innovative SaaS product, let us say a project management software , a company offering time management software is your indirect competition.

There is an easy way to find out who your indirect competitors are in the absence of no direct competitors. You simply have to research how your potential customers are solving the problems that your product or service seeks to solve. That is your direct competition.

Factors that Differentiate Your Business from the Competition

There are three main factors that any business can use to differentiate itself from its competition. They are cost leadership, product differentiation, and market segmentation.

1. Cost Leadership

A strategy you can impose to maximize your profits and gain an edge over your competitors. It involves offering lower prices than what the majority of your competitors are offering.

A common practice among businesses looking to enter into a market where there are dominant players is to use free trials or pricing to attract as many customers as possible to their offer.

2. Product Differentiation

Your product or service should have a unique selling proposition (USP) that your competitors do not have or do not stress in their marketing.

Part of the marketing strategy should involve making your products unique and different from your competitors. It does not have to be different from your competitors, it can be the addition to a feature or benefit that your competitors do not currently have.

3. Market Segmentation

As a new business seeking to break into an industry, you will gain more success from focusing on a specific niche or target market, and not the whole industry.

If your competitors are focused on a general need or target market, you can differentiate yourself from them by having a small and hyper-targeted audience. For example, if your competitors are selling men’s clothes in their online stores , you can sell hoodies for men.

4. Define Your Business and Management Structure

The next step in your business plan is your business and management structure. It is the section where you describe the legal structure of your business and the team running it.

Your business is only as good as the management team that runs it, while the management team can only strive when there is a proper business and management structure in place.

If your company is a sole proprietor or a limited liability company (LLC), a general or limited partnership, or a C or an S corporation, state it clearly in this section.

Use an organizational chart to show the management structure in your business. Clearly show who is in charge of what area in your company. It is where you show how each key manager or team leader’s unique experience can contribute immensely to the success of your company. You can also opt to add the resumes and CVs of the key players in your company.

The business and management structure section should show who the owner is, and other owners of the businesses (if the business has other owners). For businesses or companies with multiple owners, include the percent ownership of the various owners and clearly show the extent of each others’ involvement in the company.

Investors want to know who is behind the company and the team running it to determine if it has the right management to achieve its set goals.

Management Team

The management team section is where you show that you have the right team in place to successfully execute the business operations and ideas. Take time to create the management structure for your business. Think about all the important roles and responsibilities that you need managers for to grow your business.

Include brief bios of each key team member and ensure you highlight only the relevant information that is needed. If your team members have background industry experience or have held top positions for other companies and achieved success while filling that role, highlight it in this section.

A common mistake that many startups make is assigning C-level titles such as (CMO and CEO) to everyone on their team. It is unrealistic for a small business to have those titles. While it may look good on paper for the ego of your team members, it can prevent investors from investing in your business.

Instead of building an unrealistic management structure that does not fit your business reality, it is best to allow business titles to grow as the business grows. Starting everyone at the top leaves no room for future change or growth, which is bad for productivity.

Your management team does not have to be complete before you start writing your business plan. You can have a complete business plan even when there are managerial positions that are empty and need filling.

If you have management gaps in your team, simply show the gaps and indicate you are searching for the right candidates for the role(s). Investors do not expect you to have a full management team when you are just starting your business.

Key Questions to Answer When Structuring Your Management Team

• Who are the key leaders?
• What experiences, skills, and educational backgrounds do you expect your key leaders to have?
• Do your key leaders have industry experience?
• What positions will they fill and what duties will they perform in those positions?
• What level of authority do the key leaders have and what are their responsibilities?
• What is the salary for the various management positions that will attract the ideal candidates?

Additional Tips for Writing the Management Structure Section

1. Avoid Adding ‘Ghost’ Names to Your Management Team

There is always that temptation to include a ‘ghost’ name to your management team to attract and influence investors to invest in your business. Although the presence of these celebrity management team members may attract the attention of investors, it can cause your business to lose any credibility if you get found out.

Seasoned investors will investigate further the members of your management team before committing fully to your business If they find out that the celebrity name used does not play any actual role in your business, they will not invest and may write you off as dishonest.

2. Focus on Credentials But Pay Extra Attention to the Roles

Investors want to know the experience that your key team members have to determine if they can successfully reach the company’s growth and financial goals.

While it is an excellent boost for your key management team to have the right credentials, you also want to pay extra attention to the roles they will play in your company.

Organizational Chart

Adding an organizational chart in this section of your business plan is not necessary, you can do it in your business plan’s appendix.

If you are exploring funding options, it is not uncommon to get asked for your organizational chart. The function of an organizational chart goes beyond raising money, you can also use it as a useful planning tool for your business.

An organizational chart can help you identify how best to structure your management team for maximum productivity and point you towards key roles you need to fill in the future.

You can use the organizational chart to show your company’s internal management structure such as the roles and responsibilities of your management team, and relationships that exist between them.

5. Describe Your Product and Service Offering

In your business plan, you have to describe what you sell or the service you plan to offer. It is the next step after defining your business and management structure. The products and services section is where you sell the benefits of your business.

Here you have to explain how your product or service will benefit your customers and describe your product lifecycle. It is also the section where you write down your plans for intellectual property like patent filings and copyrighting.

The research and development that you are undertaking for your product or service need to be explained in detail in this section. However, do not get too technical, sell the general idea and its benefits.

If you have any diagrams or intricate designs of your product or service, do not include them in the products and services section. Instead, leave them for the addendum page. Also, if you are leaving out diagrams or designs for the addendum, ensure you add this phrase “For more detail, visit the addendum Page #.”

Your product and service section in your business plan should include the following:

• A detailed explanation that clearly shows how your product or service works.
• The pricing model for your product or service.
• Your business’ sales and distribution strategy.
• The ideal customers that want your product or service.
• The benefits of your products and services.
• Reason(s) why your product or service is a better alternative to what your competitors are currently offering in the market.
• Plans for filling the orders you receive
• If you have current or pending patents, copyrights, and trademarks for your product or service, you can also discuss them in this section.

What to Focus On When Describing the Benefits, Lifecycle, and Production Process of Your Products or Services

In the products and services section, you have to distill the benefits, lifecycle, and production process of your products and services.

When describing the benefits of your products or services, here are some key factors to focus on.

• Unique features
• Translating the unique features into benefits
• The emotional, psychological, and practical payoffs to attract customers
• Intellectual property rights or any patents

When describing the product life cycle of your products or services, here are some key factors to focus on.

• Upsells, cross-sells, and down-sells
• Time between purchases
• Plans for research and development.

When describing the production process for your products or services, you need to think about the following:

• The creation of new or existing products and services.
• The sources for the raw materials or components you need for production.
• Assembling the products
• Maintaining quality control
• Supply-chain logistics (receiving the raw materials and delivering the finished products)
• The day-to-day management of the production processes, bookkeeping, and inventory.

Tips for Writing the Products or Services Section of Your Business Plan

1. Avoid Technical Descriptions and Industry Buzzwords

The products and services section of your business plan should clearly describe the products and services that your company provides. However, it is not a section to include technical jargons that anyone outside your industry will not understand.

A good practice is to remove highly detailed or technical descriptions in favor of simple terms. Industry buzzwords are not necessary, if there are simpler terms you can use, then use them. If you plan to use your business plan to source funds, making the product or service section so technical will do you no favors.

2. Describe How Your Products or Services Differ from Your Competitors

When potential investors look at your business plan, they want to know how the products and services you are offering differ from that of your competition. Differentiating your products or services from your competition in a way that makes your solution more attractive is critical.

If you are going the innovative path and there is no market currently for your product or service, you need to describe in this section why the market needs your product or service.

For example, overnight delivery was a niche business that only a few companies were participating in. Federal Express (FedEx) had to show in its business plan that there was a large opportunity for that service and they justified why the market needed that service.

3. Long or Short Products or Services Section

Should your products or services section be short? Does the long products or services section attract more investors?

There are no straightforward answers to these questions. Whether your products or services section should be long or relatively short depends on the nature of your business.

If your business is product-focused, then automatically you need to use more space to describe the details of your products. However, if the product your business sells is a commodity item that relies on competitive pricing or other pricing strategies, you do not have to use up so much space to provide significant details about the product.

Likewise, if you are selling a commodity that is available in numerous outlets, then you do not have to spend time on writing a long products or services section.

The key to the success of your business is most likely the effectiveness of your marketing strategies compared to your competitors. Use more space to address that section.

If you are creating a new product or service that the market does not know about, your products or services section can be lengthy. The reason why is because you need to explain everything about the product or service such as the nature of the product, its use case, and values.

A short products or services section for an innovative product or service will not give the readers enough information to properly evaluate your business.

4. Describe Your Relationships with Vendors or Suppliers

Your business will rely on vendors or suppliers to supply raw materials or the components needed to make your products. In your products and services section, describe your relationships with your vendors and suppliers fully.

Avoid the mistake of relying on only one supplier or vendor. If that supplier or vendor fails to supply or goes out of business, you can easily face supply problems and struggle to meet your demands. Plan to set up multiple vendor or supplier relationships for better business stability.

5. Your Primary Goal Is to Convince Your Readers

The primary goal of your business plan is to convince your readers that your business is viable and to create a guide for your business to follow. It applies to the products and services section.

When drafting this section, think like the reader. See your reader as someone who has no idea about your products and services. You are using the products and services section to provide the needed information to help your reader understand your products and services. As a result, you have to be clear and to the point.

While you want to educate your readers about your products or services, you also do not want to bore them with lots of technical details. Show your products and services and not your fancy choice of words.

Your products and services section should provide the answer to the “what” question for your business. You and your management team may run the business, but it is your products and services that are the lifeblood of the business.

Key Questions to Answer When Writing your Products and Services Section

Answering these questions can help you write your products and services section quickly and in a way that will appeal to your readers.

• Are your products existing on the market or are they still in the development stage?
• What is your timeline for adding new products and services to the market?
• What are the positives that make your products and services different from your competitors?
• Do your products and services have any competitive advantage that your competitors’ products and services do not currently have?
• Do your products or services have any competitive disadvantages that you need to overcome to compete with your competitors? If your answer is yes, state how you plan to overcome them,
• How much does it cost to produce your products or services? How much do you plan to sell it for?
• What is the price for your products and services compared to your competitors? Is pricing an issue?
• What are your operating costs and will it be low enough for you to compete with your competitors and still take home a reasonable profit margin?
• What is your plan for acquiring your products? Are you involved in the production of your products or services?
• Are you the manufacturer and produce all the components you need to create your products? Do you assemble your products by using components supplied by other manufacturers? Do you purchase your products directly from suppliers or wholesalers?
• Do you have a steady supply of products that you need to start your business? (If your business is yet to kick-off)
• How do you plan to distribute your products or services to the market?

You can also hint at the marketing or promotion plans you have for your products or services such as how you plan to build awareness or retain customers. The next section is where you can go fully into details about your business’s marketing and sales plan.

6. Show and Explain Your Marketing and Sales Plan

Providing great products and services is wonderful, but it means nothing if you do not have a marketing and sales plan to inform your customers about them. Your marketing and sales plan is critical to the success of your business.

The sales and marketing section is where you show and offer a detailed explanation of your marketing and sales plan and how you plan to execute it. It covers your pricing plan, proposed advertising and promotion activities, activities and partnerships you need to make your business a success, and the benefits of your products and services.

There are several ways you can approach your marketing and sales strategy. Ideally, your marketing and sales strategy has to fit the unique needs of your business.

In this section, you describe how the plans your business has for attracting and retaining customers, and the exact process for making a sale happen. It is essential to thoroughly describe your complete marketing and sales plans because you are still going to reference this section when you are making financial projections for your business.

Outline Your Business’ Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

The sales and marketing section is where you outline your business’s unique selling proposition (USP). When you are developing your unique selling proposition, think about the strongest reasons why people should buy from you over your competition. That reason(s) is most likely a good fit to serve as your unique selling proposition (USP).

Target Market and Target Audience

Plans on how to get your products or services to your target market and how to get your target audience to buy them go into this section. You also highlight the strengths of your business here, particularly what sets them apart from your competition.

Before you start writing your marketing and sales plan, you need to have properly defined your target audience and fleshed out your buyer persona. If you do not first understand the individual you are marketing to, your marketing and sales plan will lack any substance and easily fall.

Creating a Smart Marketing and Sales Plan

Marketing your products and services is an investment that requires you to spend money. Like any other investment, you have to generate a good return on investment (ROI) to justify using that marketing and sales plan. Good marketing and sales plans bring in high sales and profits to your company.

Avoid spending money on unproductive marketing channels. Do your research and find out the best marketing and sales plan that works best for your company.

Your marketing and sales plan can be broken into different parts: your positioning statement, pricing, promotion, packaging, advertising, public relations, content marketing, social media, and strategic alliances.

Your Positioning Statement

Your positioning statement is the first part of your marketing and sales plan. It refers to the way you present your company to your customers.

Are you the premium solution, the low-price solution, or are you the intermediary between the two extremes in the market? What do you offer that your competitors do not that can give you leverage in the market?

Before you start writing your positioning statement, you need to spend some time evaluating the current market conditions. Here are some questions that can help you to evaluate the market

• What are the unique features or benefits that you offer that your competitors lack?
• What are your customers’ primary needs and wants?
• Why should a customer choose you over your competition? How do you plan to differentiate yourself from the competition?
• How does your company’s solution compare with other solutions in the market?

After answering these questions, then you can start writing your positioning statement. Your positioning statement does not have to be in-depth or too long.

All you need to explain with your positioning statement are two focus areas. The first is the position of your company within the competitive landscape. The other focus area is the core value proposition that sets your company apart from other alternatives that your ideal customer might consider.

Here is a simple template you can use to develop a positioning statement.

For [description of target market] who [need of target market], [product or service] [how it meets the need]. Unlike [top competition], it [most essential distinguishing feature].

For example, let’s create the positioning statement for fictional accounting software and QuickBooks alternative , TBooks.

“For small business owners who need accounting services, TBooks is an accounting software that helps small businesses handle their small business bookkeeping basics quickly and easily. Unlike Wave, TBooks gives small businesses access to live sessions with top accountants.”

You can edit this positioning statement sample and fill it with your business details.

After writing your positioning statement, the next step is the pricing of your offerings. The overall positioning strategy you set in your positioning statement will often determine how you price your products or services.

Pricing is a powerful tool that sends a strong message to your customers. Failure to get your pricing strategy right can make or mar your business. If you are targeting a low-income audience, setting a premium price can result in low sales.

You can use pricing to communicate your positioning to your customers. For example, if you are offering a product at a premium price, you are sending a message to your customers that the product belongs to the premium category.

Basic Rules to Follow When Pricing Your Offering

Setting a price for your offering involves more than just putting a price tag on it. Deciding on the right pricing for your offering requires following some basic rules. They include covering your costs, primary and secondary profit center pricing, and matching the market rate.

• Covering Your Costs: The price you set for your products or service should be more than it costs you to produce and deliver them. Every business has the same goal, to make a profit. Depending on the strategy you want to use, there are exceptions to this rule. However, the vast majority of businesses follow this rule.
• Primary and Secondary Profit Center Pricing: When a company sets its price above the cost of production, it is making that product its primary profit center. A company can also decide not to make its initial price its primary profit center by selling below or at even with its production cost. It rather depends on the support product or even maintenance that is associated with the initial purchase to make its profit. The initial price thus became its secondary profit center.
• Matching the Market Rate: A good rule to follow when pricing your products or services is to match your pricing with consumer demand and expectations. If you price your products or services beyond the price your customer perceives as the ideal price range, you may end up with no customers. Pricing your products too low below what your customer perceives as the ideal price range may lead to them undervaluing your offering.

Pricing Strategy

Your pricing strategy influences the price of your offering. There are several pricing strategies available for you to choose from when examining the right pricing strategy for your business. They include cost-plus pricing, market-based pricing, value pricing, and more.

• Cost-plus Pricing: This strategy is one of the simplest and oldest pricing strategies. Here you consider the cost of producing a unit of your product and then add a profit to it to arrive at your market price. It is an effective pricing strategy for manufacturers because it helps them cover their initial costs. Another name for the cost-plus pricing strategy is the markup pricing strategy.
• Market-based Pricing: This pricing strategy analyses the market including competitors’ pricing and then sets a price based on what the market is expecting. With this pricing strategy, you can either set your price at the low-end or high-end of the market.
• Value Pricing: This pricing strategy involves setting a price based on the value you are providing to your customer. When adopting a value-based pricing strategy, you have to set a price that your customers are willing to pay. Service-based businesses such as small business insurance providers , luxury goods sellers, and the fashion industry use this pricing strategy.

