Canva Reviews & Product Details
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 |
|
|---|---|
| Segment |
|
| 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 |
Canva Pros and Cons
- Simplicity: Canva is delightful to use. You can search for stock images and videos in seconds, drag and drop elements into place, and experiment with a huge range of filters and effects.
- Free plan: If you’re not sure how many visual assets you need yet, you can start with the free plan and work your way up.
- Versatile: You can create a lot of different kinds of graphics easily with Canva, including logos, Facebook posts, email marketing templates, and landing pages.
- Convenient easy-to-use environment for beginners
- Thousands of templates, icons, photos, fonts and other assets
- You don’t get the full control with Canva that you get with more advanced marketing tools. There aren’t as many layers as possible and advanced features to explore.
- Can be a little slow as a browser-based product.
- Very limited editing options
- No layering or re-adjustment options
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.
What is Canva
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.
How Much is Canva
Canva offers three pricing plans. The Free plan includes the following.
- Over 250,000 free templates.
- Over 100+ design types including business cards, presentations, and social media posts.
- Free photos, logos, fonts, photos and graphics.
- Share, collaborate, and comment on designs with a team.
- Save your designs with 5GB of cloud storage.
- Share designs to multiple platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slack, and Tumblr.
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.
- Over 100 million premium stock photos, videos, audio and graphics
- Over 610,000 premium and free templates with new designs daily
- Up to 100 Brand Kits with your companies colors, logos, and fonts
- Access to Background Remover and Magic Resize.
- Create templates from your own designs.
- Save your designs with 100GB of cloud storage.
- Schedule your social media designs on up to 8 platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slack, and Tumblr.
The Enterprise plan starts at $150 for five people. It includes everything from the Pro plan plus the following.
- Use brand controls to manage your team’s access to apps, graphics, colors, logos, fonts, and uploads.
- Get approval on your designs with built-in workflows.
- Control what your team can edit and stay on-brand with template locking
- Save your designs with unlimited storage.
- Log in with single-sign on (SSO) and have access to 24/7 Enterprise-level support.
How to Use Canva
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.
Designing with Canva
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.
Templates
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.
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.
Photos
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.
Text
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.
Audio
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.
Video
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.
Backgrounds
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.
Styles
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.
Logos
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.
Publishing with Canva
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 Teams
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.
Canva Print
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 Apps
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.
Canva Pros and Cons
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.
- An easy to learn and use interface
- It allows people with limited graphic design skills to create professional graphics
- Tons of templates so you never have to start from scratch
- Branding kits to keep teams matching the brand colors and fonts
- Ability to create visual content on the go
- Templates that cover a wide variety of uses and networks
- The ability to search for royalty free images, video, and audio without another service
- Missing advanced photo editing features like blurring or erasing a specific area
- Seemingly basic elements (graphics, shapes, etc.) and features are Pro-only
- Elements that fall outside of the design area are tricky to retrieve
- Newer features (like Canva presentations) need work
- The UI can be cluttered
- Users of Adobe tools may find Canva features limited
- Would like the ability to work with vectors, especially on logos
- No analytics when sharing designs
- Expensive enterprise pricing
- The artboard could be larger
- Everyone has access to templates/elements, meaning your graphics may not be as unique
Canva Alternatives
If Canva doesn’t sound like the right fit for you, you may be interested in trying the following Canva alternatives.
Adobe
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
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
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
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.
GoDaddy Studio
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.
Canva FAQ
Q: Is Canva for free?
Yes, Canva does have a free plan that you can choose to create professional designs.
Q: Does Canva have a watermark?
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.
Q: Can I use Canva for free for my business?
Yes, all free elements included in the Canva free subscription can be used for commercial and non-commercial use.
Q: What is Canva good for?
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.
Q: Is Canva better than Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator?
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.
Q: Is Canva good for making videos?
Yes, Canva offers an easy to use video tool for visual content creators who aren’t video experts.
Q: Is it worth paying for Canva?
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.
Q: Can I trademark a logo created in Canva?
Yes, unless it has any stock elements in it.
Q: Can I sell content created in Canva?
Yes, if it doesn’t include unaltered Canva media. You can read more about licensing, trademarks, and commercial usage of Canva content here.
Useful Canva Resources
Canva offers several free resources for designers.
- If you need to do simple edits, Canva has a free photo editor.
- Canva’s Color Wheel allows you to preview what colors go well together.
- The Palette Generator will generate a set of colors from an image you upload.
- The color meanings and symbolism guide can help you find the right meaningful color palette for your brand.
- The design size guide gives the current best sizes for graphics on social media, video, presentations, and more.
Additional Resources
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.
Canva Review: Conclusion
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.
I love being able to effortlessly create stylish, clean designs for our social networking and e-mail marketing campaigns. The provided tool-set is extremely versatile and having a free option (with only slightly reduced functionality) is extremely helpful. Sharing or passing on designs to colleagues is super useful for everyone involved. The pre-designed templates are a nice starting point or simply a good idea-generator for unique emails and fliers.
I wish I could resize my designs if I choose the incorrect format from the beginning. There are workarounds to this but I feel there should be a simpler option.
The benefit of being able to share designs among coworkers is hugely important. The suggested format sizes for different types of social media applications is a very handy feature and one that should be commended.
I help with online auction for an overseas dog rescue and I always use Canva for social media. Great and easy to use. Lots of free art and well priced art for pay.
Nothing. Its a really great product. I have yet to find one thing that I am not happy with,
Making our marketing appeals look very professional
It is a great online software that you can use to help your business or personal things that you are doing. They have great pre-made templates and you can have endless amounts of customization that you can do.
