What is canva?

Often used as a tool for creatives, Canva can prove to be useful for many disciplines. Canva is a design software often used to make social media posts, posters, presentations, and infographics. But what exactly is the full potential of Canva and its offerings? Is Canva Pro truly different from the free version? For this review, I am going to compare the capabilities of both the Canva Free and Canva Pro accounts.

Canva is a software available for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac.. As said on the website, “Launched in 2013, Canva is an online design and publishing tool with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere.” Currently the software is used in over 190 countries, has over 100 languages, more than 10 billion designs created, and over 2,000 employees. Canva was the 2019 winner of the Enterprise Tech 30 mid-stage category award, the 2019 Google Play Award winner, and the 2019 Great Place to Work award in Australia. The values of Canva as listed on their website are to make complex things simple, set crazy big goals and then make them happen, be a force for good, empower others, pursue excellence, and to be a good human. Canva was primarily developed for the use of both education and business. Education is an important part of Canva’s identity, often catering to teachers, schools, students, and higher education. Businesses are also important to Canva, as they designed their software to be accessible for numerous industries including media and publishing, newsroom, real estate, health and fitness, technology, sports, retail, and startups.

Canva offers three different plans and pricing: Canva Free, Canva Pro, and Canva Team (which is an extension of Canva Pro but for design teams for an additional $30 annually for the first 5 people). There is also an option, Canva for Education, where students or educators can, “Sign up with your education email address or upload proof of your teaching certification and employment” for free with all Canva Teams features available. An important thing to note is that Canva Pro is free to all registered nonprofit organizations, which aligns well with Canva’s written values. For anyone else who would like to purchase Canva Pro after experiencing the 30-day free trial, the account costs a total of $119.99 annually for one person or $12.99 monthly. To better understand the difference between the Free and Pro/Team accounts, I did a deep-dive into the offerings for both sides of Canva.

Canva Free

Canva Free as described on the website is, “For anyone wanting to design anything, on your own or with others.” This section describes the the Free account has the following:

Drag-and-drop editor for easy customizations
250,000+ free templates
100+ design types (social media posts, presentations, letters, and more)
1+ million free photos and graphics
Invite others to design and work with
Wide range of printable products to design and get delivered to your door
5GB of cloud storage

A new development within Canva is the ability to edit PDFs with any account to, “Transform PDF documents to make them more visual and compelling with Canva’s free online PDF editor, designed for seamless collaboration. Or simply make that last-minute tweak!” The new PDF editor is a lifesaver for artists and designers who don't pay for, or are not familiar or fans of Adobe Suite; Canva is a lot more accessible than Illustrator and easier to learn.

Canva Pro: $119/ year

Canva Pro as described on the website is, “For individuals, solopreneurs and freelance designers who want unlimited access to premium content, to create professional designs with ease and scale their productivity.” It is visualized under the Overview section of the website the offerings that distinguishes the Pro account from the Free account. This section describes that the Pro account has the following:

100+ million premium stock photos, videos, audio, and graphics
Unlimited features, folders and premium content
610,000+ premium and free templates with new designs daily
Establish your brand’s visual identity with logos, colors, and fonts with up to 100 Brand Kits
Create dedicated folders for specific projects
Resize designs infinitely with Magic Resize
Remove image backgrounds instantly with Background Remover
Schedule social media content to 8 platforms
Cloud Storage (1TB)
24/7 customer support

Immediately after entering your card number for the Canva Pro account’s 30-day free trial, the user is asked about what they would like to achieve with the Pro account, being able to choose between managing a brand, starting or growing a business, completing personal projects, creating social media content, planning and promoting events, or creating videos. With this account, the user is also able to view Reports, meaning that there is the ability to see how their team is using Canva and the type of documents they're creating.

A main feature of Canva Pro is the “Tools” section where the sub categories of Brand and Content Planner are contained. The Brand category is an organized area where a team (meaning a group of designers) using Canva can store and create their entire brand kit consisting of logos, color palettes, fonts, and even branded templates. There is also the ability for the account owner to enable color control, font control, and design approval. These tools would give the account owner complete control to restrict the overall team’s access to colors, fonts, and designs beyond those that align with the brand. For designers who are not as familiar with their organization’s branding, this tool may be a helpful trick to limit time spent learning, while some designers may find this control setting to be overbearing and limiting.

Social Media Content Planning

The Content Planner category is similar to that of Buffer, Hootsuite, SproutSocial, or any social media planning tool except for the fact that content designing and social planning can occur within the same software. With this tool, the user is able to connect 9 different social channels including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Facebook Group, Pinterest, LinkedIn Profile, LinkedIn Page, Slack, and Tumblr. Within this tool, the user is also able to take a social media lesson in Canva’s “Design School,” which consists of detailed videos ranging from Social Media Mastery to Canva Pro For Nonprofits.

Canva Pro’s Social Media Content Planner Feature

Design

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of the Canva Pro account is the access to all design templates within the platform, something that is largely restricted within the Canva Free account. Typically, it appears that the Canva Free account permits about 10-15 design templates to be offered for the general user, with hundreds or even thousands more being set aside for the Canva Pro users. To get even more technical, the Canva Pro account also unlocks hundreds of design elements, photos, backgrounds, and fonts.

Is canva pro really worth it?

Pros:

Access to many more fonts, graphics, and backgrounds which can make the design process a lot easier, faster, and cohesive
The content planning tool is fantastic for someone who does not want to pay a subscription to both a planning tool AND a designing tool; It is all built into one platform
The ability to post to 8 different social channels is convenient
1TB of Cloud Storage is plenty to store all designs
The ability to create a Brand Kit is extremely helpful to maintain an organized working environment

Cons:

The Canva Pro Team account is an extra $30 annually for a team of up to five totaling to $149.50 yearly.
The content planning tool does not tell you the most optimal times to post in the day based on your audience’s behavior compared to competitors
No lifetime account option where you can pay a one-time fee
New tools come with many tutorials required to understand their full capabilities

Overall, it was hard to find the consequences of the Canva Pro account. This account may be useful for someone who is a full-time designer, artist, or business owner. The Canva Pro account is utilized by Yelp in their branding strategy, as described through a case study on the Canva website. A Yelp community member stated that Canva is, “-really brilliant for people like me who aren’t design savvy. I can design something that’s on brand and aesthetically pleasing in a short amount of time.” Due to this, I believe it would be beneficial for any organization looking to enhance their branding organization skills to use Canva Pro.

If a business is in a comfortable financial position and has a large design team, I believe the Canva Pro Team subscription would be worth the investment. If a user is looking to make simple designs and creations, it may not be cost-effective to purchase the Canva Pro account, as Canva Free has all the necessary tools for this type of use.