After carefully sorting out your positioning statement and pricing, the next item to look at is your promotional strategy. Your promotional strategy explains how you plan on communicating with your customers and prospects.

As a business, you must measure all your costs, including the cost of your promotions. You also want to measure how much sales your promotions bring for your business to determine its usefulness. Promotional strategies or programs that do not lead to profit need to be removed.

There are different types of promotional strategies you can adopt for your business, they include advertising, public relations, and content marketing.

Advertising

Your business plan should include your advertising plan which can be found in the marketing and sales plan section. You need to include an overview of your advertising plans such as the areas you plan to spend money on to advertise your business and offers.

Ensure that you make it clear in this section if your business will be advertising online or using the more traditional offline media, or the combination of both online and offline media. You can also include the advertising medium you want to use to raise awareness about your business and offers.

Some common online advertising mediums you can use include social media ads, landing pages, sales pages, SEO, Pay-Per-Click, emails, Google Ads, and others. Some common traditional and offline advertising mediums include word of mouth, radios, direct mail, televisions, flyers, billboards, posters, and others.

A key component of your advertising strategy is how you plan to measure the effectiveness and success of your advertising campaign. There is no point in sticking with an advertising plan or medium that does not produce results for your business in the long run.

Public Relations

A great way to reach your customers is to get the media to cover your business or product. Publicity, especially good ones, should be a part of your marketing and sales plan. In this section, show your plans for getting prominent reviews of your product from reputable publications and sources.

Your business needs that exposure to grow. If public relations is a crucial part of your promotional strategy, provide details about your public relations plan here.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a popular promotional strategy used by businesses to inform and attract their customers. It is about teaching and educating your prospects on various topics of interest in your niche, it does not just involve informing them about the benefits and features of the products and services you have,

Businesses publish content usually for free where they provide useful information, tips, and advice so that their target market can be made aware of the importance of their products and services. Content marketing strategies seek to nurture prospects into buyers over time by simply providing value.

Your company can create a blog where it will be publishing content for its target market. You will need to use the best website builder such as Wix and Squarespace and the best web hosting services such as Bluehost, Hostinger, and other Bluehost alternatives to create a functional blog or website.

If content marketing is a crucial part of your promotional strategy (as it should be), detail your plans under promotions.

Including high-quality images of the packaging of your product in your business plan is a lovely idea. You can add the images of the packaging of that product in the marketing and sales plan section. If you are not selling a product, then you do not need to include any worry about the physical packaging of your product.

When organizing the packaging section of your business plan, you can answer the following questions to make maximum use of this section.

• Is your choice of packaging consistent with your positioning strategy?
• What key value proposition does your packaging communicate? (It should reflect the key value proposition of your business)
• How does your packaging compare to that of your competitors?

Social Media

Your 21st-century business needs to have a good social media presence. Not having one is leaving out opportunities for growth and reaching out to your prospect.

You do not have to join the thousands of social media platforms out there. What you need to do is join the ones that your customers are active on and be active there.

Businesses use social media to provide information about their products such as promotions, discounts, the benefits of their products, and content on their blogs.

Social media is also a platform for engaging with your customers and getting feedback about your products or services. Make no mistake, more and more of your prospects are using social media channels to find more information about companies.

You need to consider the social media channels you want to prioritize your business (prioritize the ones your customers are active in) and your branding plans in this section.

Strategic Alliances

If your company plans to work closely with other companies as part of your sales and marketing plan, include it in this section. Prove details about those partnerships in your business plan if you have already established them.

Strategic alliances can be beneficial for all parties involved including your company. Working closely with another company in the form of a partnership can provide access to a different target market segment for your company.

The company you are partnering with may also gain access to your target market or simply offer a new product or service (that of your company) to its customers.

Mutually beneficial partnerships can cover the weaknesses of one company with the strength of another. You should consider strategic alliances with companies that sell complimentary products to yours. For example, if you provide printers, you can partner with a company that produces ink since the customers that buy printers from you will also need inks for printing.

Steps Involved in Creating a Marketing and Sales Plan

1. Focus on Your Target Market

Identify who your customers are, the market you want to target. Then determine the best ways to get your products or services to your potential customers.

2. Evaluate Your Competition

One of the goals of having a marketing plan is to distinguish yourself from your competition. You cannot stand out from them without first knowing them in and out.

You can know your competitors by gathering information about their products, pricing, service, and advertising campaigns.

These questions can help you know your competition.

• What makes your competition successful?
• What are their weaknesses?
• What are customers saying about your competition?

3. Consider Your Brand

Customers' perception of your brand has a strong impact on your sales. Your marketing and sales plan should seek to bolster the image of your brand. Before you start marketing your business, think about the message you want to pass across about your business and your products and services.

4. Focus on Benefits

The majority of your customers do not view your product in terms of features, what they want to know is the benefits and solutions your product offers. Think about the problems your product solves and the benefits it delivers, and use it to create the right sales and marketing message.

Your marketing plan should focus on what you want your customer to get instead of what you provide. Identify those benefits in your marketing and sales plan.

5. Focus on Differentiation

Your marketing and sales plan should look for a unique angle they can take that differentiates your business from the competition, even if the products offered are similar. Some good areas of differentiation you can use are your benefits, pricing, and features.

Key Questions to Answer When Writing Your Marketing and Sales Plan

• What is your company’s budget for sales and marketing campaigns?
• What key metrics will you use to determine if your marketing plans are successful?
• What are your alternatives if your initial marketing efforts do not succeed?
• Who are the sales representatives you need to promote your products or services?
• What are the marketing and sales channels you plan to use? How do you plan to get your products in front of your ideal customers?
• Where will you sell your products?

You may want to include samples of marketing materials you plan to use such as print ads, website descriptions, and social media ads. While it is not compulsory to include these samples, it can help you better communicate your marketing and sales plan and objectives.

The purpose of the marketing and sales section is to answer this question “How will you reach your customers?” If you cannot convincingly provide an answer to this question, you need to rework your marketing and sales section.

7. Clearly Show Your Funding Request

If you are writing your business plan to ask for funding from investors or financial institutions, the funding request section is where you will outline your funding requirements. The funding request section should answer the question ‘How much money will your business need in the near future (3 to 5 years)?’

A good funding request section will clearly outline and explain the amount of funding your business needs over the next five years. You need to know the amount of money your business needs to make an accurate funding request.

Also, when writing your funding request, provide details of how the funds will be used over the period. Specify if you want to use the funds to buy raw materials or machinery, pay salaries, pay for advertisements, and cover specific bills such as rent and electricity.

In addition to explaining what you want to use the funds requested for, you need to clearly state the projected return on investment (ROI) . Investors and creditors want to know if your business can generate profit for them if they put funds into it.

Ensure you do not inflate the figures and stay as realistic as possible. Investors and financial institutions you are seeking funds from will do their research before investing money in your business.

If you are not sure of an exact number to request from, you can use some range of numbers as rough estimates. Add a best-case scenario and a work-case scenario to your funding request. Also, include a description of your strategic future financial plans such as selling your business or paying off debts.

Funding Request: Debt or Equity?

When making your funding request, specify the type of funding you want. Do you want debt or equity? Draw out the terms that will be applicable for the funding, and the length of time the funding request will cover.

Case for Equity

If your new business has not yet started generating profits, you are most likely preparing to sell equity in your business to raise capital at the early stage. Equity here refers to ownership. In this case, you are selling a portion of your company to raise capital.

Although this method of raising capital for your business does not put your business in debt, keep in mind that an equity owner may expect to play a key role in company decisions even if he does not hold a major stake in the company.

Most equity sales for startups are usually private transactions . If you are making a funding request by offering equity in exchange for funding, let the investor know that they will be paid a dividend (a share of the company’s profit). Also, let the investor know the process for selling their equity in your business.

Case for Debt

You may decide not to offer equity in exchange for funds, instead, you make a funding request with the promise to pay back the money borrowed at the agreed time frame.

When making a funding request with an agreement to pay back, note that you will have to repay your creditors both the principal amount borrowed and the interest on it. Financial institutions offer this type of funding for businesses.

Large companies combine both equity and debt in their capital structure. When drafting your business plan, decide if you want to offer both or one over the other.

Before you sell equity in exchange for funding in your business, consider if you are willing to accept not being in total control of your business. Also, before you seek loans in your funding request section, ensure that the terms of repayment are favorable.

You should set a clear timeline in your funding request so that potential investors and creditors can know what you are expecting. Some investors and creditors may agree to your funding request and then delay payment for longer than 30 days, meanwhile, your business needs an immediate cash injection to operate efficiently.

Additional Tips for Writing the Funding Request Section of your Business Plan

The funding request section is not necessary for every business, it is only needed by businesses who plan to use their business plan to secure funding.

If you are adding the funding request section to your business plan, provide an itemized summary of how you plan to use the funds requested. Hiring a lawyer, accountant, or other professionals may be necessary for the proper development of this section.

You should also gather and use financial statements that add credibility and support to your funding requests. Ensure that the financial statements you use should include your projected financial data such as projected cash flows, forecast statements, and expenditure budgets.

If you are an existing business, include all historical financial statements such as cash flow statements, balance sheets and income statements .

Provide monthly and quarterly financial statements for a year. If your business has records that date back beyond the one-year mark, add the yearly statements of those years. These documents are for the appendix section of your business plan.

8. Detail Your Financial Plan, Metrics, and Projections

If you used the funding request section in your business plan, supplement it with a financial plan, metrics, and projections. This section paints a picture of the past performance of your business and then goes ahead to make an informed projection about its future.

The goal of this section is to convince readers that your business is going to be a financial success. It outlines your business plan to generate enough profit to repay the loan (with interest if applicable) and to generate a decent return on investment for investors.

If you have an existing business already in operation, use this section to demonstrate stability through finance. This section should include your cash flow statements, balance sheets, and income statements covering the last three to five years. If your business has some acceptable collateral that you can use to acquire loans, list it in the financial plan, metrics, and projection section.

Apart from current financial statements, this section should also contain a prospective financial outlook that spans the next five years. Include forecasted income statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, and capital expenditure budget.

If your business is new and is not yet generating profit, use clear and realistic projections to show the potentials of your business.

When drafting this section, research industry norms and the performance of comparable businesses. Your financial projections should cover at least five years. State the logic behind your financial projections. Remember you can always make adjustments to this section as the variables change.

The financial plan, metrics, and projection section create a baseline which your business can either exceed or fail to reach. If your business fails to reach your projections in this section, you need to understand why it failed.

Investors and loan managers spend a lot of time going through the financial plan, metrics, and projection section compared to other parts of the business plan. Ensure you spend time creating credible financial analyses for your business in this section.

Many entrepreneurs find this section daunting to write. You do not need a business degree to create a solid financial forecast for your business. Business finances, especially for startups, are not as complicated as they seem. There are several online tools and templates that make writing this section so much easier.

Use Graphs and Charts

The financial plan, metrics, and projection section is a great place to use graphs and charts to tell the financial story of your business. Charts and images make it easier to communicate your finances.

Accuracy in this section is key, ensure you carefully analyze your past financial statements properly before making financial projects.

Address the Risk Factors and Show Realistic Financial Projections

Keep your financial plan, metrics, and projection realistic. It is okay to be optimistic in your financial projection, however, you have to justify it.

You should also address the various risk factors associated with your business in this section. Investors want to know the potential risks involved, show them. You should also show your plans for mitigating those risks.

What You Should In The Financial Plan, Metrics, and Projection Section of Your Business Plan

The financial plan, metrics, and projection section of your business plan should have monthly sales and revenue forecasts for the first year. It should also include annual projections that cover 3 to 5 years.

A three-year projection is a basic requirement to have in your business plan. However, some investors may request a five-year forecast.

Your business plan should include the following financial statements: sales forecast, personnel plan, income statement, income statement, cash flow statement, balance sheet, and an exit strategy.

1. Sales Forecast

Sales forecast refers to your projections about the number of sales your business is going to record over the next few years. It is typically broken into several rows, with each row assigned to a core product or service that your business is offering.

One common mistake people make in their business plan is to break down the sales forecast section into long details. A sales forecast should forecast the high-level details.

For example, if you are forecasting sales for a payroll software provider, you could break down your forecast into target market segments or subscription categories.

Your sales forecast section should also have a corresponding row for each sales row to cover the direct cost or Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). The objective of these rows is to show the expenses that your business incurs in making and delivering your product or service.

Note that your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) should only cover those direct costs incurred when making your products. Other indirect expenses such as insurance, salaries, payroll tax, and rent should not be included.

For example, the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) for a restaurant is the cost of ingredients while for a consulting company it will be the cost of paper and other presentation materials.

2. Personnel Plan

The personnel plan section is where you provide details about the payment plan for your employees. For a small business, you can easily list every position in your company and how much you plan to pay in the personnel plan.

However, for larger businesses, you have to break the personnel plan into functional groups such as sales and marketing.

The personnel plan will also include the cost of an employee beyond salary, commonly referred to as the employee burden. These costs include insurance, payroll taxes , and other essential costs incurred monthly as a result of having employees on your payroll.

3. Income Statement

The income statement section shows if your business is making a profit or taking a loss. Another name for the income statement is the profit and loss (P&L). It takes data from your sales forecast and personnel plan and adds other ongoing expenses you incur while running your business.

Every business plan should have an income statement. It subtracts your business expenses from its earnings to show if your business is generating profit or incurring losses.

The income statement has the following items: sales, Cost of Goods Sold (COGS), gross margin, operating expenses, total operating expenses, operating income , total expenses, and net profit.

• Sales refer to the revenue your business generates from selling its products or services. Other names for sales are income or revenue.
• Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) refers to the total cost of selling your products. Other names for COGS are direct costs or cost of sales. Manufacturing businesses use the Costs of Goods Manufactured (COGM) .
• Gross Margin is the figure you get when you subtract your COGS from your sales. In your income statement, you can express it as a percentage of total sales (Gross margin / Sales = Gross Margin Percent).
• Operating Expenses refer to all the expenses you incur from running your business. It exempts the COGS because it stands alone as a core part of your income statement. You also have to exclude taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Your operating expenses include salaries, marketing expenses, research and development (R&D) expenses, and other expenses.
• Total Operating Expenses refers to the sum of all your operating expenses including those exemptions named above under operating expenses.
• Operating Income refers to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. It is simply known as the acronym EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). Calculating your operating income is simple, all you need to do is to subtract your COGS and total operating expenses from your sales.
• Total Expenses refer to the sum of your operating expenses and your business’ interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
• Net profit shows whether your business has made a profit or taken a loss during a given timeframe.

4. Cash Flow Statement

The cash flow statement tracks the money you have in the bank at any given point. It is often confused with the income statement or the profit and loss statement. They are both different types of financial statements. The income statement calculates your profits and losses while the cash flow statement shows you how much you have in the bank.

5. Balance Sheet

The balance sheet is a financial statement that provides an overview of the financial health of your business. It contains information about the assets and liabilities of your company, and owner’s or shareholders’ equity.

You can get the net worth of your company by subtracting your company’s liabilities from its assets.

6. Exit Strategy

The exit strategy refers to a probable plan for selling your business either to the public in an IPO or to another company. It is the last thing you include in the financial plan, metrics, and projection section.

You can choose to omit the exit strategy from your business plan if you plan to maintain full ownership of your business and do not plan on seeking angel investment or virtual capitalist (VC) funding.

Investors may want to know what your exit plan is. They invest in your business to get a good return on investment.

Your exit strategy does not have to include long and boring details. Ensure you identify some interested parties who may be interested in buying the company if it becomes a success.

Key Questions to Answer with Your Financial Plan, Metrics, and Projection

Your financial plan, metrics, and projection section helps investors, creditors, or your internal managers to understand what your expenses are, the amount of cash you need, and what it takes to make your company profitable. It also shows what you will be doing with any funding.

You do not need to show actual financial data if you do not have one. Adding forecasts and projections to your financial statements is added proof that your strategy is feasible and shows investors you have planned properly.

Here are some key questions to answer to help you develop this section.

• What is your sales forecast for the next year?
• When will your company achieve a positive cash flow?
• What are the core expenses you need to operate?
• How much money do you need upfront to operate or grow your company?
• How will you use the loans or investments?

9. Add an Appendix to Your Business Plan

Adding an appendix to your business plan is optional. It is a useful place to put any charts, tables, legal notes, definitions, permits, résumés, and other critical information that do not fit into other sections of your business plan.

The appendix section is where you would want to include details of a patent or patent-pending if you have one. You can always add illustrations or images of your products here. It is the last section of your business plan.

When writing your business plan, there are details you cut short or remove to prevent the entire section from becoming too lengthy. There are also details you want to include in the business plan but are not a good fit for any of the previous sections. You can add that additional information to the appendix section.

