Gamma vs Tome in 2026: One Pivoted, One Didn't

By the Kinsy team · Published 25 July 2026

Most Gamma vs Tome comparisons still ranking in search were written for a market that no longer exists. They weigh pricing tiers that have been retired, an editor that has been switched off, and a rivalry that quietly ended over a year ago. This page was written afterwards. One disclosure before we referee anything: we build Kinsy, a competitor to both products, so discount what follows accordingly — every load-bearing fact below is dated so you can check it yourself.

What happened to Tome?

Tome announced in October 2024 that it was moving away from presentations, and it shut the presentation product down entirely on 30 April 2025. The company relaunched as an AI assistant for sales teams — account research and meeting prep rather than slides. Reports since then say the team went on to build Lightfield, an AI-native CRM, and that the Tome brand and technology were acquired by AngelList. Users were given a window to export their decks before the deadline; after it, the product and everything inside it went dark.

The numbers explain the decision better than any press release. At its peak Tome reportedly had around 20 million users and a valuation near $300 million — and yet, by the same reports, under $4 million in annual recurring revenue. Twenty million people liked the product; almost none of them would pay for it. That is not a product failure, it is a business-model failure, and it is why a well-funded, well-liked tool can still vanish with six months' notice. Worth remembering the next time a free tier feels too good.

What the two tools were

It is easy to forget how similar the original bets were. Both Gamma and Tome rejected the fixed 16:9 slide in favour of web-native storytelling. Tome built fluid, vertically flowing pages with generative imagery baked in from the start — for a while it was the most cinematic thing in the category. Gamma built cards: variable-height blocks that scroll and reflow like a modern webpage, pleasant to read on any screen and easy to share as a link.

Neither produced a native PowerPoint file. In both cases a .pptx was a conversion — flowing web layouts frozen into fixed-geometry slides, with the compromises that implies. The difference was in the hedging. Gamma diversified into websites and documents, kept a working export path, and metered usage with credits people actually paid for. Tome stayed pure web-native, grew an enormous free audience, and never found the revenue to match it. Same thesis, opposite outcomes.

The old comparison pages argued about which format was more beautiful, whose AI wrote better first drafts, and whose free tier was more generous. Those were reasonable questions in 2023. With hindsight, the only question that mattered was the one almost nobody asked: which of these companies will still be running this product in three years?

Gamma today

Gamma in 2026 is a mature product, and the surviving half of this comparison deserves an honest summary. At the time of writing, the free tier gives you 400 one-time credits, with a deck generation costing about 40 credits and roughly ten cards per prompt. Plus is around $8 per month billed annually with 1,000 credits a month and removes Gamma branding; Pro is around $18 per month with 4,000 credits, custom fonts, analytics and API access, and a higher Ultra tier sits above that. It also makes simple websites and documents, and its shared-link experience — complete with viewer analytics — is genuinely strong. For decks that live and die as URLs, it is the obvious default.

Vendor-published pricing as of July 2026.

The caveat is the same one it has always been: Gamma's slides are web cards, so exporting to .pptx means converting a flowing, variable-height layout into fixed slides. That conversion is lossy — spacing shifts, some elements arrive as pictures rather than editable text, and the file reads "converted" rather than "designed". It is not a bug; it is the structural cost of being web-first, and Tome paid the same cost right up to the end.

The lesson for buyers

Here is the part of the Tome story that matters more than the gossip: a deck that only exists inside a vendor's web app inherits the vendor's fate. Tome's users did not lose their work because the product was bad — by most accounts it was good. They lost it because the business behind it changed its mind, and twenty million users and a nine-figure valuation were not enough to prevent that. Anyone who missed the export window lost their decks outright; everyone else got a one-time download and a dead edit history.

So the buying question shifts. Alongside "which tool makes nicer slides", ask: if this vendor pivoted tomorrow, what would I be left holding? A folder of real .pptx files is a complete answer. A pile of links into someone else's web app is not an answer at all — it is a dependency with a nice interface.

A native .pptx on your own disk survives any pivot, acquisition or shutdown, because it does not need its maker to exist. That, in the interest of the same disclosure we opened with, is the bet we made with Kinsy: the PowerPoint file is the product, with every text element editable and the designed fonts embedded, so the deck outlives whatever happens to us. We make that argument against a live competitor, rather than a departed one, in our Kinsy vs Gamma comparison — read it with the same scepticism you brought here.

Gamma vs Tome in 2026: status check

The bottom line

There is no live Gamma vs Tome decision left to make. Gamma won by default, and on its own merits it remains a polished, fairly priced tool for link-first presentations. The real question in 2026 is the one Tome's shutdown forced on its users: web-first deck, or a file you own? If you are a former Tome user still weighing options — or a Gamma user who read the middle of this page with mild unease — the practical next step is our roundup of the best Tome alternatives in 2026, which walks through where those twenty million users actually went and what each destination trades away. Whatever you pick, export early and export often. April 2025 was a lesson; it does not need to be a rehearsal.

Keep reading

• The 5 best Gamma alternatives in 2026
• The best AI deck maker in 2026: we tested the field