How much is Canva pro? Is Canva pro worth it in 2023?

Yes, Canva Pro is worth it. There are so many use cases and Canva continues to add additional functionality making it even more valuable no matter what your using it for.

Canva is a user-friendly graphic design tool with a drag and drop editor that can be used for a variety of purposes, both personal and professional. It is available in a free version and a paid version (Canva Pro).

The free version of Canva has a lot of features, but there are some limitations. The Canva Pro plan has loads of features, but do you really need them all?

I’ve used Canva for my print on demand business and this blog.

In this blog post, we will compare the free version and Canva pro version and answer the question is Canva pro worth it, and explain to use Canva for many different use cases.

What is Canva?

Canva is a user-friendly graphic design tool that can be used by anyone, regardless of skill level. With easy-to-use templates and a drag-and-drop interface, Canva makes it easy to create professional designs.

Hundreds of built-in templates and millions of royalty-free images and illustrations make it easy to get started, even if you’ve never designed anything before.

And for those with more experience, Canva’s advanced features offer the flexibility to create truly unique designs. Canva can be used on any platform, including desktop, mobile, and tablet, making it easy to design on the go.

So whether you’re a beginner or an expert, Canva is the perfect tool for all your design needs, whether you want to create a professional logo or an Eye-catching social media post, Canva has everything you need.

When it comes to graphic design, I am not a designer. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I am downright terrible at drawing. So when I need to create a professional-looking graphic for a website, or a design for a tshirt, I usually turn to Canva. I have had the Canva Pro plan for over a year now and feel it is money well spent.

But even with all of the templates and tools available on the platform, there are still some limitations. That’s where Canva Pro comes in.

Canva Pro is the premium version of Canva that gives users access to even more features and design elements. For a monthly or yearly subscription fee, users can get more than 60 million royalty-free images, thousands of templates, custom fonts, advanced design tools, and more.

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Canva Free Version and Canva Pro Pricing

Canva Pro Is it worth it

Canva offers a free version where there is no monthly cost you just sign up to Canva account and that’s it.

Canva Pro costs $12.99 per month (£10.99) or $119.99 (£99.99) on an annual basis.

So, is Canva Pro worth it? Let’s take a look at the features of both the free and Pro plans to find out.

Canva Free Version Features

The free plan gives users access to:

  • A library of more than one million templates, illustrations, and photos
  • 100+ design types (social media, letters, presentations, documents and more)
  • Ability to collaborate with team members in real time.
  • Thousands of fonts
  • A drag-and-drop interface
  • Basic design tools

Canva Pro features:

In addition to everything that’s available on the free version, the Canva Pro plan gives users access to:

  • More than 100+million premium stock photos, videos, audio and graphics
  • Over 600,000 premium and free templates with new templates added each day
  • Functionality to define a brand kit (logo, colors, fonts) and easily apply it to anything you design in the tool
  • Background Remover to remove the background from any image
  • Magic Resize tool to easily resize any design created in Canva
  • Functionality to download designs with transparent backgrounds and customize the download quality
  • Ability to create templates for your team to use
  • Up to 5 Canva Pro users on one subscription
  • 100 GB of cloud storage
  • Social media content scheduler enabling you to schedule content to 8 social media platforms.

So, which plan is right for you? If you’re a casual user who only needs to create the occasional social media graphics or document, then the free plan will likely be enough.

But if you’re a power user who needs to create high-quality designs on a regular basis, then Canva Pro is definitely worth the investment. The advanced design tools and access to more than 60 million royalty-free images will help you create truly unique designs that will wow your clients and followers.

If you are interested in starting a print on demand shop either on Etsy, Shopify, Launch Cart or similar, you will need to be able to create designs and save them in PNG format with a transparent background. You can only do this on Canva Pro it is not possible on the free version of Canva.

Use Cases that Require Canva Pro

Selling Canva Templates

If you would like to sell Canva Templates in your online store you will need Canva Pro. You can create custom templates in the free version of Canva and you can share the template with people, however, you need the paid version of Canva to allow them to use the template without editing it.

Optimized Graphics

When creating graphics for websites, blogs, eCommerce stores etc, its important to ensure they are optimized in terms of image quality and file size. For Google page speed is as important as ever. With Canva Pro, Canva allows you to not only resize but to change the quality of the graphics so you can reduce the file size. Ideal for small business owners creating graphics for their websites

POD Designs

If you want a tool to use to create designs for your print-on-demand business, you have to have the pro version of Canva. The free version only allows you to download graphics & designs with a colored background whereas the pro version allows you to download designs in PNG format with transparent background.