Businesses also use the appendix section to include supporting documents or other materials specially requested by investors or lenders.

You can include just about any information that supports the assumptions and statements you made in the business plan under the appendix. It is the one place in the business plan where unrelated data and information can coexist amicably.

If your appendix section is lengthy, try organizing it by adding a table of contents at the beginning of the appendix section. It is also advisable to group similar information to make it easier for the reader to access them.

A well-organized appendix section makes it easier to share your information clearly and concisely. Add footnotes throughout the rest of the business plan or make references in the plan to the documents in the appendix.

The appendix section is usually only necessary if you are seeking funding from investors or lenders, or hoping to attract partners.

People reading business plans do not want to spend time going through a heap of backup information, numbers, and charts. Keep these documents or information in the Appendix section in case the reader wants to dig deeper.

Common Items to Include in the Appendix Section of Your Business Plan

The appendix section includes documents that supplement or support the information or claims given in other sections of the business plans. Common items you can include in the appendix section include:

• Additional data about the process of manufacturing or creation
• Additional description of products or services such as product schematics
• Additional financial documents or projections
• Articles of incorporation and status
• Backup for market research or competitive analysis
• Bank statements
• Business registries
• Client testimonials (if your business is already running)
• Copies of insurances
• Credit histories (personal or/and business)
• Deeds and permits
• Equipment leases
• Examples of marketing and advertising collateral
• Industry associations and memberships
• Images of product
• Intellectual property
• Key customer contracts
• Legal documents and other contracts
• Letters of reference
• Links to references
• Market research data
• Organizational charts
• Photographs of potential facilities
• Professional licenses pertaining to your legal structure or type of business
• Purchase orders
• Resumes of the founder(s) and key managers
• State and federal identification numbers or codes
• Trademarks or patents’ registrations

Avoid using the appendix section as a place to dump any document or information you feel like adding. Only add documents or information that you support or increase the credibility of your business plan.

Tips and Strategies for Writing a Convincing Business Plan

To achieve a perfect business plan, you need to consider some key tips and strategies. These tips will raise the efficiency of your business plan above average.

1. Know Your Audience

When writing a business plan, you need to know your audience . Business owners write business plans for different reasons. Your business plan has to be specific. For example, you can write business plans to potential investors, banks, and even fellow board members of the company.

The audience you are writing to determines the structure of the business plan. As a business owner, you have to know your audience. Not everyone will be your audience. Knowing your audience will help you to narrow the scope of your business plan.

Consider what your audience wants to see in your projects, the likely questions they might ask, and what interests them.

• A business plan used to address a company's board members will center on its employment schemes, internal affairs, projects, stakeholders, etc.
• A business plan for financial institutions will talk about the size of your market and the chances for you to pay back any loans you demand.
• A business plan for investors will show proof that you can return the investment capital within a specific time. In addition, it discusses your financial projections, tractions, and market size.

2. Get Inspiration from People

Writing a business plan from scratch as an entrepreneur can be daunting. That is why you need the right inspiration to push you to write one. You can gain inspiration from the successful business plans of other businesses. Look at their business plans, the style they use, the structure of the project, etc.

To make your business plan easier to create, search companies related to your business to get an exact copy of what you need to create an effective business plan. You can also make references while citing examples in your business plans.

When drafting your business plan, get as much help from others as you possibly can. By getting inspiration from people, you can create something better than what they have.

3. Avoid Being Over Optimistic

Many business owners make use of strong adjectives to qualify their content. One of the big mistakes entrepreneurs make when preparing a business plan is promising too much.

The use of superlatives and over-optimistic claims can prepare the audience for more than you can offer. In the end, you disappoint the confidence they have in you.

In most cases, the best option is to be realistic with your claims and statistics. Most of the investors can sense a bit of incompetency from the overuse of superlatives. As a new entrepreneur, do not be tempted to over-promise to get the interests of investors.

The concept of entrepreneurship centers on risks, nothing is certain when you make future analyses. What separates the best is the ability to do careful research and work towards achieving that, not promising more than you can achieve.

To make an excellent first impression as an entrepreneur, replace superlatives with compelling data-driven content. In this way, you are more specific than someone promising a huge ROI from an investment.

4. Keep it Simple and Short

When writing business plans, ensure you keep them simple throughout. Irrespective of the purpose of the business plan, your goal is to convince the audience.

One way to achieve this goal is to make them understand your proposal. Therefore, it would be best if you avoid the use of complex grammar to express yourself. It would be a huge turn-off if the people you want to convince are not familiar with your use of words.

Another thing to note is the length of your business plan. It would be best if you made it as brief as possible.

You hardly see investors or agencies that read through an extremely long document. In that case, if your first few pages can’t convince them, then you have lost it. The more pages you write, the higher the chances of you derailing from the essential contents.

To ensure your business plan has a high conversion rate, you need to dispose of every unnecessary information. For example, if you have a strategy that you are not sure of, it would be best to leave it out of the plan.

5. Make an Outline and Follow Through

A perfect business plan must have touched every part needed to convince the audience. Business owners get easily tempted to concentrate more on their products than on other sections. Doing this can be detrimental to the efficiency of the business plan.

For example, imagine you talking about a product but omitting or providing very little information about the target audience. You will leave your clients confused.

To ensure that your business plan communicates your full business model to readers, you have to input all the necessary information in it. One of the best ways to achieve this is to design a structure and stick to it.

This structure is what guides you throughout the writing. To make your work easier, you can assign an estimated word count or page limit to every section to avoid making it too bulky for easy reading. As a guide, the necessary things your business plan must contain are:

• Table of contents
• Introduction
• Product or service description
• Target audience
• Market size
• Competition analysis
• Financial projections

Some specific businesses can include some other essential sections, but these are the key sections that must be in every business plan.

6. Ask a Professional to Proofread

When writing a business plan, you must tie all loose ends to get a perfect result. When you are done with writing, call a professional to go through the document for you. You are bound to make mistakes, and the way to correct them is to get external help.

You should get a professional in your field who can relate to every section of your business plan. It would be easier for the professional to notice the inner flaws in the document than an editor with no knowledge of your business.

In addition to getting a professional to proofread, get an editor to proofread and edit your document. The editor will help you identify grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and inappropriate writing styles.

Writing a business plan can be daunting, but you can surmount that obstacle and get the best out of it with these tips.

Business Plan Examples and Templates That’ll Save You Tons of Time

1. hubspot's one-page business plan.

The one-page business plan template by HubSpot is the perfect guide for businesses of any size, irrespective of their business strategy. Although the template is condensed into a page, your final business plan should not be a page long! The template is designed to ask helpful questions that can help you develop your business plan.

Hubspot’s one-page business plan template is divided into nine fields:

• Business opportunity
• Company description
• Industry analysis
• Target market
• Implementation timeline
• Marketing plan
• Financial summary
• Funding required

2. Bplan’s Free Business Plan Template

Bplans' free business plan template is investor-approved. It is a rich template used by prestigious educational institutions such as Babson College and Princeton University to teach entrepreneurs how to create a business plan.

The template has six sections: the executive summary, opportunity, execution, company, financial plan, and appendix. There is a step-by-step guide for writing every little detail in the business plan. Follow the instructions each step of the way and you will create a business plan that impresses investors or lenders easily.

3. HubSpot's Downloadable Business Plan Template

HubSpot’s downloadable business plan template is a more comprehensive option compared to the one-page business template by HubSpot. This free and downloadable business plan template is designed for entrepreneurs.

The template is a comprehensive guide and checklist for business owners just starting their businesses. It tells you everything you need to fill in each section of the business plan and how to do it.

There are nine sections in this business plan template: an executive summary, company and business description, product and services line, market analysis, marketing plan, sales plan, legal notes, financial considerations, and appendix.

4. Business Plan by My Own Business Institute

My Own Business Institute (MOBI) which is a part of Santa Clara University's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship offers a free business plan template. You can either copy the free business template from the link provided above or download it as a Word document.

The comprehensive template consists of a whopping 15 sections.

• The Business Profile
• The Vision and the People
• Home-Based Business and Freelance Business Opportunities
• Organization
• Licenses and Permits
• Business Insurance
• Communication Tools
• Acquisitions
• Location and Leasing
• Accounting and Cash Flow
• Opening and Marketing
• Managing Employees
• Expanding and Handling Problems

There are lots of helpful tips on how to fill each section in the free business plan template by MOBI.

5. Score's Business Plan Template for Startups

Score is an American nonprofit organization that helps entrepreneurs build successful companies. This business plan template for startups by Score is available for free download. The business plan template asks a whooping 150 generic questions that help entrepreneurs from different fields to set up the perfect business plan.

The business plan template for startups contains clear instructions and worksheets, all you have to do is answer the questions and fill the worksheets.

There are nine sections in the business plan template: executive summary, company description, products and services, marketing plan, operational plan, management and organization, startup expenses and capitalization, financial plan, and appendices.

The ‘refining the plan’ resource contains instructions that help you modify your business plan to suit your specific needs, industry, and target audience. After you have completed Score’s business plan template, you can work with a SCORE mentor for expert advice in business planning.

6. Minimalist Architecture Business Plan Template by Venngage

The minimalist architecture business plan template is a simple template by Venngage that you can customize to suit your business needs .

There are five sections in the template: an executive summary, statement of problem, approach and methodology, qualifications, and schedule and benchmark. The business plan template has instructions that guide users on what to fill in each section.

7. Small Business Administration Free Business Plan Template

The Small Business Administration (SBA) offers two free business plan templates, filled with practical real-life examples that you can model to create your business plan. Both free business plan templates are written by fictional business owners: Rebecca who owns a consulting firm, and Andrew who owns a toy company.

There are five sections in the two SBA’s free business plan templates.

• Executive Summary
• Company Description
• Service Line
• Marketing and Sales

8. The $100 Startup's One-Page Business Plan

The one-page business plan by the $100 startup is a simple business plan template for entrepreneurs who do not want to create a long and complicated plan . You can include more details in the appendices for funders who want more information beyond what you can put in the one-page business plan.

There are five sections in the one-page business plan such as overview, ka-ching, hustling, success, and obstacles or challenges or open questions. You can answer all the questions using one or two sentences.

9. PandaDoc’s Free Business Plan Template

The free business plan template by PandaDoc is a comprehensive 15-page document that describes the information you should include in every section.

There are 11 sections in PandaDoc’s free business plan template.

• Executive summary
• Business description
• Products and services
• Operations plan
• Management organization
• Financial plan
• Conclusion / Call to action
• Confidentiality statement

You have to sign up for its 14-day free trial to access the template. You will find different business plan templates on PandaDoc once you sign up (including templates for general businesses and specific businesses such as bakeries, startups, restaurants, salons, hotels, and coffee shops)

PandaDoc allows you to customize its business plan templates to fit the needs of your business. After editing the template, you can send it to interested parties and track opens and views through PandaDoc.

10. Invoiceberry Templates for Word, Open Office, Excel, or PPT

InvoiceBerry is a U.K based online invoicing and tracking platform that offers free business plan templates in .docx, .odt, .xlsx, and .pptx formats for freelancers and small businesses.

Before you can download the free business plan template, it will ask you to give it your email address. After you complete the little task, it will send the download link to your inbox for you to download. It also provides a business plan checklist in .xlsx file format that ensures you add the right information to the business plan.

Alternatives to the Traditional Business Plan

A business plan is very important in mapping out how one expects their business to grow over a set number of years, particularly when they need external investment in their business. However, many investors do not have the time to watch you present your business plan. It is a long and boring read.

Luckily, there are three alternatives to the traditional business plan (the Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas, and Startup Pitch Deck). These alternatives are less laborious and easier and quicker to present to investors.

Business Model Canvas (BMC)

The business model canvas is a business tool used to present all the important components of setting up a business, such as customers, route to market, value proposition, and finance in a single sheet. It provides a very focused blueprint that defines your business initially which you can later expand on if needed.

The sheet is divided mainly into company, industry, and consumer models that are interconnected in how they find problems and proffer solutions.

Segments of the Business Model Canvas

The business model canvas was developed by founder Alexander Osterwalder to answer important business questions. It contains nine segments.

• Key Partners: Who will be occupying important executive positions in your business? What do they bring to the table? Will there be a third party involved with the company?
• Key Activities: What important activities will production entail? What activities will be carried out to ensure the smooth running of the company?
• The Product’s Value Propositions: What does your product do? How will it be different from other products?
• Customer Segments: What demography of consumers are you targeting? What are the habits of these consumers? Who are the MVPs of your target consumers?
• Customer Relationships: How will the team support and work with its customer base? How do you intend to build and maintain trust with the customer?
• Key Resources: What type of personnel and tools will be needed? What size of the budget will they need access to?
• Channels: How do you plan to create awareness of your products? How do you intend to transport your product to the customer?
• Cost Structure: What is the estimated cost of production? How much will distribution cost?
• Revenue Streams: For what value are customers willing to pay? How do they prefer to pay for the product? Are there any external revenues attached apart from the main source? How do the revenue streams contribute to the overall revenue?

Lean Canvas

The lean canvas is a problem-oriented alternative to the standard business model canvas. It was proposed by Ash Maurya, creator of Lean Stack as a development of the business model generation. It uses a more problem-focused approach and it majorly targets entrepreneurs and startup businesses.

Lean Canvas uses the same 9 blocks concept as the business model canvas, however, they have been modified slightly to suit the needs and purpose of a small startup. The key partners, key activities, customer relationships, and key resources are replaced by new segments which are:

• Problem: Simple and straightforward number of problems you have identified, ideally three.
• Solution: The solutions to each problem.
• Unfair Advantage: Something you possess that can't be easily bought or replicated.
• Key Metrics: Important numbers that will tell how your business is doing.

Startup Pitch Deck

While the business model canvas compresses into a factual sheet, startup pitch decks expand flamboyantly.

Pitch decks, through slides, convey your business plan, often through graphs and images used to emphasize estimations and observations in your presentation. Entrepreneurs often use pitch decks to fully convince their target audience of their plans before discussing funding arrangements.

Considering the likelihood of it being used in a small time frame, a good startup pitch deck should ideally contain 20 slides or less to have enough time to answer questions from the audience.

Unlike the standard and lean business model canvases, a pitch deck doesn't have a set template on how to present your business plan but there are still important components to it. These components often mirror those of the business model canvas except that they are in slide form and contain more details.

Using Airbnb (one of the most successful start-ups in recent history) for reference, the important components of a good slide are listed below.

• Cover/Introduction Slide: Here, you should include your company's name and mission statement. Your mission statement should be a very catchy tagline. Also, include personal information and contact details to provide an easy link for potential investors.
• Problem Slide: This slide requires you to create a connection with the audience or the investor that you are pitching. For example in their pitch, Airbnb summarized the most important problems it would solve in three brief points – pricing of hotels, disconnection from city culture, and connection problems for local bookings.
• Solution Slide: This slide includes your core value proposition. List simple and direct solutions to the problems you have mentioned
• Customer Analysis: Here you will provide information on the customers you will be offering your service to. The identity of your customers plays an important part in fundraising as well as the long-run viability of the business.
• Market Validation: Use competitive analysis to show numbers that prove the presence of a market for your product, industry behavior in the present and the long run, as well as the percentage of the market you aim to attract. It shows that you understand your competitors and customers and convinces investors of the opportunities presented in the market.
• Business Model: Your business model is the hook of your presentation. It may vary in complexity but it should generally include a pricing system informed by your market analysis. The goal of the slide is to confirm your business model is easy to implement.
• Marketing Strategy: This slide should summarize a few customer acquisition methods that you plan to use to grow the business.
• Competitive Advantage: What this slide will do is provide information on what will set you apart and make you a more attractive option to customers. It could be the possession of technology that is not widely known in the market.
• Team Slide: Here you will give a brief description of your team. Include your key management personnel here and their specific roles in the company. Include their educational background, job history, and skillsets. Also, talk about their accomplishments in their careers so far to build investors' confidence in members of your team.
• Traction Slide: This validates the company’s business model by showing growth through early sales and support. The slide aims to reduce any lingering fears in potential investors by showing realistic periodic milestones and profit margins. It can include current sales, growth, valuable customers, pre-orders, or data from surveys outlining current consumer interest.
• Funding Slide: This slide is popularly referred to as ‘the ask'. Here you will include important details like how much is needed to get your business off the ground and how the funding will be spent to help the company reach its goals.
• Appendix Slides: Your pitch deck appendix should always be included alongside a standard pitch presentation. It consists of additional slides you could not show in the pitch deck but you need to complement your presentation.

It is important to support your calculations with pictorial renditions. Infographics, such as pie charts or bar graphs, will be more effective in presenting the information than just listing numbers. For example, a six-month graph that shows rising profit margins will easily look more impressive than merely writing it.

