How to Use the Split the Points Slide

How to Use the Split the Points Slide

A normal poll asks your audience to pick one option. Split the Points hands everyone a shared total to spread across your options instead — in percent, points, or a custom unit — showing how much each one matters, not just which one wins. Results build live as a chart.
  1. What is Split the Points?
  2. When to reach for it
  3. How to set up a Split the Points slide
  4. The audience experience
  5. Presenter results view
  6. What it's not

What is Split the Points?

Split the Points is an unscored, allocation-style Vote slide. Each participant is handed one whole — a fixed total you choose — and divides it across the categories you define. There are no right answers and no leaderboard; the point is to reveal where a room's collective priority, appetite, or spend actually lands when people can't back everything equally.

Reach for it any time "pick one" is too blunt and you need people to show how much each option matters relative to the others. The presenter canvas aggregates every split into a live weighted-average chart, so trade-offs and camps show up in real time.

When to reach for it

  • You want to see how much people care about each option, not just which one wins
  • The room needs to feel the trade-off of a fixed budget, not just cast a single vote
  • A plain poll would flatten a spread of opinion you actually want to see

Work and decisions

  • Budget planning: split next quarter's budget across teams, projects, or line items
  • Feature prioritization: divide dev effort across features to see what the room backs most
  • Resource allocation: spread headcount, hours, or tools across competing needs
  • Roadmap trade-offs: weigh initiatives against each other when you can't fund them all
  • Marketing mix: divide spend across channels (social, SEO, events, email)
  • Feedback and retros: put points on what to fix first, not just what's liked
  • Grant or fund decisions: divide a shared fund across proposals or causes

Team, fun and engagement

  • Divide the team rewards: split a bonus pot, day-off hours, or perks across the team
  • Party planning: blow the party budget across food, drinks, music, and venue
  • The perfect weekend: 100 points across sleep, friends, gym, and doing nothing (nobody funds the gym)
  • Values in action: split points across values (honesty, ambition, kindness) to spark debate
  • Company trip vote: spread points across destinations and watch the office split into camps

How to set up a Split the Points slide

1. Create a new slide and select Split the Points under the 'Vote' section of the slide type picker, next to Poll.

2. Question / prompt — the headline shown on the canvas and above the audience ballot. Leaving it blank falls back to a suggested placeholder ("How would you split our innovation budget?").

3. Categories — the options participants split across, from 2 to 8 (default 4). Use the add control for a new row and the trash icon to remove one; reorder with the up/down arrows or by dragging. Blank rows are dropped from the stage and ballot once you start presenting.

4. Unit — how the total reads. Three choices:

  • Percent (default) — the total is locked at 100 (a % split always sums to 100%), so the Total field is disabled
  • Points — a free total
  • Custom — a free total plus your own metric label (up to 12 characters, e.g. credits, hours, $). Symbol labels render as a prefix ($40); word labels render as a suffix (40 credits)

5. Total — the whole each participant distributes. Fixed at 100 in percent mode; freely set between 10 and 10,000 for points or custom (default 100).

Note 👉 Once the slide has collected at least one response, the total locks — changing the pool would invalidate splits already cast, so reset the slide's results first.

6. Increment (step) — how much each +/− tap moves. Defaults to 5% of the total (5 at a total of 100) and is bounded to 1%–10% of the total, so spending the whole pool always takes a similar number of taps whatever scale you pick. Changing the total re-scales the increment proportionally.

7. Shuffle options — off by default. When on, each audience member sees the categories in their own stable random order, so a category's position on the ballot can't sway the split. Your own order and ranking are unaffected.

8. Results chart — how the canvas visualises the aggregate: Pie (default), Bars, Columns, Stacked, Radial, or Treemap. All chart types read the same per-category averages — they only differ in form, so you can switch styles at any time without affecting anyone's submitted answers.

The audience experience

Allocating: participants see the question and one stepper row per category — a minus button, a number field, and a plus button (no slider). Taps move by the increment you set, or the amount can be typed directly. A "Left to place" meter tracks the unspent remainder, and an entry can never push the split over the total (it's capped).

Note 👉 Participants can submit as soon as some points are placed — the full total doesn't have to be spent. If points are still unplaced, a confirmation asks whether to submit anyway; under-spending is allowed and nothing is auto-filled.

Submitting: once submitted, a participant is locked in — the split can't be changed, and the submitted state is remembered per device (it survives leaving and returning to the slide), so nobody silently overwrites their earlier answer. A recap shows each option as its share of their own split.

Presenter results view

Your canvas computes a weighted average per category across all respondents and ranks the categories highest-average first. Results render as the chart you chose (default Pie), with each wedge or bar showing its share of the whole plus a legend of amounts.

Tip 💡 Aggregation is live — the chart grows as responses arrive. Resetting the slide's results clears the aggregate for the next round.

What it's not

  • Not scored — there's no correct split, no points earned, and no leaderboard; it measures collective priority, not knowledge
  • Not single-choice — everyone splits across all the categories rather than picking one. Want one clear winner? Use a Poll
  • Not a ranking — it captures how much, not what order. Use the Ranking slide when sequence is the point
  • Not open-ended — the categories are presenter-defined; the audience allocates to them, they don't add their own
    • Related Articles

    • Slide Audio, Presentation Audio and Sound Effects

      Enhance your presentations on AhaSlides with slide or presentation-level audio, along with sound effects for greater control over the experience. Note: Slide and Presentation Audio are available only on paid plans. Sound effects are available on all ...
    • How to Use the Ranking Slide in AhaSlides

      A Ranking slide lets your audience prioritize a list of options, not just pick their favorite. Instead of asking “What do you like?”, you’re asking: “What matters most?” Participants simply: Tap to choose items Drag to reorder them Hit submit Results ...
    • How to use the Idea Board slide

      An Idea Board slide lets your audience submit ideas and see them organized into themes, not just read a scattered list of responses. Instead of asking "What do you think?", you're asking: "What themes emerge from our collective thinking?" ...
    • Using the Content Slide

      The content slide lets you create and customise text and images. This slide type lets you edit directly on the canvas, so you have full control over the layout. How does the Content Slide work? The content slide is a non-interactive slide, meaning ...
    • Using the Brainstorm Slide

      A brainstorm slide lets your participants put forward ideas and then vote for their favourites. Setting up your Brainstorm Slide Check out this video for a 1-minute explainer on how to make a brainstorm slide ? On the AhaSlides editor, click 'new ...