Canva is an easy to use graphic design and video editing platform that lets users create, design, and publish original artwork using a simple drag-and-drop editor. The platform comes with thousands of design templates and layouts for numerous projects, including social media posts, presentations, videos, posters, flyers and more.
Canva is also often used as Photo Editing of choice in Marketing and Ecommerce tech stacks.
Capabilities |
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Segment |
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Deployment | Cloud / SaaS / Web-Based, Mobile Android, Mobile iPad, Mobile iPhone |
Support | 24/7 (Live rep), Chat, Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support |
Training | Documentation |
Languages | English |
Are you a non-designer looking for graphic design software? If you need to create designs for your business, Canva is one of the top rated tools to choose. In this post, we’ll explore Canva’s pricing, features, and alternatives.
Canva is an online graphic design tool used by 55 million monthly active users to create visual content for offline and online marketing. Over 9,400 Capterra reviewers have given Canva an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars.
Canva offers hundreds of thousands of templates and elements you can use to create designs for personal or business use. Customize your visual content with your brand kit and media from your own library.
Canva offers three pricing plans. The Free plan includes the following.
The Pro plan starts at $12.99 per month (or $119.99 per year) for up to five people. It includes everything from the Free plan plus the following.
The Enterprise plan starts at $150 for five people. It includes everything from the Pro plan plus the following.
To get started on Canva, you will need to create an account using your email address, Google, Facebook, or Apple. You will then choose your account type between student, teacher, small business, large company, non-profit, or personal. Templates and additional resources will be recommended based on your chosen account type.
You can choose to start a free trial of Canva Pro or begin with the free version to see if it’s the right graphic design tool.
For your first design, Canva will suggest different post types to choose. Based on the type of account you set up, you will see template categories like social media posts, documents, presentations, marketing, events, ads, launch your business, build your online brand, etc.
Begin by choosing the type of post you want to create or searching for something more specific. Search by social network name, for example, to see a list of templates by post type on each network.
Next, you will be able to choose a template. Templates come ready to go, with customizable photos, text, and additional elements.
You can start your design by choosing a template, searching for a template, or working with a blank template.
Canva has a lot to choose from, so start with a specific search. If you’re in the horticulture business, you’ll find plenty of templates for a variety of post types just by searching for plants.
You may not find the perfect template, and that’s ok. Remember there are plenty of ways to customize any template. So choose the best fit and move on to Elements.
Inside the Canva designer, the Elements tab gives you access to lines and shapes, graphics, photos, videos, audio, charts, photo frames, and photo grids. You can use the search box on the Elements tab to search everything on Canva.
Again, Canva has a large library of elements to choose from, so be specific in your search query. You may also want to search in the following tabs to see various elements separately in the search results.
The Photos tab allows you to choose from millions of free, paid, and Pro-only stock photos.
You can replace photos on your templates to create a new look or to match a particular template to your industry.
Alternatively, you can use photos from another stock photography site or your own photos. Simply upload them in the Uploads tab.
Once you choose a photo, you can use Canva’s photo editing features to add filters, adjust the photo’s settings (brightness, contrast, saturation, etc.), crop, animate, and change the transparency.
Canva Pro subscribers have access to the Background Remover. This will remove backgrounds from stock photos in the Canva library as well as photos you upload to the Uploads tab.
The Text tab allows you to add headings, normal text, and fancy graphical text to your design.
When you click on the text on a template, you’ll see options to adjust the font, font size, color, format, spacing, text effects (like shadows), and change the transparency.
Canva Pro subscribers can set brand fonts via the Brand Kit or the Styles tab. Enterprise-level controls will ensure that your team keeps visual content on brand.
Creating an animated image or video? Search for audio elements to add to capture user’s attention in social news feeds.
Alternatively, if you want to use audio from another stock site or your own audio tracks, you can upload them in the Uploads tab.