Lastly, since a pitch deck is primarily used to secure meetings and you may be sharing your pitch with several investors, it is advisable to keep a separate public version that doesn't include financials. Only disclose the one with projections once you have secured a link with an investor.

Advantages of the Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas, and Startup Pitch Deck over the Traditional Business Plan

• Time-Saving: Writing a detailed traditional business plan could take weeks or months. On the other hand, all three alternatives can be done in a few days or even one night of brainstorming if you have a comprehensive understanding of your business.
• Easier to Understand: Since the information presented is almost entirely factual, it puts focus on what is most important in running the business. They cut away the excess pages of fillers in a traditional business plan and allow investors to see what is driving the business and what is getting in the way.
• Easy to Update: Businesses typically present their business plans to many potential investors before they secure funding. What this means is that you may regularly have to amend your presentation to update statistics or adjust to audience-specific needs. For a traditional business plan, this could mean rewriting a whole section of your plan. For the three alternatives, updating is much easier because they are not voluminous.
• Guide for a More In-depth Business Plan: All three alternatives have the added benefit of being able to double as a sketch of your business plan if the need to create one arises in the future.

Business Plan FAQ

Business plans are important for any entrepreneur who is looking for a framework to run their company over some time or seeking external support. Although they are essential for new businesses, every company should ideally have a business plan to track their growth from time to time.  They can be used by startups seeking investments or loans to convey their business ideas or an employee to convince his boss of the feasibility of starting a new project. They can also be used by companies seeking to recruit high-profile employee targets into key positions or trying to secure partnerships with other firms.

Business plans often vary depending on your target audience, the scope, and the goals for the plan. Startup plans are the most common among the different types of business plans.  A start-up plan is used by a new business to present all the necessary information to help get the business up and running. They are usually used by entrepreneurs who are seeking funding from investors or bank loans. The established company alternative to a start-up plan is a feasibility plan. A feasibility plan is often used by an established company looking for new business opportunities. They are used to show the upsides of creating a new product for a consumer base. Because the audience is usually company people, it requires less company analysis. The third type of business plan is the lean business plan. A lean business plan is a brief, straight-to-the-point breakdown of your ideas and analysis for your business. It does not contain details of your proposal and can be written on one page. Finally, you have the what-if plan. As it implies, a what-if plan is a preparation for the worst-case scenario. You must always be prepared for the possibility of your original plan being rejected. A good what-if plan will serve as a good plan B to the original.

A good business plan has 10 key components. They include an executive plan, product analysis, desired customer base, company analysis, industry analysis, marketing strategy, sales strategy, financial projection, funding, and appendix. Executive Plan Your business should begin with your executive plan. An executive plan will provide early insight into what you are planning to achieve with your business. It should include your mission statement and highlight some of the important points which you will explain later. Product Analysis The next component of your business plan is your product analysis. A key part of this section is explaining the type of item or service you are going to offer as well as the market problems your product will solve. Desired Consumer Base Your product analysis should be supplemented with a detailed breakdown of your desired consumer base. Investors are always interested in knowing the economic power of your market as well as potential MVP customers. Company Analysis The next component of your business plan is your company analysis. Here, you explain how you want to run your business. It will include your operational strategy, an insight into the workforce needed to keep the company running, and important executive positions. It will also provide a calculation of expected operational costs.  Industry Analysis A good business plan should also contain well laid out industry analysis. It is important to convince potential investors you know the companies you will be competing with, as well as your plans to gain an edge on the competition. Marketing Strategy Your business plan should also include your marketing strategy. This is how you intend to spread awareness of your product. It should include a detailed explanation of the company brand as well as your advertising methods. Sales Strategy Your sales strategy comes after the market strategy. Here you give an overview of your company's pricing strategy and how you aim to maximize profits. You can also explain how your prices will adapt to market behaviors. Financial Projection The financial projection is the next component of your business plan. It explains your company's expected running cost and revenue earned during the tenure of the business plan. Financial projection gives a clear idea of how your company will develop in the future. Funding The next component of your business plan is funding. You have to detail how much external investment you need to get your business idea off the ground here. Appendix The last component of your plan is the appendix. This is where you put licenses, graphs, or key information that does not fit in any of the other components.

The business model canvas is a business management tool used to quickly define your business idea and model. It is often used when investors need you to pitch your business idea during a brief window.

A pitch deck is similar to a business model canvas except that it makes use of slides in its presentation. A pitch is not primarily used to secure funding, rather its main purpose is to entice potential investors by selling a very optimistic outlook on the business.

Business plan competitions help you evaluate the strength of your business plan. By participating in business plan competitions, you are improving your experience. The experience provides you with a degree of validation while practicing important skills. The main motivation for entering into the competitions is often to secure funding by finishing in podium positions. There is also the chance that you may catch the eye of a casual observer outside of the competition. These competitions also provide good networking opportunities. You could meet mentors who will take a keen interest in guiding you in your business journey. You also have the opportunity to meet other entrepreneurs whose ideas can complement yours.

Exlore Further

• 12 Key Elements of a Business Plan (Top Components Explained)
• 13 Sources of Business Finance For Companies & Sole Traders
• 5 Common Types of Business Structures (+ Pros & Cons)
• How to Buy a Business in 8 Steps (+ Due Diligence Checklist)

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Martin luenendonk.

Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.

This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.

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Business Plan Length: How Long Should a Business Plan be?

Business Plan Template

• April 17, 2024

What should be my business plan length? It is a common question for entrepreneurs who are new to business planning.

Certain people hold the opinion that a business plan should be one page long, while some believe a business plan should be extensive and filled with minute details.

Every business plan and business is different. While some may be heavily text-based and include extensive market research, others may rely on graphics to make their points.

If your business plan is too brief, you’re probably not offering potential investors enough details about your operation. In contrast, if it goes on for too long, you will bore them, and they will lose interest since you are giving them too much information.

Confused about the length of a business plan? Make sure your business plan is detailed enough to show that investing in or getting involved with your business is a good idea.

In light of this, a business plan length should typically be between 15-30 pages . Let’s see the detailed guide on how long should a business plan be

Length Depends on the Purpose of Your Business Plan

Don’t overlook the main mission of your plan while you determine the ideal length of your business plan. The goal of your plan is to persuade readers to support your business, financially or by being an active part of your business.

Certain questions to answer to know your purpose are:

• Who is the target audience, first, for whom you are creating a business plan? (E.g., banks, investors, potential partners, etc.)
• Will it have details of the business and the management team that everyone can read?
• Do you require showing the whole business plan or only the executive summary to your readers?
• Does it contain thorough research, plans, designs, and charts?

Length Also Depends on the Type of Business Plan

The page count of a business plan also depends on its type. There are three types of business plans, let’s deep dive into them, and then you can decide the ideal length of your business plan.

One-Page Business Plan

A business owner prefers a one-page business plan to introduce their business to investors. A one-page startup business plan encompasses the key elements of the company into just one page, much like an executive summary.

One of the advantages is that investors can read it quickly because it is simply one page long and has just enough details to pique their interest.

Mini Business Plan

A mini business plan contains 1 to 10 pages and has every component that is in a normal traditional business plan, but all are synchronized.

A short plan has all the essential elements of your business in bullet points to make it concise. Even though it contains some of the same details, a detailed business plan is still necessary.

If an investor asks for further details, after reading a one-page business plan, then this mini-business plan can come in handy.

This version will contain more detailed information, such as the problem, the solution, the marketing plan, the expected financial results, the target market, the company and management team, short financial tables, business charts, and the details to secure funding.

The Comprehensive Business Plan

Comprehensive business plans can range in length from 15 to 35 pages and beyond.

This business plan provides readers with a complete overview of the company, including the market problem, the proposed solution, company description, objectives, and goals, as well as its marketing plan, competitive analysis, operational plan, financial projections, management team, and funding request.

A comprehensive plan starts with an executive summary and then expands on it with supporting data. This plan includes essential research to validate the overall business idea.

These business plans should only be provided upon request and following the delivery of a one-page or mini-business plan. An extensive business plan gives investors a complete picture of the company while raising the starting capital.

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Elements to Include in a Business Plan

Now that you know the types of businesses and the average length of a plan, let’s move ahead with what to actually include in a plan. By exploring these essential components, you will be able to create a solid plan.

Executive summary

It is an overview of the whole business plan. Generally, entrepreneurs prefer to write it at the last, after having the clarity of each section of the business plan.

Company description

There is a detailed introduction to your business in this section, including the structure, name of your business, location, history, etc.

Market analysis

This is the section where you provide information about the market, like market size, market trends, target market, industry trends, regulatory environment, etc.

Products or services

Mention the products or services you will provide in this section, including the competitive advantage, unique value proposition, and benefits of the product or service.

Sales and marketing strategy

Here should be your marketing plan on how will attract new and retain old customers.

Management team

Here, mention the names, roles, and experience of key members, managers, and owners.

Financial projections

Attach financial forecasts of at least 3 years to 5 years in this section, including income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement.

Additional information that supports the main sections of the business plan, such as resumes, market research data, legal documents, and any other relevant materials.

Tips for Writing a Concise Business Plan

Writing a concise business plan is essential for capturing the attention of potential investors and partners. Here are some tips to help you write a concise business plan:

1. The Length of an Executive Summary is Crucial

The executive summary is typically the whole overview of the business plan, so it is one of the essential components. Therefore, make sure your summary is well-presented and brief with all the details.

The executive summary’s opening paragraph, in particular, is of utmost significance, since if you don’t grab the reader’s attention right away, they won’t continue reading.

It should normally be one to two pages long to get the reader’s interest in your plan.

A good executive summary should be 5-10% of the whole business plan, so write all the information in a synchronized yet clear manner.

Your business plan has six essential components after the executive summary. These sections should each be between one and two pages long.

2. Correctly Format Your Plan

By organizing your plan, you can avoid including information that would make the plan too cluttered, long, and difficult to read.

Formatting will:

• Give readers a more enjoyable experience
• Make it simple for them to locate the exact information
• Help you fit in the ideal length of the business plan
• Increases engagement and your chances of getting results
• Will also help you understand key elements of your business

3. No One Wants a Novel

When it comes to your business plan length, no one would be interested in reading 100 long pages.

If you include every minute detail of your business, then the plan will be excessively lengthy, and the majority of readers will become bored. Keep in mind that no one will read a 100-page business plan.

Instead, include the most significant information in the executive summary, and then in the other sections of your plan, validate what you mentioned in the executive summary.

4. Move Supporting Documents to the Appendix

While an executive summary gives a quick overview of your whole plan, the appendix supports the data presented in the plan, making it simple to read with all the evidence.

For instance, the primary component of your plan includes revenue projections for years 1 and 5. You can include the specifics of how those forecasts were made in your appendix, rather than putting all pertinent information in the main text.

Therefore, to make your plan clutter-free, move all the supporting documents to the appendix.

5. The 15 Minutes Readability

The 15-minute readability is an actual answer to the question; how long should a business plan be? After quickly scanning the main points of a strong business plan for 15 minutes, the reader should have a good understanding of its main components.

Format, headlines, white space, and graphics all significantly impact readability. The main ideas of a business strategy should be presented as rapidly as they are in a business proposal or business presentation.

If you are still confused about how to write a business plan, then you can also use free business plan samples to make your plan perfect.

6. Use Graphics Wisely

Never reduce a plan by removing helpful graphics. Readability and understanding of the plan are much more important with the help of graphics.

Make your financial projections easier to understand by using business charts to illustrate the numbers. As much as possible, use pictures and drawings to illustrate locations, items, sample menus, product images, and other things.

Are You Ready for Your Business Plan?

In final words, a business plan’s length depends on various factors, like the type & complexity of your plan, the audience of your plan, the purpose of the plan, and many more.

The thing that only matters is your plan should reflect all the main elements of your business, whether it is 15 pages or 30 pages with clarity.

Don’t worry if the ideal length of your business plan is still confusing, because you can always rely on a good business plan software like Upmetrics for writing a business plan. So, start writing, and all the best!

Build your Business Plan Faster

with step-by-step Guidance & AI Assistance.

About the Author

Upmetrics Team

Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more

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• Business Planning

Ask The Experts: How Long Should A Business Plan Be?

Business planning can be confusing, and one of the questions that entrepreneurs often ponder is, “how long should a business plan be?”

Asking around doesn’t seem to help much. One camp of people believes that a business plan should be a single page, while the other camp believes that a business plan should be comprehensive and extremely detailed.

The truth is, there is no perfect answer to this question. A plan should be as long as is needed to fulfill its purpose – and not everyone has the same objective when developing a business plan.

Each business plan is unique. While some plans may be text-heavy and go into deep detail with research about its market, others may use graphics to get their points across. The way a business plan writer presents their information can drastically affect the overall length of their business plan.

Does business plan length matter? Yes, but the length of your business plan is highly dependent upon your business, your audience, your writing style, and the type of plan you are developing.

The One-Page Business Plan

Over the last several years, the one-page business plan has become more and more popular as an introduction tool. Very similar to a standard executive summary, a one-page business plan summarizes the important points of the business into a single page. This  business plan format  is extremely digestible but isn’t acceptable for all situations.  

The most applicable scenario for a one-page business plan is for introducing an investor (or another party) to a business that they are unfamiliar with. With only one page, it isn’t too time-consuming for them to read, and provides just enough information to spark their curiosity.

When building your one-page business plan, it is important to realize that a single page does not leave much room for extreme detail. With a one-pager, you will have to choose the elements that are most important and the information that will best describe your business to drive the interest of readers.

However, for an investor who is already curious about your business and seeking to learn about it in detail, a one-page business plan is often not enough. Unfortunately, a business plan of this length does not provide enough context to get into the fine details of your overall strategy.

Is a one-page business plan right for you? Consider the following pros and cons.

• Easy to put together quickly when in a pinch.
• Provides just enough content for readers to easily digest.
• Allows entrepreneurs to explain the market problem, their solution and their strategy for reaching the market.
• Often does not provide enough context for readers to fully understand your business.
• If investors are interested after reading the one-pager, they will likely request a more comprehensive business plan.
• A one-page business plan doesn’t provide enough research and won’t prove the feasibility of a company.

The Mini Business Plan

A “mini business plan” is typically around 1-10 pages and provides much of the same information as a comprehensive business plan. However, the information is condensed and minimizes all fine details and explanations.

A mini business plan cuts to the chase, often using bullet points to fulfill the section. While it includes some of the same information, it doesn’t replace a comprehensive plan. It is perfect in a situation where more detail is required to prove the feasibility of the business but immense detail is not yet necessary.

For example, if an entrepreneur has already shared their one-page plan, but the investor requests more information, a mini business plan can be sent. This version will include more extensive information including the problem, solution, marketing strategy, financial projections, and financial requirements.

Is a mini business plan right for you? Consider the following pros and cons.

• Much more inclusive than a one-pager, but easier to digest than a comprehensive business plan.
• Provides a better balance between document length and business information.
• Can be written within several days.
• Meant for brevity. Does not give enough room to thoroughly explain the major points within the plan.
• Typically excludes certain information such as an operational strategy, exit strategy, and etc.
• Provides a strong introduction to the business, but does not typically include enough research or background information to prove feasibility.

The Comprehensive Business Plan

Comprehensive business plans are full-scale plans that can be anywhere from 15-35 pages and beyond. This business plan gives readers a full view of the business including the market problem, the solution, company mission, objectives and goals, marketing strategy, competitive analysis, operational strategy, financial projections, management team, financial ask, and more.

A comprehensive plan begins with an executive summary (similar to the one-page business plan) and then expands on the summary with details and supporting information. This plan tells the story of the business, connects the entire strategy together, and provides the necessary research to validate the entire idea.

However, comprehensive business plans have their place. Virtually no one will read a 35-page document with no prior knowledge of the business. Instead, these business plans are best given on request, and after a one-page or mini-business plan has already been sent. When  raising seed funding , a comprehensive business plan provides investors with a full scope of the business.

Is writing a comprehensive business plan right for you? Consider the following pros and cons.

• Provides the most detail and information with supporting research and data using text, pie charts , and other visual aids.
• Examines every aspect of the business with a solid go-to-market strategy.
• Gives the most context and answers reader’s questions with full detail.
• Readers may not read through the entire plan and flip directly to specific sections.
• Comprehensive plans require thorough research and preparation and may take weeks to fully complete.
• Plans must be extremely informative and be presented in a way that captures the reader’s attention. If they get bored while reading, they may miss important points.

What Type of Plan Do You Need?

Many entrepreneurs only complete one business plan, and they send that one business plan out for every situation. Unfortunately, this is not an effective method. Instead, entrepreneurs should have all three types of business plans in their arsenal and be able to supply the right business plan when needed. The length of your plan isn’t what’s most important – knowing what type of plan to use, and when, is what will give you an advantage when seeking funding.

