Is Canva Pro Worth It?
A Canva Pro Review
Are you using the free version of Canva but you’re considering getting Canva Pro?
Before upgrading to a paid plan you probably have one burning question: Is Canva Pro worth it?
To be honest, I can’t answer that question for you, because that really depends on what you need it for. But what I can do is show you all the differences between Canva Pro vs the free Canva plan and then you can decide if Canva Pro is worth it for you!
Let’s have a look.
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What is Canva?
Just in case you’re new to creating blog and social media graphics, I’ll quickly explain what Canva is.
Canva is an online drag-and-drop graphic design editor that makes it super easy to create graphics like Pinterest pins, Facebook posts, ebooks and pretty much anything you might need for your business.
It has a huge photo, video and font library and it has tons of other design elements, background images, textures and even audio files with background music and sound effects.
There are also loads of templates available for pretty much anything you might want to design so if designing graphics is not your strongest skill, you’ll still be able to create beautiful graphics in no time.
The best thing about Canva is that it has a lot of functionality available on the free plan and you’ll be able to do the most common tasks like create Pinterest pins and other social media graphics without having to upgrade to Canva Pro.
However, there are definitely quite a few handy features available on Canva Pro.
Let’s compare Canva Pro with Canva’s free plan so you can decide if the Pro features are worth it for you.
Canva Pro vs the Free Version of Canva
Photos & Videos
Free Canva: Access to 4M photos, videos and elements. You can also upload your own photos or graphics and you can buy premium photos starting at $1.
Canva Pro: Access to the complete photo library. This library has over 60M photos, videos, illustrations, icons and other elements that you can add to your designs for no extra charge.
Fonts
Free Canva: Access to a limited amount of fonts. You can’t upload your own fonts.
Canva Pro: Access to the complete font library with over 1000 fonts and you can upload your own font files.
Brand Kit
Free Canva: You can’t upload transparent logo files, fonts and you can only create one colour palette with up to 3 colours.
Canva Pro: Easily keep all your designs on brand with Canva Brand Kit. Upload your logo files, fonts and create up to 100 colour palettes with up to 100 colours each.
Templates
Free Canva: Access to 8000 templates.
Canva Pro: Access to over 20.000 premium templates.
Folders
Free Canva: You can only create 2 folders on the free plan.
Canva Pro: Access to unlimited folders to organise your work.
Storage
Free Canva: 1 GB storage.
Canva Pro: 100 GB storage.
Team Access
Free Canva: Share a link to one of your designs via email, for a team member to view or edit.
Canva Pro: Share a link to one of your designs via email, for a team member to view, edit or use as a template. This is a must-have feature if you want to sell Canva templates.
This feature is such an improvement on the “share a link to edit” feature in the free version of Canva. If someone bought your templates and forgot to make a copy before editing (which is so easy to do) they would change your template and your work would be gone!
With the “Share a link as template” feature, they get access to a copy of your template, not the original.
Resize Your Design
Free Canva: If you accidentally created your design in the wrong size you can’t resize it, you’ll have to start your design over again.
Canva Pro: Speed up your design process with the magic resize function. Turn one design into multiple formats with a few clicks. This is a really cool function that will save you lots of time. Have a look how easy it is to magically resize your designs in this video.
Transparent Background
Free Canva: Transparent backgrounds are not available on the free plan.
Canva Pro: Delete distracting backgrounds in one click and save your graphic as a transparent PNG file. This functions is also very handy when saving a logo design.
Animations
Free Canva: Access to 6 ways to animate your design.
Canva Pro: Access to 11 ways to animate your design.
What I don’t like about Canva
Canva is definitely one of my favourite blogging tools and I love almost everything about Canva, but one thing that I don’t like is the photo library search function…
To find the right image you literally have to scroll through tons of photos because there is no way to filter your search. You can only search by keyword which is a bit limited. I’ve heard more people complain about this so hopefully Canva will improve this soon.
One other thing that might be a problem for some people: you can’t use Canva offline. If your internet is slow or you don’t always have internet available, Canva won’t be for you.
Apart from these two minor drawbacks (that affect both Canva Pro and the free version of Canva) I think Canva is a quality editing tool that you should definitely try out.
Try Canva Pro for Free With This Link.
Canva Pro Features Recap
- Access to the complete photo and video library
- Custom font upload & 1000+ premium fonts
- Brand Kit with 1oo colour palettes
- Magic resize
- Share links as templates (perfect for selling Canva templates)
- Transparent background
- 20.000+ premium templates
- Unlimited folders to store uploads and designs
- 100 GB storage
When do you definitely need Canva Pro?
If you want to sell Canva templates like Pinterest pin templates, ebook templates or any other templates, you really need to upgrade to Canva Pro.
With the “Share a link as template” feature, your buyers get access to a copy of your template, not the original.
This feature is a life saver and will save you from some major headaches.
Canva Pro Pricing
When you upgrade to Canva Pro you have the following pricing options:
- The Canva Pro Monthly Plan costs $12.95 USD per month. This is billed monthly and can be cancelled at any time.
- The Canva Pro Annual Plan costs $9.95 per month and is billed annually at $119.40.
- If you have a large team you can sign up for Canva Enterprise for $30 per month.
- If you are a nonprofit, student or teacher you can apply for Canva Pro for free.
How to get Canva Pro for Free
You can try Canva Pro for free by signing up for their one month free trial. This is a great way to try out all the Pro features and see if upgrading is worth it for you. If you choose not to upgrade, you can cancel your free trial at any time before your 30 day period is finished.
Try Canva Pro for Free for 30 Days
Is Canva Pro Worth it for you?
I hope you’ve enjoyed my Canva Pro review and you now know the difference between Canva Pro and the free version. Canva Pro definitely has some great features and it’s one of my favourite blogging tools!
Is Canva Pro worth it for you? Sign up for your free trial here and let me know in the comments below!
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Sassy Boss
Sassy Boss
I just finished my free pro trial and decided not to go ahead with the pro version. It is nice to have, but I just wasn’t using the pro features enough to warrant the expense. Great recap of the pro vs free features.
I totally understand, Canva’s free version is so good already, it’s only worth upgrading if you need the Pro features or are interested in their photo library.
This is such a great article! I’ve been toying with the idea of upgrading to Canva Pro for a while – I might give the free trial a go. It’s especially useful to know about going Pro to sell templates – thank you for posting!
Yes the free trial is perfect to see if it it’s worth it for you.