Want to create video content? Choose from thousands of free and Pro-only stock video clips. You’ll find videos that range from a few seconds to two minutes long.
Similar to photos and audio, if you want to use videos from another stock site or your own videos, you can upload them in the Uploads tab.
Once you choose a video, you can use Canva’s video editing features to trim the video, flip it, and change the transparency.
In the Background tab, you’ll find free photos specifically geared to act as backgrounds on your designs. Change out the background on a template to give it a more custom feel.
The Styles tab allows you to change the look and feel of your template quickly with different color palettes and font combinations. If you have a Canva Pro subscription, you can upload your brand’s custom colors and fonts to keep designs on brand.
If you have a Canva Pro subscription, you’ll have a Logos tab. Here, you can upload variations of your brand logo to use throughout your designs.
You can also create logos with Canva. Note that you can’t trademark logos with stock content in them.
Free users of Canva can download their designs or share their designs to multiple platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slack, and Tumblr.
Canva Pro subscribers can use the Magic Resizer to create multiple post formats from one design. For example, you can start by designing an Instagram post. Canva’s Magic Resizer can resize it for posts on other networks, Stories, Reels, and other formats.
Canva Pro subscribers can also use Canva’s Content Planner to schedule updates to up to eight profiles/accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slack, and Tumblr.
Canva Pro subscribers can work in teams to improve the visual content workflow. Designs can be created inside Canva and sent to the appropriate team members for approval. Teams can make comments, edits, revisions, and keep track via the version history.
If you create a design for offline marketing, Canva has a Print division to compete with companies like VistaPrint. They will print your designs on banners, wall art, mugs, t-shirts, business cards, stickers, invitations, cards, flyers, and more.
Canva Print is perfect for any business that wants customers to do some word of mouth marketing for them. Create designs people would want to stick on, wear, etc. Hand out business cards that people want to keep and share.
Canva offers their own mobile app on the Apple and Google Play stores. Canva has earned a 4.9 out of five stars from over 3 million Apple users and a 4.7 out of five stars from over 188,000 Google users.
With that said, the mobile app doesn’t have all of the features you’ll find on the desktop browser version. Fortunately, you can access most of them via a mobile browser by going to the Canva website and bypassing the app.
In addition to mobile apps, Canva has apps and integrations that allow you to access elements from third parties. You can add maps from Google Maps, Emojis, photos from Google Drive and Dropbox, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Bitmojis, and other popular visual content elements.
Review networks like TrustRadius allow people to leave specific pros and cons about their Canva experience. Amongst the over 500 reviews, here are some of the highlights from the pros and cons users have identified.
If Canva doesn’t sound like the right fit for you, you may be interested in trying the following Canva alternatives.
Adobe has a suite of tools for beginner to advanced level graphic designers, photo editors, and video makers. One tool, Adobe Spark, is a Canva-like tool that makes it easy to create social graphics and videos. They offer a free plan and paid plans with premium features starting at $9.99 per month.
Those with graphic design skills may prefer tools like Lightroom and Photoshop for photo editing ($9.99 – $20.99 per month), Adobe Illustrator for vector graphics ($20.99 per month), or Adobe Premiere Pro for video editing ($20.99 per month).
Alternatively, you can get access to all Adobe tools for your visual content needs for $52.99 per month.
PicMonkey is a Canva alternative that boasts better photo editing features and no hidden fees for premium templates or elements. With that said, PicMonkey does not offer a free plan. Their pricing starts at $7.99 per month for basic features.
Crello is a free graphic design tool that is similar to Canva. It includes thousands of templates and features like the photo background remover and brand kits. The app on the Apple store has an average rating of 4.7 stars from over 600 users.
Piktochart is a graphic design tool that focuses on infographics, presentations, and reports. Their goal is to help you turn data-heavy content into a compelling visual story. They offer a free forever plan plus pricing for premium features starting at $24.17 per month.