Whether you need a one-pager, a mini-plan, or a full-scale comprehensive business plan, we can help. Our experts have written hundreds of winning business plans for startups around the world. We’d love to help you, too.  Contact us  today and let’s write your investor-ready business plan!

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How to write a business plan in 12 steps (2024 edition)

Updated 18 April 2024 • 12 min read

This guide breaks down how to write a business plan, step-by-step, detailing what your document needs to include and what you need to think about to make your business plan as persuasive as possible.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is an essential document that can provide immense value for new and existing companies of all sizes. It is an overview that includes an outline of your business, its key objectives and plan for achieving important goals.

This information can be used to communicate strategic actions to internal teams and also attract interest from potential partners and investors . However, writing a business plan can be a lengthy and involved process. For many, using a business plan template can be a good way to get started.

For best results, you’ll need to do a lot of thinking and planning before you start writing your business plan. This way you have all the information and resources you need at your fingertips and won’t be under time pressure to come up with something at the last minute. After all, a well-thought-out business plan can help you avoid generic information and set your company up for success.

Download your free business plan template .

Why write a business plan?

Writing your business plan helps to get your strategy nailed down and onto the page. A plan that stays in your head is probably going to be full of unrealistic assumptions and biases, whereas a strategically thought-out and organised approach forces you to notice your blind spots and find a way forward.

If you’re looking for financing, a bank or investor needs to be persuaded by your business proposal and the opportunity to work with you. Therefore, a well-written business plan can help provide potential financial partners with the confidence that your business can become profitable. Your business plan gives them a comprehensive view of all aspects of your business and details your strategy for achieving your goals.

What are the main sections of a business plan?

Whatever your line of work, your business plan will generally need to provide the following:

An executive summary

A business overview

The market opportunity

Your products/services

How to write a business plan

Make sure you cover each of the following steps when preparing your document:

1. Write an executive summary

This section of your business plan should be 1–2 pages in length and enables potential financiers or partners to get an overview of what your business does and – most importantly — what the opportunity is for them. If they’re interested in the opportunity, they’ll conduct their own due diligence - and this will start with going through your business plan and financials.

It’s a good idea to write your executive summary last, when you’ve clarified your thinking around every section of the document. As an overview section, you don’t want to add any new content that isn’t in your business plan. Aim to keep this summary succinct and engaging by using simple, plain language, as this is much more persuasive than complicated or academic wording.

Use sub-headings and bullet points to help your most important information stand out, especially as busy executives may simply scan your executive summary and use this to decide whether they want to find out more.

What to include in an executive summary?

Make sure you include details on:

What your business does

What the opportunity is

What your unique selling points / differentiators are

How much funding you’re looking for

What the funding will be used for

How you'll succeed

Remember, you’re providing the big picture overview of your business - the detail is in the rest of the document and in the appendices.

2. Write your business overview

This section of your business plan needs to be more than just a list of what your business does. Its purpose is to excite those you’re hoping will work with you or help to fund your business.

Information to address includes:

What's the purpose of your business?

What problem does your business’ product or service solve?

What niche could it fill?

What’s different about your offering?

How are you better than anyone else at what you do?

Consider what your customer value proposition is by deciding what you want to achieve and what your number 1 benefit is for your customer.

3. Identify your USP

Think about what your unique selling points (USP) or differentiators are, and what proof-points you can provide to back them up.

For example, you can use terms like “market-leading” but if you don’t provide any evidence to back up your claims, your reader will take them with a big pinch of salt!

You should certainly reference any awards or endorsements that position you as the best person to provide your product or service, as well as any client testimonials. Make sure you include any education or experience that makes you an expert in your field as well.

4. Describe the market opportunity

Show you understand your industry, market and where you fit in it. While no-one can predict the future, offer up where you think the opportunity is for your business and make sales projections based on that. 

For example, imagine your business is selling personalised cookies - there's little competition in your area and you see your market opportunity to create designs for all calendar and holiday events. You expect to increase sales by 30% in one year and 50% in three years, driven primarily by word-of-mouth referrals.

Make sure you also consider macro trends that may create opportunities for you, such as social, environmental, or technological changes that may affect buying behaviour.

5. Include a SWOT analysis

Whatever your business strengths or opportunities, they’ll always be known and unknown weaknesses and threats; there’s no such thing as certainty in business or in life!

However, you can demonstrate that you’ve examined your business through different lenses and have a thorough understanding of it by doing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis.

Don’t worry about drawing attention to your business’ shortcomings - every opportunity has them and it’ll give investors and partners confidence in you that you won't bury your head in the sand. Naturally, it's important that you specify what you’re going to do to address these weaknesses and counter these threats.

Here are some areas you can think about to get started: reputation, technology, location, experience, staff, overheads, competition, suppliers and price.

6. Present a competitor analysis

Let’s face it, no matter what industry you’re in, or what you’re selling, there’s going to be other businesses offering the same thing. But instead of worrying about the competition, use this as a positive opportunity to up your game and work out the unique advantages you have that will keep you competitive.

Identify your top 3 competitors and analyse what they're doing well and where they’re coming up short. Try to be as objective as possible and identify how to differentiate yourself from them.

You should also look into who the industry leaders are and what the benchmarks are for your industry so that you can set yourself targets for continuous improvement.

7. Create a customer persona

A customer persona is a fictional person who represents your company's ideal customer. Naturally, the persona can be based on a real person - the more you get to know your ideal customer, the more targeted and successful your marketing efforts will be.

To create a customer persona, you need to conduct research into your ideal customer’s age, sex, income, employment, daily activities, interests and hobbies. If you’re feeling unsure about your customer persona, you may need to give your ideal customer further thought and download the customer persona template to get started.

8. Write your marketing strategy

When you’ve created your customer persona, you need to work out how you’re going to reach them. Do they hang out on social media apps, like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter or LinkedIn? Or are they more used to local, traditional marketing like free local papers or high foot traffic areas?

Once you’ve figured where your audience is likely to hang out, you can outline your strategies for promoting and advertising your products or services in the next 12 months.

Make a list of the marketing channels you’ll use to achieve your advertising strategy and be sure to include your budget. How much can you set aside for advertising? And where are you most likely to see a return on your efforts? Paid ads on Facebook? Half or full paid spreads in an industry magazine? Or even a direct mail out? 

For more structured help around this, check out free course: Business 101 | Get social with your business on Facebook . 

9. Design your customer retention strategy

Business success relies heavily on the relationship you’re able to build with your customers. What techniques will you use to keep them coming back? Consider the following:

What can your business do to increase the number of repeat customers? 

Does your business have a referral or loyalty program? 

Do you have a post-purchase follow up in place?

Will you use surveys to track customer satisfaction?

What ways can you continue delivering outstanding service?

Is there a way to continue educating and adding value to your customers?

10. Present your financials

Most people who are looking at investing their time and/or money in your business will want to see your financial statements - your performance to date and your projections over the short and medium term. They'll also want to know how much you’ve received in funding to date and what these other sources of funding are - including your own investment.

Current finances

You need to show how your business has performed financially over the last year, highlighting metrics such as positive cashflow , net profit and assets.

Financial forecasts

You should also provide a balance forecast projecting total assets, total liabilities and net assets over 1, 2 and 3 years, and a profit and loss forecast for the same periods detailing gross profit /net sales, total expenses and net profit/loss. Finally, you should also provide a cash flow forecast month by month over the next year.

It’s also a good idea to speak to an expert like an accountant or bookkeeper about your finances and get advice on how best to present them in this all-important section of your business plan.

11. Detail how much funding is needed

Naturally, you also need to be very clear about how much money you’re looking for and what you plan to do with it. If you’re looking for a loan , you need to detail what it’s for, over what period it’ll be repaid, and what collateral you have to secure it.

12. Propose an exit strategy

Any financial stakeholder in your business will want a return on investment. If you’re pursuing this type of funding, you should include some detail on your proposed exit strategy . For example, do you want to sell the company at some point or go public?

Similarly, you should outline your succession plan so the business can continue to operate if you decide to step away from it. Likewise, you need a plan for what happens if the business loses money and can’t sustain itself. Documenting this means that everyone is on the same page and potential investors have this information upfront.

Frequently asked questions about writing a business plan:

When to write a business plan.

Typically, entrepreneurs write their business plans within the first year of operations. A business plan is a tool that helps business owners refine their strategy, attract partners and financiers, and grow their business.

If a business plan is written too soon, it may lack the substance that comes with time in the market. However, it’s important to note that a business plan isn't a static document - it can and should change as the business evolves.

How long should your business plan be?

There are no hard and fast rules around how long your business plan should be - it just needs to include all the relevant information. Aim for clear, concise sections and build a business plan that is as easy to read and navigate as possible.

Using a business plan template can help you make sure you have everything covered off, while also having a document that looks as professional as possible. Make sure you run a spelling and grammar check too - any sloppy errors can undermine your credibility.

What’s a business plan on a page?

It’s important to write your business plan as it helps to embed your strategy - as well as communicate what you’re about to potential partners or investors. When you have a comprehensive business plan you can easily adapt it to suit different audiences. For example, a full business plan is essential for raising capital but a business plan on a page may be enough for potential partners or employees.

What do venture capitalists look for in a business plan?

Venture capitalists invest money into businesses with the goal of achieving a return on their investment within the short to medium term. As a result, they’re looking for an attractive market opportunity, a clear point of differentiation, a strong management team, a proven track record, solid financials and, importantly, an exit opportunity.

Where to go for help or more information?

There are many great resources out there to help you fine-tune your business strategy and write your business plan. The Australian Government has a comprehensive website dedicated to supporting businesses at all stages of their journey.

You can also get help from Business Enterprise Centres , business advisors, accountants and fellow business owners. MYOB also has a list of business advisors who can give you feedback on your business plan, so your venture has the very best chance of success. 

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What Is a Business Plan?

Understanding business plans, how to write a business plan, common elements of a business plan, how often should a business plan be updated, the bottom line, business plan: what it is, what's included, and how to write one.

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

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A business plan is a document that details a company's goals and how it intends to achieve them. Business plans can be of benefit to both startups and well-established companies. For startups, a business plan can be essential for winning over potential lenders and investors. Established businesses can find one useful for staying on track and not losing sight of their goals. This article explains what an effective business plan needs to include and how to write one.

Key Takeaways

• A business plan is a document describing a company's business activities and how it plans to achieve its goals.
• Startup companies use business plans to get off the ground and attract outside investors.
• For established companies, a business plan can help keep the executive team focused on and working toward the company's short- and long-term objectives.
• There is no single format that a business plan must follow, but there are certain key elements that most companies will want to include.

Investopedia / Ryan Oakley

Any new business should have a business plan in place prior to beginning operations. In fact, banks and venture capital firms often want to see a business plan before they'll consider making a loan or providing capital to new businesses.

Even if a business isn't looking to raise additional money, a business plan can help it focus on its goals. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article reported that, "Entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than the otherwise identical nonplanning entrepreneurs."

Ideally, a business plan should be reviewed and updated periodically to reflect any goals that have been achieved or that may have changed. An established business that has decided to move in a new direction might create an entirely new business plan for itself.

There are numerous benefits to creating (and sticking to) a well-conceived business plan. These include being able to think through ideas before investing too much money in them and highlighting any potential obstacles to success. A company might also share its business plan with trusted outsiders to get their objective feedback. In addition, a business plan can help keep a company's executive team on the same page about strategic action items and priorities.

Business plans, even among competitors in the same industry, are rarely identical. However, they often have some of the same basic elements, as we describe below.

While it's a good idea to provide as much detail as necessary, it's also important that a business plan be concise enough to hold a reader's attention to the end.

While there are any number of templates that you can use to write a business plan, it's best to try to avoid producing a generic-looking one. Let your plan reflect the unique personality of your business.

Many business plans use some combination of the sections below, with varying levels of detail, depending on the company.

The length of a business plan can vary greatly from business to business. Regardless, it's best to fit the basic information into a 15- to 25-page document. Other crucial elements that take up a lot of space—such as applications for patents—can be referenced in the main document and attached as appendices.

These are some of the most common elements in many business plans:

• Executive summary: This section introduces the company and includes its mission statement along with relevant information about the company's leadership, employees, operations, and locations.
• Products and services: Here, the company should describe the products and services it offers or plans to introduce. That might include details on pricing, product lifespan, and unique benefits to the consumer. Other factors that could go into this section include production and manufacturing processes, any relevant patents the company may have, as well as proprietary technology . Information about research and development (R&D) can also be included here.
• Market analysis: A company needs to have a good handle on the current state of its industry and the existing competition. This section should explain where the company fits in, what types of customers it plans to target, and how easy or difficult it may be to take market share from incumbents.
• Marketing strategy: This section can describe how the company plans to attract and keep customers, including any anticipated advertising and marketing campaigns. It should also describe the distribution channel or channels it will use to get its products or services to consumers.
• Financial plans and projections: Established businesses can include financial statements, balance sheets, and other relevant financial information. New businesses can provide financial targets and estimates for the first few years. Your plan might also include any funding requests you're making.

The best business plans aren't generic ones created from easily accessed templates. A company should aim to entice readers with a plan that demonstrates its uniqueness and potential for success.

2 Types of Business Plans

Business plans can take many forms, but they are sometimes divided into two basic categories: traditional and lean startup. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , the traditional business plan is the more common of the two.

• Traditional business plans : These plans tend to be much longer than lean startup plans and contain considerably more detail. As a result they require more work on the part of the business, but they can also be more persuasive (and reassuring) to potential investors.
• Lean startup business plans : These use an abbreviated structure that highlights key elements. These business plans are short—as short as one page—and provide only the most basic detail. If a company wants to use this kind of plan, it should be prepared to provide more detail if an investor or a lender requests it.

Why Do Business Plans Fail?

A business plan is not a surefire recipe for success. The plan may have been unrealistic in its assumptions and projections to begin with. Markets and the overall economy might change in ways that couldn't have been foreseen. A competitor might introduce a revolutionary new product or service. All of this calls for building some flexibility into your plan, so you can pivot to a new course if needed.

How frequently a business plan needs to be revised will depend on the nature of the business. A well-established business might want to review its plan once a year and make changes if necessary. A new or fast-growing business in a fiercely competitive market might want to revise it more often, such as quarterly.

What Does a Lean Startup Business Plan Include?

The lean startup business plan is an option when a company prefers to give a quick explanation of its business. For example, a brand-new company may feel that it doesn't have a lot of information to provide yet.

Sections can include: a value proposition ; the company's major activities and advantages; resources such as staff, intellectual property, and capital; a list of partnerships; customer segments; and revenue sources.

A business plan can be useful to companies of all kinds. But as a company grows and the world around it changes, so too should its business plan. So don't think of your business plan as carved in granite but as a living document designed to evolve with your business.

Harvard Business Review. " Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed ."

U.S. Small Business Administration. " Write Your Business Plan ."

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One of the questions that many entrepreneurs face when writing a business plan is: how long should it be? There is no definitive answer to this question, as different types of businesses and investors may have different expectations and preferences. However, there are some general guidelines that can help you craft a business plan that is clear, concise and compelling.

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Avoiding Extremes: Length Pitfalls to Watch For

Striking the balance: ideal length for a business plan, flexibility in length: tailoring your plan to your idea, quality over quantity: crafting a compelling business plan.

A common mistake that some entrepreneurs make is to write a business plan that is too long or too short. A very long business plan may include unnecessary details, repetitions, or irrelevant information that can bore or confuse the reader. A very short business plan may lack essential information, evidence, or analysis that can convince the reader of the feasibility and potential of the business idea.

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A good rule of thumb is to aim for a business plan that is between 15 and 25 pages long, excluding appendices. This length allows you to cover the main aspects of your business, such as the problem you are solving, the solution you are offering, the market opportunity, the competitive advantage, the revenue model, the marketing strategy, the financial projections, and the team. You can also include a summary or an executive summary at the beginning of your business plan that highlights the key points and captures the reader’s attention.

Of course, this rule of thumb is not set in stone, and you may need to adjust the length of your business plan depending on your specific situation. For example, if you are writing a business plan for a very complex or innovative business idea, you may need more pages to explain it clearly and convincingly. On the other hand, if you are writing a business plan for a very simple or straightforward business idea, you may be able to communicate it effectively in fewer pages.

The most important thing to remember is that the quality of your business plan matters more than the quantity. A well-written business plan that covers all the essential aspects of your business in a clear, concise and compelling way will have a better chance of attracting investors and customers than a poorly-written business plan that is either too long or too short. Therefore, focus on writing a business plan that showcases your value proposition, demonstrates your market potential, and proves your financial viability.