Canva pro version also allows you to create unlimited folders so you can organize all your designs by niche or even platform that you have posted them to. This is not something you can do with Canva free.

Brand Kit

If you have a logo, colour scheme and fonts or need to create them from scratch, you can put together what Canva calls a Brand Kit. A Brand Kit ensures you stay consistent and true to your brand with everything you create as you can access pre-set brand fonts, brand logos, brand colors and pre-designed brand templates and use them right there in your projects.

Heavy Social Media Use – Content Planner

Small business owners have very little time and often do so many different roles themselves. Social media content manager is one of them.

If this sounds like you and you are forever creating marketing materials for your social If you spend a lot of time creating social media graphics and posting them on different social networks, the Canva Pro is a must for you it comes with a content planner to save you time with your social media posts and unlimited folders so you can organize your content better.

No need to create them in one tool, download them then reupload them into another tool. Within Canva, using a Canva Pro account you can schedule posts to 8 different social media platforms:

Canva (Free Plan and Pro Plan) Limitations

Canva Mobile & Tablet App

The Canva mobile and tablet app can be difficult to use to create more complex items. It works well enough for something simple but anything other than text over an image becomes too fiddly purely because of screen size.

I strongly recommend using the Canva desktop app or create everything in your browser.

Graphic Manipulation is limited

Whilst there are lots of graphics, elements and photo’s to use there are things you cant do in Canva but are easy to do in graphics software. For example, there is no eraser to remove part of a graphic element. There is also no way (in the free version or paid version) to cut out one graphic from another (palm tree from a sunset) which is very popular in some POD niches.

Canva Alternatives

To replace all of Canva’s functionality would be very hard in a single tool or software and it is likely to cost a lot more than the paid version of Canva. There are a number of alternatives. Obviously, you can use Adobe Illustrator or similar, but that doesn’t come with the graphics or templates or some of the video and social media-related functionality.

For example some of the things you would need to replace Canva Pro are:

  • Graphics software like Affinity Designer or Adobe Photoshop
  • Subscription to video library
  • Subscription to premium graphics library
  • Purchase any templates you’d need
  • Social Media content planner

Conclusion of my Canva Pro Review

I use Canva in a number of different side hustles, blogging, print on demand and eCommerce site building. So for me the Canva Pro plan is definitely worth the subscription fee.

The massive catalog of graphics, the magic resize tool, the background remover, and the ability to save images with a transparent background are game changers especially if you aren’t an artist or aren’t familiar with Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator (and don’t want to be).

Using just Canva Pro, I have created hundreds of graphics for websites I’ve built (including this one), created social media posts and created designs that have earnt me thousands of dollars selling print on demand on Etsy. So the subscription has more than paid for itself.

How to get Canva Pro for less

Pay Annually

If you know you are going to need Canva Pro for a year its worth considering paying annually as it works out about $3 cheaper than the monthly Canva Pro pricing ($119.99 per year Vs $12.99 per month.

Black Friday Deals

Companies like Canva always have Black Friday deals, so if you time it right you may be able to get a discount.

Share a Canva Pro Subscription

Canva Pro allows for up to 5 users on a single Canva Pro subscription. So, if you have some trustworthy friends who would also like Canva Pro you can all club together and get one Canva Pro account which means it would only cost you a couple of bucks a month.

Free for Students, Teachers and Non Profits

Canva offers Canva Pro for free for Education and Non-Profits. So if you’re a student or a teacher or work for a nonprofit you may find you can get Canva Pro for free.

Canva Pro Free Trial

Canva offers a free one-month trial for the premium plan Canva Pro so you can test out the full Canva Pro functionality for free and make up your own mind before you upgrade to Canva Pro.

FAQ

Is It Worth Paying For Canva?

The Canva pro plan is worth paying for because it offers a lot of features that are not available in the free plan. The pro plan allows you to create folders, add team members, and create longer videos.

It also gives you the ability to download images with a transparent background, which can be useful for creating designs for print-on-demand products, graphics for websites and memes for social media.

Why Is Canva Pro Better?

Canva Pro subscription is worth every penny as you get more templates, more photos and more graphics as well as time-saving features such as the magic resizer and social media content planner.

Is Canva Pro Reliable?

Canva is a reliable platform but it is not available offline which may prevent you from working on your projects in certain scenarios.

What Is The Difference Between Free Canva And Canva Pro?

The free plan of Canva offers a good selection of basic features, such as access to over 1 million photos, illustrations, and graphics, the ability to create and share designs, and a limited number of templates. The free plan also includes basic design tools, such as text boxes, shapes, and lines.

Some key features of Canva Pro includes:
the ability to add team members, create longer videos, download images with a transparent background, and access to more templates, photos, and graphics.