If you are a GoDaddy customer, you can access their free tool, GoDaddy Studio. This tool gives you access to thousands of customizable templates.
Similar to Canva, no design skill is necessary to create professional graphics. The app on the Apple store has an average rating of 4.8 stars from over 94,000 users.
Yes, Canva does have a free plan that you can choose to create professional designs.
No, Canva does not place a watermark on your finalized images. You will only see a watermark on copyrighted stock elements in the Canva library unless you purchase the media or a Canva Pro or Enterprise subscription.
If you see a watermark on a previous design, it is because you had a Pro subscription and used a Pro-only template or element.
Yes, all free elements included in the Canva free subscription can be used for commercial and non-commercial use.
Non-designers can use Canva to design a wide variety of visual content for online and offline marketing. They include social media graphics, presentations, business cards, reports, infographics, and much more.
Canva markets itself as an easy to use design tool for non-designers. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are geared towards intermediate to advanced level photo editors and graphic designers.
Yes, Canva offers an easy to use video tool for visual content creators who aren’t video experts.
Definitely, when you consider the number of Pro-only templates and elements. You can always start with the free version or cancel after the 30-day free trial if you’re unsure about the platform.
Yes, unless it has any stock elements in it.
Yes, if it doesn’t include unaltered Canva media. You can read more about licensing, trademarks, and commercial usage of Canva content here.
Canva offers several free resources for designers.
If you want to five even deeper into graphic design, Adobe offers some insightful free guides as well. There are tips for various design types (tattoos, backgrounds, newsletters, logos, etc.) and use of graphic design principles, colors, and symbols.
Overall, Canva is an excellent solution for creators who need visual content. If you’re an experienced graphic designer, you will find their platform lacking in customization and other features – particularly vectors. But if you don’t have a lot of design experience, you’ll find Canva easier to use than advanced graphic design tools like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator for most projects.
Have been using canva for more than 6 years now. Can't think of any better tool
Can improve on video editing and ease of intgration with scheduling softwares.
Faster delivery, faster learning curve as compared to photoshop
Canva is a Quick and Easy platform for design creation. It has drag and drop feature which help you to create quick design, posters ,resume, posts for social medias etc. Canva is a free to use platform with lots of features. It is also available with premium version.
Canva is a great platform to use but some drawbacks are, canva only supports PDF,PNG & JPG. and canva can use your designs for there own purpose as they have ownership of designs. these areas can also be downside for some private users.
Canva is helping and benefiting by saving time and money. It is helping to create visually attractive posters, graphics and social media posts and many more. It is one of the best software for design creation with amazing features. my overall experience with canva is mind blowing.
Canva is an online based software tool so it won't strain your function. You can use it's simple features at no cost. It is user friendly. I use it daily to create new social media campaigns to promote upcoming programs. It's fairly simple to use. Select a template and start building your campaign, it's that easy. You choose from a wide array of fonts, colors, images, etc. Uploading images is a sinch. You can also resize your template to suite your needs for different channels. Downloading campaigns is a click of a button. I love using Canva!
I really don't have any cons about Canva. It's a great marketing source that I use daily.
I used to use Photoshop but Canva is so user friendly and has a wide array of images, colors, fonts, that it's freed up my time in creating campaigns.
This tool helps me to create graphics and logos within a few minutes. the feature of drag and drop of the image, and the presence of lots of templates make me like this app. another thing is it has almost all the fonts available but fav one is Norwester.
there is nothing to be dislike about Canva but sometime the app crash while working but don't worry your data and design already saved automatically. also i feel like the monthly subscription is for 499INR, which is for me a little bit higher side. one thing i must be highlighted here is that this is not the replacement of Photoshop clearly. the images sometime pixilated around zooming to 100x.