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The length of a business plan can vary greatly depending on its purpose. For a lean startup plan, it can be as short as one page, provided it contains all the essential information.

The key components of a business plan include the executive summary, company description, market analysis, organization and management, service or product line, marketing and sales strategy, funding request, and financial projections. These components work together to create a comprehensive and informative plan.

To make your business plan more engaging, use clear and simple language that is easily understandable. Tailor the plan to suit your specific audience, addressing their needs and expectations. Additionally, incorporate visual elements such as graphs, charts, and infographics to present information in a visually appealing manner.

No, the success of a business plan does not solely depend on its length. Instead, the content, clarity, and effectiveness of presenting and justifying the business idea play a more significant role in determining its success.

Yes, a business plan can become too long if it includes unnecessary details or goes off on tangents. It is essential to keep the plan concise, focused, and to the point, ensuring that every section contributes directly to the overall purpose of the plan.

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How to write an effective business plan in 11 steps (with workbook)

February 02, 2023 | 14 minute read

Writing a business plan is a powerful way to position your small business for success as you set out to meet your goals. Landmark studies suggest that business founders who write one are 16% more likely to build viable businesses than those who don’t and that entrepreneurs focused on high growth are 7% more likely to have written a business plan. 1 Even better, other research shows that owners who complete business plans are twice as likely to grow their business successfully or obtain capital compared with those who don’t. 2

The best time to write a business plan is typically after you have vetted and researched your business idea. (See How to start a business in 15 steps. ) If conditions change later, you can rewrite the plan, much like how your GPS reroutes you if there is traffic ahead. When you update your plan regularly, everyone on your team, including outside stakeholders such as investors, will know where you are headed.

What is a business plan?

Typically 15-20 pages long, a business plan is a document that explains what your business does, what you want to achieve in the business and the strategy you plan to use to get there. It details the opportunities you are going after, what resources you will need to achieve your goals and how you will define success.

Why are business plans important?

Business plans help you think through barriers and discover opportunities you may have recognized subconsciously but have not yet articulated. A business plan can also help you to attract potential lenders, investors and partners by providing them with evidence that your business has all of the ingredients necessary for success.

What questions should a business plan answer?

Your business plan should explain how your business will grow and succeed. A great plan will provide detailed answers to questions that a banker or investor will have before putting money into the business, such as:

• What products or services do you provide?
• Who is your target customer?
• What are the benefits of your product and service for customers?
• How much will you charge?
• What is the size of the market?
• What are your marketing plans?
• How much competition does the business face in penetrating that market?
• How much experience does the management team have in running businesses like it?
• How do you plan to measure success?
• What do you expect the business’s revenue, costs and profit to be for the first few years?
• How much will it cost to achieve the goals stated in the business plan?
• What is the long-term growth potential of the business? Is the business scalable?
• How will you enable investors to reap the rewards of backing the business? Do you plan to sell the business to a bigger company eventually or take it public as your “exit strategy”?

How to write a business plan in 11 steps

This step-by-step outline will make it easier to write an effective business plan, even if you’re managing the day-to-day demands of starting a new business. Creating a table of contents that lists key sections of the plan with page numbers will make it easy for readers to flip to the sections that interest them most.

• Use our editable workbook to capture notes and organize your thoughts as you review these critical steps. Note: To avoid losing your work, please remember to save this PDF to your desktop before you begin.

1. Executive summary

The executive summary is your opportunity to make a great first impression on investors and bankers. It should be just as engaging as the enthusiastic elevator pitch you might give if you bumped into a potential backer in an elevator.

In three to five paragraphs, you’ll want to explain what your business does, why it will succeed and where it will be in five years. The executive summary should include short descriptions of the following:

• Business concept. What will your business do?
• Goals and vision. What do you expect the business to achieve, both financially and for other key stakeholders, such as the community?
• Product or service. What does your product or service do — and how is it different from those of competitors?
• Target market. Who do you expect to buy your product or service?
• Marketing strategy. How will you tell people about your product or service?
• Current revenue and profits. If your business is pre-revenue, offer sales projections.
• Projected revenue and profits. Provide a realistic look at the next year, as well as the next three years, ideally.
• Financial resources needed. How much money do you need to borrow or raise to fund your plan?
• Management team. Who are the company’s leaders and what relevant experience will they contribute?

2. Business overview

Here is where you provide a brief history of the business and describe the product(s) or service(s) it offers. Make sure you describe the problem you are attempting to solve, for whom you will solve it (your customers) and how you will solve it. Be sure to describe your business model (such as direct-to-consumer sales through an online store) so readers can envision how you will make sales. Also mention your business structure (such as a sole proprietorship , general partnership, limited partnership or corporation) and why it is advantageous for the business. And be sure to provide context on the state of your industry and where your business will fit into it.

3. Business goals and vision

Explain what you hope to achieve in the business (your vision) as well as its mission and value proposition. Most founders judge success by the size to which they grow the business using measures such as revenue or number of employees. Your goals may not be solely financial. You may also wish to provide jobs or solve a societal problem. If that’s the case, mention those goals as well.

If you are seeking outside funding, explain why you need the money, how you will put it to work to grow the business and how you expect to achieve the goals you have set for the business. Also explain your exit strategy—that is, how you would enable investors to cash out, whether that means selling the business or taking it public.

4. Management and organization

Many investors say they bet on the team behind a business more than the business idea, trusting that talented and experienced people will be capable of bringing sound business concepts to life. With that in mind, make sure to provide short bios of the key members of your management team (including yourself) that emphasize the relevant experience each individual brings, along with their special talents and industry recognition. Many business plans include headshots of the management team with the bios.

Also describe more about how your organization will be structured. Your company may be a sole proprietorship, a limited liability company (LLC) or a corporation in one or more states.

If you will need to hire people for specific roles, this is the place to mention those plans. And if you will rely on outside consultants for certain roles — such as an outsourced CFO — be sure to make a note of it here. Outside backers want to know if you’ve anticipated the staffing you need.

5. Service or product line

A business will only succeed if it sells something people want or need to buy. As you describe the products or services you will offer, make sure to explain what benefits they will provide to your target customers, how they will differ from competing offerings and what the buying cycle will likely be so it is clear that you can actually sell what you are offering. If you have plans to protect your intellectual property through a copyright or patent filing, be sure to mention that. Also explain any research and development work that is underway to show investors the potential for additional revenue streams.

6. Market/industry analysis

Anyone interested in providing financial backing to your business will want to know how big your company can potentially grow so they have an idea of what kind of returns they can expect. In this section, you’ll be able to convey that by explaining to whom you will be selling and how much opportunity there is to reach them. Key details to include are market size; a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis ; a competitive analysis; and customer segmentation. Make it clear how you developed any projections you’ve made by citing interviews or research.

Also describe the current state of the industry. Where is there room for improvement? Are most companies using antiquated processes and technology? If your business is a local one, what is the market in your area like? Do most of the restaurants where you plan to open your café serve mediocre food? What will you do better?

In this section, also list competitors, including their names, websites and social media handles. Describe each source of competition and how your business will address it.

7. Sales and marketing

Explain how you will spread the word to potential customers about what you sell. Will you be using paid online search advertising, social media promotions, traditional direct mail, print advertising in local publications, sponsorship of a local radio or TV show, your own YouTube content or some other method entirely? List all of the methods you will use.

Make sure readers know exactly what the path to a sale will be and why that approach will resonate with customers in your ideal target markets as well as existing customer segments. If you have already begun using the methods you’ve outlined, include data on the results so readers know whether they have been effective.

8. Financials

In a new business, you may not have any past financial data or financial statements to include, but that doesn’t mean you have nothing to share. Preparing a budget and financial plan will help show investors or bankers that you have developed a clear understanding of the financial aspects of running your business. (The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has prepared a guide you can use; SCORE , a nonprofit organization that partners with the SBA, offers a financial projections template to help you look ahead.) For an existing business, you will want to include income statements, profit and loss statements, cash flow statements and balance sheets, ideally going back three years.

Make a list of the specific steps you plan to take to achieve the financial results you have outlined. The steps are generally the most detailed for the first year, given that you may need to revise your plan later as you gather feedback from the marketplace.

Include interactive spreadsheets that contain a detailed financial analysis showing how much it costs your business to produce the goods and services you provide, the profits you will generate, any planned investments and the taxes you will pay. See our startup costs calculator to get started.

9. Financial projections

Creating a detailed sales forecast can help you get outside backers excited about supporting you. A sales forecast is typically a table or simple line graph that shows the projected sales of the company over time with monthly or quarterly details for the next 12 months and a broader projection as much as five years into the future. If you haven’t yet launched the company, turn to your market research to develop estimates. For more information, see “ How to create a sales forecast for your small business. ”

10. Funding request

If you are seeking outside financing such as a loan or equity investment, your potential backers will want to know how much money you need and how you will spend it. Describe the amount you are trying to raise, how you arrived at that number and what type of funding you are seeking (such as debt, equity or a combination of both). If you are contributing some of your own funds, it is worth noting this, as it shows that you have skin in the game.

11. Appendix

This should include any information and supporting documents that will help investors and bankers gain a greater understanding of the potential of your business. Depending on your industry, you might include local permits, licenses, deeds and other legal documents; professional certifications and licenses; media clips; information on patents and other intellectual property; key customer contracts and purchase orders; and other relevant documents.

Some business owners find it helpful to develop a list of key concepts, such as the names of the company’s products and industry terms. This can be helpful if you do business in an industry that may not be familiar to the readers of the business plan.

Tips for creating an effective business plan

Use clear, simple language. It’ll be easier to win people over if your plan is easy to read. Steer clear of industry jargon, and if you must use any phrases the average adult won’t know, be sure to define them.

Emphasize what makes your business unique. Investors and bankers want to know how you will solve a problem or gap in the marketplace differently from anyone else. Make sure you’re conveying your differentiating factors.

Nail the details. An ideal business plan will be detailed and accurate. Make sure that any financial projections you make are realistic and grounded in solid market research. (If you need help in making your calculations, you can get free advice at SCORE.) Seasoned bankers and investors will quickly spot numbers that are overly optimistic.

Take time to polish it. Your final version of the plan should be neat and professional with an attractive layout and copy that has been carefully proofread.

Include professional photos. High-quality shots of your product or place of business can help make it clear why your business stands out.

Updating an existing business plan

Some business owners in rapidly growing businesses update their business plan quarterly. Others do so every six months or every year. When you update your plan make sure you consider these three things:

• Are your goals still current? As you’ve tested your concept, your goals may have changed. The plan should reflect this.
• Have you revised any strategies in response to feedback from the marketplace? You may have found that your offerings resonated with a different customer segment than you expected or that your advertising plan didn’t work and you need to try a different approach. Given that investors will want to see a marketing and advertising plan that works, keeping this section current will ensure you are always ready to meet with one who shows interest.
• Have your staffing needs changed? If you set ambitious goals, you may need help from team members or outside consultants you did not anticipate when you first started the business. Take stock now so you can plan accordingly.

Final thoughts

Most business owners don’t follow their business plans exactly. But writing one will get you off to a much better start than simply opening your doors and hoping for the best, and it will be easier to analyze any aspects of your business that aren’t working later so you can course-correct. Ultimately, it may be one of the best investments you can make in the future of your business.

Business plan FAQs

What are common mistakes when writing a business plan.

The biggest mistake you can make when writing a business plan is creating one before the idea has been properly researched and tested. Not every idea is meant to become a business. Other common mistakes include:

• Not describing your management team in a way that is appealing to investors. Simply cutting and pasting someone’s professional bio into the management section won’t do the trick. You’ll want to highlight the credentials of each team member in a way that is relevant to this business.
• Failing to include financial projections — or including overly optimistic ones. Investors look at a lot of business plans and can tell quickly whether your numbers are accurate or pie in the sky. Have a good small business accountant review your numbers to make sure they are realistic.
• Lack of a clear exit strategy for investors. Investors may want the option to cash out eventually and would want to know how they can go about doing that.
• Slapdash presentation. Make sure to fact-check any industry statistics you cite and that any charts, graphs or images are carefully prepared and easy to read.

What are the different types of business plans?

There are a variety of styles of business plans. Here are three major types:

Traditional business plan. This is a formal document for pitching to investors based on the outline in this article. If your business is a complicated one, the plan may exceed the typical length and stretch to as many as 50 pages.

One-page business plan. This is a simplified version of a formal business plan designed to fit on one page. Typically, each section will be described in bullet points or in a chart format rather than in the narrative style of an executive summary. It can be helpful as a summary document to give to investors — or for internal use. Another variation on the one-page theme is the business model canvas .

Lean plan. This methodology for creating a business plan is ideal for a business that is evolving quickly. It is designed in a way that makes it easy to update on a regular basis. Lean business plans are usually about one page long. The SBA has provided an example of what this type of plan includes on its website.

Is the business plan for a nonprofit different from the plan for other business types?

Many elements of a business plan for a nonprofit are similar to those of a for-profit business. However, because the goal of a nonprofit is achieving its mission — rather than turning a profit — the business plan should emphasize its specific goals on that front and how it will achieve them. Many nonprofits set key performance indicators (KPIs) — numbers that they track to show they are moving the needle on their goals.

Nonprofits will generally emphasize their fundraising strategies in their business plans rather than sales strategies. The funds they raise are the lifeblood of the programs they run.

What is the difference between a business plan, a strategic plan and a marketing plan?

A strategic plan is different from the type of business plan you’ve read about here in that it emphasizes the long-term goals of the business and how your business will achieve them over the long run. A strong business plan can function as both a business plan and a strategic plan.

A marketing plan is different from a business plan in that it is focused on four main areas of the business: product (what you are selling and how you will differentiate it), price (how much your products or services will cost and why), promotion (how you will get your ideal customer to notice and buy what you are selling) and place (where you will sell your products). A thorough business plan may cover these topics, doing double duty as both a business plan and a marketing plan.

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Editable business plan workbook

Starting a new business

1 . Francis J. Green and Christian Hopp. “Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed.” HBR. July 14, 2017. Available online at https://hbr.org/2017/07/research-writing-a-business-plan-makes-your-startup-more-likely-to-succeed.

2 . CorpNet, “The Startup Business Plan: Why It’s Important and How You Can Create One,” June 29, 2022.

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Does your business plan need a push?

Writting a business plan can be a springboard exercise for your business, and it's not as difficult as people think. All it takes is a bit of method, and some efficient tools. The good news our free articles and paid course have you covered!

Resources on Business Plan Writing :

An article of the Accelerated MBA written by:

Antoine Martin (Ph.D) | Business coach

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In this article:

How long should a business plan be hint: smart is better than short.

How long should a business plan be? That question is typical, and every entrepreneur or business owner involved in a business plan writing process has to answer it sooner than later.

The stakes are high. If you consider that investors and bankers are permanently solicited and thus have a ton of business proposals on their desk (let alone in their inbox), then the quality, the ease of reading, and the length of a business plan are crucial. Not to say vital.

Is your business plan too long to read? You’re out.

Is it boring to read? Out.

Not visual enough? Out.

Not teasing enough? Out.

Not aligned with the code everyone expects you to follow?

Long story short? Business plan writing is a codified exercise, so your interlocutors will have specific (and standard) expectations as to what they want to read. And your job as the business owner is to provide them with just that.

Before getting into typical and ideal business plan lengths, let me give you a quick background reminder, though.

First, this article is part of a more extensive series of articles written to share  tips on how to write a business plan people will want to read . As business coaches, we repeatedly answer the same questions, and coming up with these resources felt logical. So please give them a look!

Second, in case the articles are not enough and you want to get your own business plan ready in no time, we also created  a very efficient business plan template and module (The Business Plan Builder)  to get you going fast, with two hours of business coaching videos, a template you can use immediately, automated financial tables and two designer-made renderings you’ll be able to adapt to your liking. The module will get you going immediately and pays for itself in no time. You have no excuse!

Back to our question now: how long should a business plan be?

In this article, we’ll give you various elements of answer.

We’ll answer the question the best we can, but we’ll also go through a brief reality check to tell you how long a typical business plan is (as compared to an ideal one) and how many pages yours should be if you want to give your business a chance with investors.

We’ll also talk briefly about the importance of pitching your operational plan in your business plan. Finally, we’ll conclude with some hints about the importance of storytelling.

Sounds good? Let’s get going.

The stake: How long should a business plan be?

So, how long should a business plan be, then? Well. Let us come back to the basics:  what is a business plan for? A business plan is an excuse to tell a story people about your business that people will want to remember.

How does that translate in terms of length? Your document should be long enough to convey your story and message. But it should also be short enough to keep people focused and attentive.

That’s not helping too much, we know. But read again. The answer is there (and in the next section, so keep reading).

