 First of all, you shouldn’t judge a business plan by its length, because it’s quite relative concept. For example, a 40-page plan with lots of graphics and illustrations of product samples may contain the same volume of information as a 20-page plan with dense text and no illustrations at all. But comprehension of these two plans may be different.
A right way to measure a plan is to measure it by its summarization and readability. A reader of such plan must have a good idea of the plan’s main points even after quick browsing. Headlines in informative business plan should be distinguishable. This achieves with the help of print size, its color and location. Illustrations are also appropriate, but don’t supersaturate your plan with them. Information in the plan should be digested and summarized. Summaries should contain the main points of the plan.
Nowadays lots of people still use number of pages as characteristic of business plan quality. Business plan for different companies can have from 5 to hundreds of pages. The smallest business plans are internal-use utilitarian plans up to 15 pages long. The largest ones are corporate business plans for transnational companies, which can have couple hundreds of pages. External use standard business plan runs into 20-40 pages of the well-spaced text with business charts and financial activities tables and a couple of addendums with detailed data.
Right length of the plan is determined by aims of the plan and its destination. If the plan is intended for potential partners it should include description and history of the company as well as its top managers. The plan, which contains researches, illustrations and diagrams, has larger size.
Very often there is page limitation for business plans of the ventures, which take part in different contests. As usual the limit is 30-50 pages. But the worst ways to abridge the business plan it to use dense typefaces or to delete graphics and illustrations. Business plans creators should use as much drawings, business charts and tables as needed in order to create a good business plan. But don’t overdo it.
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