As a social media specialist, this tool helps me anytime, like I can create and design brand logos, edit their social media images, and make a business presentations. earlier i used to rely on power point for making presentations but Canva replaced it,by allowing me to add more layers and design to my presentation. For my youtube channel, i generate AI images and short videos with the help of the magic write option. from making resumes and ID cards this tool is all in one graphics design platform.
this has been a welcome program for my past poster board projects for my students. They can do their presentations, their vision boards and their research projects with this program utilizing their own art or many computer-generated forms
paying for publications can add up with classes
I use this for my students in their creative work. They build vision boards at the start of some classes and then return to them at completion. They also do research assignments utilizing Canva as a display for their presentation
Need one product for resume, bio data,social media poster designing. It is very easy to use and share designing with other person. I personally use canva for poster designing very frequenlty. You can also implement canva with other site easliy.There customer support is good regarding nay issue you face in using product.
if you want you Pro version for some advance feature the is high for indiviusal person.
Easy of use And having default icons, fonts, and various formates for various things. I am impress by that.
The thing I like best about it, Is its elements feature. Which contains built-in graphics, images, and videos of high quality, which are easy to manipulate and edit too and there are a lot of fonts to choose from and frames elements too.
The thing I dislike is its lagging and android compatibility, Sometimes the graphic automatically changes its position to the back of the background, especially with gradients and coming to the android compatibility it often lags a lot and kinda mess while working on some big projects.
Problems I am solving with canva for Enterprise:- 1) Working with different images layout with the help of frames. 2) Easy importing of different graphics and small details from the Elements group. 3) Canva Upload Cloud storage from which I can upload any of my graphics and images saved in the Upload group, which helps me to upload my elements even if I am on a different setup. The benefit I realized is that now i don't have to go to different websites for any small changes, earlier I have to go to different websites to either Remove the background, give my images different crop shapes, Download and import Elements in PNG Format, downloading fonts, and importing asset again and again.
I love how up-to-date canva stays. I have the Pro version and they are cool are you adding new templates and features. I am able to do all my graphics designs work within canva. Resizing my designs is a breeze and they just launched a whole "magic series" making everything even more simplified!
Sometimes my team and I have difficulties seeing each others content that we are creating.
It is a one-stop shop for all my graphic needs. Where'd I am making a brochure, flyer, poster, or social media post- I can do it all canva.
As an animation student, I use it quite a bit for creating multiple posts, it has a great UI/UX. There are honestly so many tools available in the free version, and that makes it so easy to select whatever I have in mind and put it in writing. I love the versatility Canva offers.
To be honest, nothing so far. I don't like that I have to have a premium account to remove the watermark, but other than that I think all is good from my end for Canva.
It helps to create enganging and interactive designs and posts for social media and class projects
you can do anything in friendly way. videos, stories, reels, any format is available
the AI is a beginning level, so avatars for example are not at the same level of synthesia.
I am a content creator for marketing so I can manage company logos, company brands, my post for any social media
Canva is mainly used by me for creating professional logo designs, banners, infographics and many more. For every type of designing-related work, this software is useful even the latest templates are available in this software which is very useful.
There is nothing in this software to dislike
It solves the major issue of creating every type of design within a few minutes by editing the suitable template.
Easy to use and Customise your design as you want
Pro and free design had not saprate between us
Create my banner or logo for my YouTube channel
i can make designs which can make my boss think i am an expert in graphics design. most of the time i simply select a template and edit it according to my needs. its so easy to use that even my child can make designs in it.
at the moment i failed to find something i dislike, the only thing i dislike is i am not using it as much i should.
i work for multiple brands, and it is so easy to make short video and posters in canva,. specially bulk create and also the ability to schedule it directly from canva to my facebook . } i can do hours of work in just minutes . it save a lot of time. they are adding features every month. i never had a problem for which i have to contact support.