Your document should be long enough to convey your story and message. If you get people excited about your project with just one page: fantastic. And if you need a few pages to get the same result, that’s fine too.

Your goal is to get people on board, so the stake is to pitch your story in just the right amount of words and pages needed to tease and get the excitement through. Once that occurs, your reader will ask you for more information, which gets you to second base. And then you’ll be able to get the relationship going.

However, there is no point in putting absolutely everything about your business in your business plan document. If the business plan is too long, you’ll lose your reader. And if the design is boring (i.e., black text on a white page), you’ll also lose the reader.

Having said that, the point is obviously not to start printing your business plan in blue on a pink background. It is to turn your business plan into something fancy to read. More on that later, but in short, you have everything to lose in not being concise and teasing!

So – how long is a business plan? Long enough to tease and turn people on. Short enough to keep them focused. That’s it. Period!

Okay, that’s still vague, so we’re going to give you the number you want. Keep reading.

Reality check: how long is a typical business plan, and how many pages should a business plan be?

Ready for the number you’re looking for?

Seven pages, plus the cover page (obviously) and the financial statements in an annex. That’s how long your business plan should be. Not less, not more. Here’s why.

So, how many pages should a business plan be?

As I’ve suggested before, your readers – investors and bankers – expect your business plan to match a code everyone in the industry abides by.

That code is there for a reason. It creates a standardized best practice that shows who’s done their research or not (insights on the investor’s side). And it gives business owners a framework to work with to structure their thinking (insights on the business owner’s side).

According to that code, your business plan should follow a precise outline and include the following seven points (and recommended pages):

• An executive summary
• A big picture presentation of the issue solved by the business idea
• A description of your offering (the products & services) and target market analysis
• A go-to-market strategy presentation (your business model, marketing plan…)
• An operations presentation (including the company description)
• A presentation of your management team
• Your financial plan & projections, plus the corresponding financial documents & cash flow projections

All of them. Not less, not more. Seven!

And, because you don’t want people to die out of boredom, you want each topic covered over one page tops! So, seven topics, seven pages. Plus a cover page and the financial tables, which, as we just said, can be provided in the annex.

If you want to learn more about  business plan outlines and formatting , we wrote an entire article on the topic – follow the link.

How long is a typical business plan?

In comparison, though, the typical business plan is long, bland, and boring.

Most business owners are not aware of the code part of the exercise. Therefore, they have no idea about what they are expected to do. So they think a bit, try and find a free template and write their thoughts without being too careful about the amount of text they’re using.

Walk a mile in your investor’s shoes: how’s that type of business plan looking to you?

Yes, exactly.

The good news, though, is that you have a chance to stand out from the crowd now that you know. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get started!

Beware of the one-page business plan trap!

Right. Before moving on to the next step – let me finish this point with a short comment on one-page business plans.

Long story short? These can be highly efficient as teasers if (if if if) you have a real strategic plan for your business and you can really (really really really) defend that strategic plan. Otherwise, just a page will lack depth and will likely be pointless.

Or, said differently, the stake is not to do a quick and dirty plan on a page. Instead, it is first to build an elaborate plan that allows you to consider your options for real. And then, to go straight to the point on one page designed to sell your story and tease your reader so bad they’ll want to know more. The logic is really close to the one you’d typically want to use to  create the executive summary of a business plan . Can you see the difference?

To explore the topic in more depth, We’ve also published an article to explain  how to use one page business plans  (and why they can be a trap). Have a look and see for yourself!

In short: How many pages is a business plan?

• The typical business plan is usually way too long
• Your ideal business plan should be concise: it’s a pitch and a teaser!
• Aim for seven key topics, developed on seven pages. Period.

Pitching your operational plan in your business plan is critical.

So we just gave you a framework here: seven key topics, seven pages to tell a story and tease. But what’s the reader looking for exactly?

Again, it depends on who you are talking to.

Suppose you are looking to  write a business plan for a loan . In that case, your interlocutor is likely to be a banker – and their expectations are very specific. We dedicated an article to the topic (follow the link), so I’ll be brief.

A banker wants to see that the operational plan in your business plan will enable you to repay the loan asap. The point, therefore, is to make sure that your seven pages build confidence in your ability to deliver on that.

Now suppose that you are looking to  write an investor proposal . The perspective is dramatically different. An investor is not expecting you to repay a loan. Instead, they expect you to generate profit so they can get their money back a few years from now with an X factor as significant as possible.

There, the point is to show that  the operational plan in your business plan  is (beyond) likely to generate the drive needed to make a profit that makes their investment worthwhile.

As far as the length of your business plan document is concerned, your job is, therefore, to optimize the storytelling power of your presentation. Written and oral.

Again, the point is not to expend the document as much as needed to stuff everything inside it. Instead, it is to tweak and tailor your arguments to fit them nicely into your space. One page for one topic.

Ultimately, the goal is to tease and give people a reason to invite you to the next meeting, so be selective!

How to make the financial projections fit?

Financial projections are an essential component of your business plan  if you remember the list of topics and pages we provided earlier. Still, if you only have one page dedicated to the subject, how do you do? How do you fit all the financial tables into one page?

Well, the keyword we used earlier was ‘financial projections’, which is a matter of showing what targets you have in terms of turnover and EBITDA for the next three to five years.

Reminder: your turnover is the money that comes in, while the EBITDA is the profit leftover on your bank account after all the expenses are paid, but before the taxman claims their share. 

So, well, you could use that important page to throw in a graph showing both elements and a few other indicators. For example, your expected marketing plan budget, expected customer acquisition cost, expected margin or expected return on investment.

To go deeper, think about who your reader is.

If the business plan is written for a banker, show numbers related to your investment capacity and cashflow, and demonstrate your borrowing and repayment capacity.

If you are talking to investors, show that your financial estimates give your company some value and develop valuation numbers that show what’s in for the investors.

Note, however, that the financial statements and tables used to obtain your target numbers (Cashflow, P&L, and balance sheet) should not be displayed on your financial projections page. Instead, you can put them as annex documents at the end of the business plan.

Oh, and just in case you’re wondering how you’ll come up with those financial tables in the first place, we’re providing the automated spreadsheets you’ll need in our Business Plan Builder module – you know what to do!

Smart is better than short: focus on storytelling!

So, how long should a business plan be? How long should a startup business plan be? How many pages should a business plan be? What’s the ideal length of a business plan?

The questions are all the same, so the answer is also the same. To wrap things up, you’ll probably want to keep three key ideas in mind.

Idea one: make your business plan long enough to pass your message, but make it short enough to keep people focused.

Idea two: seven topics, seven pages, plus the financial information (the tables) in the annex. That’s it.

Your business plan should be a teaser , not a profitability report, so the focus should be on building storytelling. This is what business plans are about if you think about it. So, more than making yours short, make it smart!

Idea three: coming up with a short business plan usually requires a lot of business planning work. You first need to build a complete business plan that gets all your ideas laid down before summarizing everything into something straightforward. Sounds unfun, we know, but that’s also an excellent opportunity to stand on the table and take some needed perspective on your business, so why not give it a try?

Meet The Business Plan Builder: 2 hours of tutorial videos and the tools you need to get started

Now – If you are looking for a push to get started with everything we’ve talked about in this article, the  Impactified  Business Plan package was created for you! It’s built around over 2 hours of explanatory videos and comes with a template you’ll be able to use to:

• Figure out what you need to figure out – powerful, uh?
• Understand the business plan code!
• Write your business plan – with just the right amount of words and pages!
• Build your financial estimates – with automated tables!
• Create a visually appealing (designer-made!) document and deck people will want to read!

If you want to stop wasting your time, this is THE most simple business plan template, and you can’t afford to miss it!

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Topics related to How Long Should a Business Plan Be? Hint: Smart is Better Than Short!:

• How long should a business plan be?
• How long is a business plan? How many pages should a business plan be?
• Do I need a business plan software?
• Should I hire a business plan writer?

Need help with building & scaling your business?

At Impactified , we are on a mission to make you build, grow, and scale businesses you can be proud of, and we do that by making our business coaching expertise available to you, in person and through kick-ass self-coaching modules. You will love the experience either way, the only question is, what makes the most sense to you?

More Insights on Business Plan Writing

Financial Projections: How to write the financial plan in business plan

Hey coach! I’m writing a business plan and I’m wondering how to build the financial projections part of the document. What’s the importance of financial projections exactly – I mean, isn’t it absolute BS? How do I write the financial plan in business plan, and even more importantly, how can I make sense of all those messy tables? Can you help me understand this? Thanks in advance!

Do I Need a Business Plan Consultant? No, You Don’t!

Hey there Coach! I’m a small business owner and I need to find some support with my business plan. People suggested that I find a business plan consultant near me, but that’s a big cost and I’m not too sure about what to expect from that. What’s your opinion about business plan consultants in general? Is there any alternative you would highly recommend? Thanks!

How Much Does a Business Plan Cost? Just Under $100!

Hey coach! I was wondering – how much does a business plan cost? I need one, and I’m thinking about having it written for me, so I’d love your insights. Also, I’ve heard business plan writers cost a lot of money, so I’m interested if you have tips for writing a low-cost business plan! Thanks!

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9 Things You Must Know When Writing Your Small Business Plan

One most common question that strikes in the mind of almost all new entrepreneurs is, “ how long should a business plan be ”.

Some experts suggest business plans be detailed with just everything that you need to present your business idea, the revenue model, and the projections. On the other hand, some insist not to be too much stuff!

How long is a business plan?

Well, business plans today are way too different than that of what they looked like ten years ago, but today’s trend still follows those fundamentals, i.e. good projections and solid analysis and easy & quick to read. So, the crux is to keep the business plan simple, i.e. from wording and formatting to the stats and graphical presentations.

Writing a Simple Business Plan

Now, the problem happens when people confuse simple wording and formats with simple thinking and assume that a complex business model cannot have a short and simple business plan .

Anything 20 to 30 pages long with 10 pages for appendices is an ideal length of a business plan for a complex business model. The length may be trimmed for simple business ideas.

Writing a simple business plan for a simple business model is easy, but entrepreneurs with complex business ideas find it difficult to make it happen. They prefer to use a  business plan writing service  to do the plan correctly. Moreover, this article will help you to make your complex business idea comprehensible to a layman.

Quick Guidelines to Keep the Business Plan Simple:

• Avoid long complicated sentences.
• Avoid buzzwords, jargon, and acronyms; you know that KISS stands for “keep it simple, stupid,” but don’t assume anybody else does.
• Avoid verbose text.
• Keep the text style the same throughout the business plan.
• Avoid text size lesser than 11 and greater than 13 for paragraphs and note more than 18 for headings.
• Use page breaks to separate sections and to separate charts from text and to highlight tables.
• Be creative with explanations and use imagery, charts, diagrams, and more visuals that can explain the plan in less time.

The graphical business plans are more effective than any other type, however, they require more effort and development time. Hiring an experienced business plan writer is the best idea, however, if you want to do it yourself, you may need the help of a designer or graphic tools to develop a solid business plan for your startup .

Here are some more tips to utilize the graphics more effectively.

• Make your important numbers easy to find with summary tables and simple business charts. And provide related details easy to find in the appendices.
• Bar charts can serve best for yearly data, i.e. sales, profits, cash flow and net worth etc.
• Pie charts work great for presenting market share and analysis of segments.
• Action plans and milestones should be presented horizontally with labels on the left and dates along the top or bottom.
• Don’t use a graphic without referencing it in the text.

And finally, always proofread your text to make sure that everything is in order!

Overview of the Key Sections:

So, now that you know exactly how long your business plan should be, let’s review what you  need to include. If your business plan is the right length, but it’s missing important information, this article will have been for nothing! Here are the general sections of your business plan and what they entail:

1. Executive Summary

So, this is technically the last step of the business plan. However, you’ll put it at the front so that the reader can gain some extra context before jumping in. This section summarizes the following sections, and should typically be about 2 pages maximum.

2. A Description of the Company

Here’s where you get into the details of what your company does. What are the vision and mission statements? What problem is your business going to solve? You should keep this part lean and without fluff, approximately 3 pages. 

3. Products & Offerings

This section is the descriptor of what your company has to offer. In the previous section, you detailed what your product will solve, but now you have to show how you’ll do that, and how you’ll make money with your products. This section length will depend on how many products you have but shouldn’t take up more than 15% of the report. 

4. Competitive Market Analysis

This section will be one of the longer ones, about 4-5 pages. You’ll really need to emphasize why your company will survive amidst its competition. Detail your competitors and analyze them closely and realistically in this section. Find what your competitive advantage is in the process. 

5. Business Strategy Report

Now that you’ve found your competitive edge, detail it in this section. Another long one, this one shouldn’t exceed 6 pages. However, this is one of the most important sections, second only to the financial plan. Investors want to see that you know where you’re going in the long run and how you’ll get there. 

6. Team Overview

Here, you will describe the management team and provide an overview of your employees. The organization structure should also be present in this section, as it lets potential investors predict your success more easily. This section will also depend on your company’s size, but again, shouldn’t take up more than 15% of the total length. 

7. Financial Plan & Targets

According to  SharpSheets , it’s best to use the bottom-up methodology to create accurate and realistic financial projections. 

Here is the section that investors need to see in order to make their final decision—the financials. Without this section, there would be no investment potential. Make realistic capital requirements, analyze overhead costs, and make humble but firm projections.

Don’t give any half-truths or misinformation here; it will come back to haunt you. Make sure you know your stuff and that this section receives special attention. In all, this section should be one of the longer ones.

The Bottom Line:

Whether you are a first-time entrepreneur or someone who has already launched a few ventures, having an authentic business coach on board can help you develop a solid business plan. A business coach can help you get a deep understanding of the business, pinpoint areas to improve and thus you get the confidence to be bold and take the right business decisions. With the help of a solid coaching program like Titaniums success , you can develop a success-oriented business plan , generate hard, measurable results, get the faster execution of strategies done, and build a better business in less time.

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How many pages should a business plan have?

The length of a business plan can vary anywhere from 10 to 100 pages. The length of the business plan is related to the purpose it was created and the audience for which it is intended. A business plan for external use will place emphasis on the strategy and implementation part while disregarding sections such as the managing team and its experience.

A standard business plan included in the necessary documents to apply for a bank loan has approximately 20 pages, plus the annexes with the financial documents.

The summary of the business plan shouldn’t be longer than 2-3 pages.

The most important aspect of a business plan is to offer relevant information that can play a significant part in the decision-making process, whether it’s about receiving funds or convincing potential partners to take part in your company.

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• Business Guides

How long your business plan should be?

It’s a common question: How long should a business plan be? This is one of the most important questions to ask when you’re creating your business plan since it impacts how much time and effort you put into writing the document.

Introduction (3 to 5 pages)

Market analysis (9 to 22 pages), company description (1 to 2 pages), organization and management (3 to 5 pages), marketing and sales strategies (4 to 6 pages), product or service (4 to 10 pages), equity investment and funding request (2 to 4 pages), financial information (12 to 25 pages), in conclusion.

In answering the question as to how long a business plan should be, the first thing to know is that it shouldn’t be any longer than necessary. Why are you writing the document in the first place? Recall that it should be considered a “living document.” You’ll want to revise it over time.

In this article, we’ll give you a good idea about how many pages should a business plan be so that you know how much work is required ahead of time!

The introduction section of your business plan should be around three to five pages long and is your chance to seize the reader’s attention and give them a broad overview of what you’re trying to do. You should include:

• The problem that you are solving or an issue in need of resolution
• How your product, service, or company can solve the problem
• Why it matters for the reader (the investor or company executive) and why they’ll care about the suggested solutions
• How much of a profit do you believe you’ll realize?
• Who is your target audience? What are their demographics?
• What is the size of the market?
• How large of a market share do you believe you can seize?

These points help paint a picture of who you are and what you intend to achieve.

In brief, your introductory section should include:

• An attention-grabbing Cover Page (1 page)
• An Executive Summary (1 to 2 pages); and
• A Table of Contents (1 page)

Generally, a market analysis should include the following:

• Background information about your company and its products/services
• An overview of the industry with an examination of key trends that are driving change in the marketplace (industry structure)
• Identification of customer needs and how these compare to competitive offerings (customer profiles), which will help you determine where there is an opportunity for profitable growth.

It’s also essential to understand how well positioned your company is relative to competitors on various performance indicators such as product quality or service levels.

The company description is a snapshot of your organization’s history, what you do, and how the values that drive success. It should be succinct – no more than two pages.

The following are some potential parts to include in this section:

• How long has the company existed? What were its early years like?
• How does it operate today?
• How have recent changes impacted operations or strategy, and why was change needed?
• What sets your business apart from competitors (products/services)?
• Why would someone want to work at the organization as opposed to others out there in similar industries?

The organization and management section of a standard business plan includes all the information about running and developing your organization. You also explain what your company’s culture is like and who your executive team members are.

This section should cover how you will promote your products/services, the media channels being used, and whether or not there is any need for additional help. How much of a budget do you have? What’s your target audience? Have all these questions been answered before spending valuable time creating ads without knowing if they will produce results?

The product or service section is one of the most important parts and should give an in-depth look at your company’s products and services. How will they be produced? How much do you charge for them? This section may take some time to write if it includes things like manufacturing costs, but it’ll save time later when making decisions about how to sell your goods.

The investment and funding request section is a brief overview of the requester’s strengths, what you need from an equity partner, how much it’ll cost an investor to be invested in your business, and other pertinent information.

This section is detailed and provides all relevant information about the company’s financials, such as how much money you’ve made in past years. This includes a comparison to other companies of similar size or industry.

The length of a typical business plan ranges from 15-25 pages. How long yours be? That’s up to you. How much information do your readers need or want about your company and its plans for growth? For example, if investors are looking at investing in your company, they may require more detailed financial information.

Finally, keep in mind that the Executive Summary at the beginning of your plan is the section most people will read and pay attention to the most. You’ll want to write it after you’ve written the rest of your document as it summarizes everything you’ve put together. However, you’ll want to ensure that the summary is presented in an exciting and engaging style so that it keeps the reader’s interest.

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You want constant supplies for your job, supplies that make it easier for you to finish the task at hand. In your job, you run the risk of toxication, burned from chemicals, and electrocuted. You risk your life every day in your labor job. That is why supplies are essential to your daily work life. The listed supplies are some supplies that are required for your daily work life. These supplies are a way to plan your job and accomplish your job tasks. You will appreciate having the supplies to make it easier for you to do your job in labor.

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This list goes beyond the microphone and speaker, since those are often provided by the venue. A professional event planner should bring their own inventory of a few key products to ensure they can handle the audio. A couple of cords, a filter, and some stands should cover any last minute concerns that might arise. It's definitely a good idea to have these products on stand by because the audio is one of the most important aspects of the event.

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Home » Business Plan Tips

How Long Does It Take to Write a Business Plan?

Ideally, a traditional business plan can take just a few hours or maybe days to put together. And although there’s nothing wrong with taking as much time as possible, it is better if you already know what you are doing and have the data you need. Notably, it is possible to write your initial business plan in under an hour; however, it depends on how quickly you can answer the most pressing questions, and access some data to back up your assumptions.

If you have a perfect understanding of the business you want to venture into, then it should not take you more than 2–3 hours to get your initial and basic business plan done. From there, it can take you extra 2 hours every month to review and readjust it. You keep a basic plan at the core and as you have to present to outsiders – such as investors or bankers – you inculcate fresh summaries and text descriptions that are extra to your core basic plan.

Have it in mind that a Business Plan is a constantly evolving document so in reality it is never finished. It is your guide to doing business and since every Business Plan is different, it is better not to be tempted to use those many online programs that promise to make writing your business plan as simple as nursery rhythms.

Putting together your business plan should involve a deep reflection of every part and detail of your idea. Sometimes, it even takes seasoned professionals between 3 and 6 months to write a plan after collecting all the information necessary. In short, with most answers and data sorted, working full time, 10 days sounds right. However, business owners wear many hats, so setting aside 10 whole days is a big request, so, safely a month.

Dedicating a little time to research and planning before starting your business reduces the risk that you will lose money and make business mistakes. Your plan will help you find out if your business can indeed generate revenue and various other things that you really need to make it successful. Indeed, you could jump right in and start your business without a plan, but it is much more likely that you’ll waste time, money, and resources—unless you have a plan.

Components of a Good and Workable Business Plan

First and foremost, note that a plan is mainly measured by its readability and summarization. A good business plan is meant to leave a reader with a good general idea of its primary contents even after only a quick glance. Format, headings, white space, and illustrations all tend to make a huge difference. Summaries are very critical and the main points should show up in a business plan as quickly as they do in a business presentation. Nonetheless, here are the basic components of a good business plan .

Executive Summary

When putting together a workable business, note that your executive summary is expected to appear first. This is the section that summarizes everything you expect your business to accomplish. Since it is meant to express what you intend to discuss in the rest of the plan, experts suggest that you write this section last.

Also, note that a good executive summary is enticing. It extensively tells the company’s mission statement, along with a short description of its products and services.

Market Analysis

Note that this is where you are expected to show that you have a concrete understanding of your business industry and the specific market you intend to enter. This is the section where you have to substantiate the strengths that you highlighted in your company description with data and statistics that extensively explain your industry trends and themes.

You will also have to show what other businesses are doing and whether they are succeeding or failing. Note that your market analysis should also help visualize your target customers — how much money they make, what their buying habits look like, which services you think they want and need, etc. In addition, the numbers should help answer why your business can do it better.

Company Description

This section includes all vital information about your business, goals, and the target customers that you intend to serve. Also note that this is where you describe why your company stands out from other competitors in the industry and break down its strengths, including the services or solutions you offer customers, and the competitive advantages that will offer your business an edge to succeed.

Description of Management and Organization

Your business plan is expected to outline how your organization is set up. You will have to introduce your company managers here and summarize their skills and main job responsibilities. Note that a simple way could be to use a diagram that maps out your chain of command.

Also remember to indicate whether your business will operate as a partnership, a sole proprietorship or a business with a different ownership structure. If you have a board of directors, this is where you have to identify the members.

Competitive Analysis

Every good business plan needs to showcase a clear comparison of your business vs. your direct and indirect competitors. Note that this section is where you show your knowledge of the industry by breaking down their strengths and weaknesses.

Always remember that the end goal is to show how your business will meet up in the market. And if there are any issues that could limit you from venturing into the market, like high upfront costs, this is where you will have to be plain. Your competitive analysis will go in your market analysis section.

Breakdown of Your Products and Services

Although your company description is an overview, a detailed breakdown of your products and services is meant to provide a direct but extensive description of the products that you are creating and selling, how long they could last and how you intend them to meet existing demand.

Note that this section is where you are expected to mention your suppliers, as well as other key information about how much it will cost to make your products and how much money you intend to generate also. Ensure to also list all relevant information pertaining to patents and copyright concerns here as well.

Sales Strategy

This is where you are expected to answer how you intend to sell the products that you are producing or offer the services that you intend to bring to the market. Note that your sales strategy is expected to be specific. Ensure to carefully break down how many sales reps you will need to employ and how you intend to recruit them and bring them on board. Also, make sure to include your sales targets as well.

Marketing Plan

Have it in mind that this is where you explain how you intend to get your products and services into the market and also reach your target customers . In this section, break down the steps that you will take to promote your products and the budget that you will need to implement your strategies.

Request for Funding

If you also need external funding, this section is where you have to focus on the amount of money you need to build your business and how you intend to leverage the capital that you are looking for. You should consider including a timeline here for additional funding that you require to complete other crucial projects.

Financial Projections

Note that this is the final section and where you explain the financial goals and expectations that you have set based on market research. This is the section where you report your anticipated revenue for the first 12 months and your annual projected earnings for the second, third, fourth and fifth years of business. However, if you intend on applying for a personal loan or a small business loan, you can always add an appendix or another section that offers extra financial or background information.

More on Business Plan Tips

How Many Pages Should a Business Plan Be? 10, 25, 50 or 100?

By: Author Tony Martins Ajaero

Home » Business Plans

How many pages should a business plan be? 10, 25, 50, 100 or more? Here is a quick comparison of the business plan types available and their optimum length.

A lot of new entrepreneurs often wonder how long is too long for a business plan. Most business experts and counselors say it should be 30 to 50 pages, as a minimum, while others give a more or lesser number than the one named above. One thing you have to understand is that there is no specific number a business plan should be before it is considered perfect. Everything depends on your audience and what you intend to use the business plan for.

According to the United States’ Small Business Association, ‘a business plan needs to be whatever length is required to excite the financing source, prove that management truly understands the market, and detail the execution strategy’.

From various surveys done by many organizations and professionals, it was concluded that a workable business plan should be in the ranges of 25 to 100 pages, depending on the various factors involved in writing the plan. Some of these factors may include; targeted markets, difficult assumptions or non-industry data, industry risk, poor credit factors that require additional explanation or documentation, financing source, etc.

Using the SBA model, a business plan can range in size from 38 to 50 pages for a basic plan to as high as 80 to 100 pages for complex plans. On the other hand, venture contests have come to the conclusion that an effective business plan should be around 30 pages, sometimes 40, but rarely 50 – and that includes detailed financials in the appendices.

Page Length Expectation for Various Kinds of Business Plans

The various kinds of business plans in existence have their own page length expectation according to experts. They usually fall within these indices;

• For small internal reports, the page length is usually Ten to fifteen pages
• For corporate business plans, the page length allowed can be up to hundred and even over
• Startup and expansion plans used for potential investors, vendors or other business partners can be 20 to 40 pages.
• Venture contests limit page length (including the appendix with financial information), at a minimum 30 pages, and in some rare instances as many as 50 pages.

A Breakdown of the Pages of a Business Plan 

The SBA model allows business plans to run from 38 pages to as much as hundred pages depending on the kind of plan in question. The pages of the typical business plan are broken down as follows;

• Part 1: Introduction (3 to 5 pages)
• Part 2: Market Analysis (9 to 22 pages)

The market analysis section illustrates the knowledge about the particular industry in question. It presents general highlights and conclusions of any marketing research data that have been have collected; however, the specific details of the marketing research studies should be moved to the appendix section of the business plan.

• Part 3: Company Description (1 to 2 pages)

Without going into detail, this section usually includes a high-level look at how all of the different elements of the business fits together. The company description section should include information about the nature of the business as well as list the primary factors that is believe will make the business a success.

• Part 4: Organization and Management (3 to 5 pages)

This section should include the company’s organizational structure, details about the ownership of the company, profiles of the management team, and the qualifications of the board of directors.

• Part 5: Marketing and Sales Strategies (4 to 6 pages)

Marketing is the process of creating customers, and customers are the lifeblood of a business. In this section, the first thing to do is define the company’s marketing strategy. There is no single way to approach a marketing strategy; the strategy should be part of an ongoing self-evaluation process and unique to the company.

• Part 6: Product or Service (4 to 10 pages)

What is the company selling? What is their service? In this section, describe the service or product, emphasizing the benefits to potential and current customers. Focus on the areas where it has a distinct advantage. Identify the problem in your target market for which your service or product provides a solution. Give the reader hard evidence that people are, or will be, willing to pay for your solution.

• Part 7: Equity Investment and Funding Request (2 to 4 pages)

In this section, you will identify how much you plan or have already invested in the business. Identify the exact amount of funding you will need to start and make sure it ties specifically to your Financial Plan.

If necessary, you can include different funding scenarios, such as a best and worst case scenarios, but remember that later, in the financial section, you must be able to back up these requests and scenarios with corresponding financial statements and projections.

• Part 8: Financial Information (12 to 25 pages)

This section is considered the most important part of your business plan and requires significant effort. Make sure your financial information is reviewed by a professional such as your accountant. The financials should be developed after you’ve analyzed the market and set clear objectives. That’s when you can allocate resources efficiently.

Related Posts:

• How to Write a Business Plan Executive Summary [Sample Template]
• How to Write a Marketing Plan Strategy for a New Product
• 10 Reasons Why Business Plan Pro Software is the Best
• 5 Types of Constraint That Affects a Business Plan
• What are Supporting Documents in a Business Plan?

Top things to know about Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft Surface, available today at Microsoft.com

• Microsoft Store Team

Available today, the all-new Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft Surface – Surface Laptop and Surface Pro – are thin, light and beautiful devices that help you do more of what you love. Whether it’s starting a new creative project, connecting with friends and family or pursuing a new business venture, these devices are designed to support your journey.

The new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro are Copilot+ PCs, which are the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs on the market. They are available in four color options at an incredible value, beginning at $999 Estimated Retail Price (ERP) USD on Microsoft.com or at a Microsoft Experience Center .

Exclusively on Microsoft.com, customers can purchase Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft Surface with 64GB memory (RAM) configurations which offer more performance and multi-tasking:

• Surface Laptop (7 th Edition) , starting at $2,399.99 ERP USD in Black with a 13.8-inch Display, Snapdragon® X Elite (12 Core) Processor and 1TB SSD Storage.
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Read on for everything you need to know about the new Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft Surface.

Our three favorite things about the new Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft Surface: 1 – Designed for your everyday work and play

• Power through your day without a worry. The new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro are more powerful than ever with Snapdragon X Series Processors, providing faster performance and all-day battery life with a powerful Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for all-new AI experiences.
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• Everyday AI companion with the Copilot key. The Copilot app is just a click away with the Copilot key – one of the newest additions to Windows 11 keyboards on Copilot+ PCs.

2 – Exclusive AI experiences designed to empower creativity and productivity  

• Express your creativity with Cocreator [iii] . Whether a seasoned artist or new to design, Cocreator simplifies image creation and photo editing with easy text prompts and natural inking using a Slim Pen [iv] on Surface Pro or touch on Surface Laptop. Exclusive to Copilot+ PCs, Cocreator lets you bring your ideas to life, and it works alongside you to iteratively update the image in real time. Cocreator is available in Paint – the app you’ve grown to know and love.
• No matter where you are, Live Captions keeps you better connected [v] . Available on Windows, Live Captions can quickly translate any live or prerecorded audio into English – and in real time. Connecting with friends, family and colleagues just got easier, and you’ll never miss a beat when watching your favorite international movies or TV shows.
• New and enhanced audio and video effects bring new meaning to ”camera ready.” Both device cameras are powered by new features to Windows Studio Effects. Powered by an industry-leading NPU, they help improve lighting, ensure you appear clear and crisp on video, reduce background noise and offer creative filters so you can express yourself on camera. Built to automatically improve video calls, it’s like having a studio ring light and microphone right on your Windows PC! And the Surface Pro’s ultrawide field-of-view camera keeps you, or the whole family, in focus, even as you move around your space.
• Recall (preview) coming soon: For the solo-preneur who has too many working files and emails to maintain organization, Recall helps you quickly find things you have seen on your PC, keeping all documents, images, websites, instant messages, emails and apps right at your fingertips. This experience comes with built-in privacy and security controls.

Learn how to unlock the best of the new AI-powered features on your Copilot+ PC .

3 – The all-new Surface Pro Flex Keyboard [vi] unlocks new levels of flexibility  

Alongside the new Surface Pro, we are introducing the Surface Pro Flex Keyboard , unlocking powerful new levels of flexibility to effortlessly adapt to your work and play routines. Ready to attach to your Pro for the ultimate laptop set-up or detach for more flexibility and to support your creative workflows. It is built with extra carbon fiber layers for stability and has a larger, customizable haptic touchpad. With integrated pen storage, your Slim Pen is secure, charged and ready to go. Accessibility remains core to our approach, so we designed the new Surface Pro Flex Keyboard with a bold keyset option to reduce eye strain and assist people with low vision.

Discover, learn and buy with Microsoft Store

Shopping at Microsoft Store is all about ease and convenience. Whether the new Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft Surface, Copilot Pro, Xbox consoles and games, apps, movies and TV shows, we’ve got you covered. Don’t miss our top deals on your favorite TV shows like Rick & Morty: Seasons 1-7, Buffy The Vampire Slayer Complete Series, Sons of Anarchy: The Complete Box Set and so much more – available for up to 50% off for a limited time .

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• Online Trade-in Program : For a limited time, buy a new Copilot+ PC from Microsoft Surface and get extra cash back when you trade in an eligible device.
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You can also bet on Microsoft Store offering lots of great deals throughout the upcoming back-to-school season. Be sure to keep an eye on the deals page !

Available alongside Microsoft Surface today, are brand new Copilot+ PCs from the biggest brands: Acer , ASUS , Dell , HP , Lenovo and Samsung . Learn more from major PC manufacturers or visit leading retailers, including Best Buy .

[i] Colors available on selected models only. Available colors, sizes, finishes and processors may vary by store, market and configuration. 

[ii] HDR requires HDR content and enabling HDR in device settings.

[iii] Microsoft account required.

[iv] Surface Slim Pen sold separately.

[v] Currently supports translation for video and audio subtitles into English from 40+ languages. See  https://aka.ms/copilotpluspcs . 

[vi] Surface Pro Flex Keyboard sold separately.

[vii] With approval of Citizens Pay Line of Credit at 0% APR and 12- or 18-month term. Subject to individual credit approval. See the Citizens Pay Line of Credit Agreement  for full terms and conditions. Citizens Pay Line of Credit Account offered by Citizens Bank, N.A. ​