Canva is a full-fledged online website for creating, developing, and managing your work. I think Canva is the only website that has the most range of features and functions like video editor, photo editor, pdf editor, Content creation, logo maker, QR code generator, Resume templates, etc. You can do most of the work on Canva as a student, as a professional, as an entrepreneur, etc. Now whenever I have to make a presentation, I only use Canva because it has a lot of templates and features and also for Photo editing, Video Editing, and Youtube video thumbnails. Canva provides a download feature without any premium for their user and that is the best thing I like about Canva. Canva is a website that its developers always keep up to date and they are updated on a regular basis for the best experience of user. Canva is the simplest and easiest to understand website for working.
Sometimes after editing files, you may face the problem of standard size but not always. I have had some bad experiences with PDF files after importing the size was not standard and can't change the template's size of the resume and there is no offline version of Canva. I did not like the premium feature of Canva for more features and benefits.
When I was looking for a job, I had to create an updated data science resume but I had no idea how to do it, then I found a new data science resume template on Canva which proved to be very helpful for me in landing a job.
I love how easy it is to use and how many options of things to create. I have the professional edition and they are always adding templates and new images and projects. very user friendly and easy to navigate website
There is not much not to like about canva.
I am able to get creative with my flow charts and easily edit photos for my social posts and ads.
I love how easy Canva is to use and for me to teach. As a creative director, I work with a team of graphic designers and sometimes I have to do some training on graphic design. Canva is extremely user friendly and easy to train with. I also love how many templates and elements are accessible in Canva that you can just drag and drop into your design. The templates are great for inspiration or for times when you just don't feel like coming up with your own design. The elements that are already inside of Canva that you can drag and drop are great for time and efficiency. I usually don't have to go outside of Canva to find pictures/videos/graphic elements for my designs - this is a feature I wish Photoshop had! I also love that Canva has given to ability to add animations to graphics and videos! When I am working in Adobe products, it takes a lot longer to create an animation in After Effects or Premiere than it does to just add an animation in Canva instantly. I also love that you can easily resize graphics. We post to almost every social media, and each social media has its own sizing requirements. I can resize with just the click of a button, whereas I have to manually do this in Photoshop. I also love that Canva continually finds new ways to evolve and new features to add! I'm sure I have many more things to add that I can't think of right now!
Canva definitely has some limitations compared to Adobe products. In Photoshop, you can be extremely precise with where you drag elements. In Canva, sometimes the program will make an element stick to a certain area even though you are trying to drag it in a very specific spot. You are also able to add a lot more stylized effects to text and elements in Photoshop than you are in Canva. Canva definitely has great effects so far, but they are limited in terms of how stylized and precise you can get with each effect. I know that Canva wasn't created to be a video editor and it is amazing that they have since added video editing capabilities to their platform, but the video editor isn't the greatest. I'm sure they will improve the video editor as time goes on.
It is helping us easily and quickly make content for our marketing and social media purposes!
Working on Canva App is best ever experience, I must say that they provide the great templates and designs on their App. You can create the templates and creatives with the best features. All basic features comes with free access.
No significant reason for this , I love all its features. With a free access you can create a great templates.
Canva helps in editing a picture, creating GIF, Videos and a simple templates. I use Canva for designing the promotions, packages for my product. That too comes with great features where you can choose the canvas size , formats and plenty of font styles.
Awesome app for video editing ,it help me to edit presentation like traning content videos and there are other features like ,Social media content , library, templates with the help of those i can design and edit. I can easily export the videos which save lot of time for me very helpful.
The pricing for paid version little bit high but still fine to use.
Time saving app for editing and designing ,Easy to use which help me to make awesome presentations videos.
Canva is a great tool for both designers and non designers. Have different templates you can simply choose and start working on. Great product
AI tool can be more improved. It's not up to the mark as of now
Canva solves our daily design problems, whether its a presenation or an post that needs to be created, we can surely create with a ease.
In Canva anyone can able to create wonders and magic with their work , even beginers also can able to do
Pro is an dislike that every beginner cannot afford it
It will help you to represent your product while you're Advertising your products