There really isn't anything that I dislike about the software
It helps to be able to get the right sizes for many things like FB cover photo, Instragram pics, brochure sizes.
I love how easy it is to use the program. I can design so many different images for my blog and social media accounts. Everything looks so professional. Canva is great for beginners who have no idea how to design.
I wish that the iPhone app had all of the same options as the desktop version.
I'm able to create social media posts and Pinterest pins easily. I have also used Canva when I wrote an ebook.
Canva is an amazing, powerful, easy-to-use graphic design tool! We use Canva for all of our graphics and rarely have to outsource to an actual designer. It's super fun to work in Canva and those who have adopted it on our team tend to start using it in their personal lives as well as for work.
Canva gets slow when you are working with large, complex designs. I wish the search feature was more advanced for the icons and images, though it has gotten better over the last year.
Canva allows us to have low-cost, high-quality graphics to accompany all of our content and programs.
If you do any kind of marketing, graphics, illustrations, etc. and whether or not you have someone in-house dedicated to marketing or not, this is a product that can really launch you forward by having each to use designs that help attract your customer and audience. It's functionality is great and you can finish a product with little to no experience!
There is not much that I don't like. It seems easy to use and the free templates work well, too.
Business problems that we are solving include marketing to external and internal audiences as well as get our point across with much more ease. It's visual appeal makes people actually read what we put out there!
The rapid ability of their developers to add things that you request. Canva is ALL about their customers and I use it daily on mobile or desktop.
The inability to draw with a pen or stylus.
The ability to create simple, appealing custom graphics without the time wasted in something with tons of options that you don’t need. Someone with no design experience can use it and thrive.
I am not a graphic designer by any means. We have a freelancer we higher. But sometimes we need something super last minute and Canva makes it super easy to go in and create something with no stress!
So far I have been totally pleased! There are so many great templates to choose from and they make it super easy to take those templates and customize them to look more original.
Last minute graphics that need to be made when we don't have time to wait on our freelancer.
I really like how all of the templates are very customizable, and I can change the fonts, colors, design, etc. I also like how they have different options for sizes per social channel, so you know that what you are working on will fit the need you have. Overall, Canva is very easy to use, and great for simple graphic design tasks.
I wish there were a few more customization features, such as underlining tasks and changing the design of some of the icons. I also wish their customer service was a bit easier to access.
We didn't want a full-featured graphic design software, so the features of Canva are exactly what we needed. I have been able to create unique and beautiful posts for social media that I believe have really stood out to our audience.
Canva brings in all the necessary desktop publishing and graphic design tools needed to produce quick, professional business collateral.
Canva is a great tool, nothing negative!
Allows quick access to professional grade design software and thousands of ready to use business templates.
I love the simplicity of the program. It is very intuitive. I learned how to work it within a half hour or so and can pop out designs in minutes, access and edit, and share with friends without issues.
The size of one's screen limits the ease of design since it has large tool panes that take away from the workspace.
I am saving money by not having to purchase Illustrator programs. It also solves the accessibility of my work since I do not need to be confined to a computer at work with the program, but can access on my mobile devices or my computer from anywhere!
Canva is like my own in-house design team. I couldn't possibly afford to have someone produce the types of documents Im able to produce through Canva. I am able to create everything from fliers to full yearbooks for my organizations. On a personal note, I was also able to use Canva to create a memorial for my mother. I was able to change things as much as I wanted to after drawing inspiration from their hundreds of templates.
I appreciate the hundreds of templates but I would love to see WAY more FREE pictures in the gallery. Its annoying to create a product and find out that the flower on page three will cost a $1.00 for one time use at the time that you wish to print or download the document. More free pictures would be a great enhancement.
I use Canva daily. I create visuals that help enhance my message to customers. I create flyers, calendars and event the design for power point presentations on Canva. The professional, easy to use software makes it easy for my work to look like a pro.
Drag and drop editing and pre-made templates make this a breeze even if you have zero design experience. Stock photo, graphics, fonts are all included. And you can export in a variety of ways.
The free version has very limited photos, graphics, fonts etc. And not being able to put your uploaded photos into folders.
Marketing designs, social media graphics, print materials, company contracts.
For quick designs with beautiful templates and design inspiration, Canva is the best. I've been a loyal Adobe user for years and find myself going to Canva instead of opening up my Creative Suite for print design because it's so good. You can upload your own fonts and branding in the paid version, making it even better.
Literally nothing - it's awesome. I can't complain about Canva.
Designing social graphics, flyers, print collateral, resumes - most things. It makes design a lot faster and simpler.
Canva is one of the most user friendly marketing sites I have come across. You can choose from existing templates, designs, images, fonts, etc. or you can create your own (easily upload your own images) from scratch. Not to mention, they actually have customizable templates that enable you to include additional elements (photos, grids, frames, shapes, etc.
I really cannot think of anything that I dislike about this product thus far. I have been using Canva for about six months, and I it has been a great tool for me - especially since it can be accessed from anywhere, as long as I know my log-in information.
I started with my company about six months ago as the Director of Marketing. My company didn't have a Marketing department prior to hiring me, so being able to create social media posts, play with marketing collateral, etc. is a daily necessity. The versatility that Canva allows me, while maintaining brand consistency is second to none!
Very easy to use and a lot of great templates
Can’t view two diff works side by side. I wish I could drag elements from one document to another
Easy and quick tool for creating marketing materials
Canva gives you templates and things to use in your design, but it is all very customizable. It is very easy to make it your own and have a print-ready product, even if you're not a trained graphic designer. It also lets me copy elements from one design to another. I also love that they start with the basic sizes of what you would need for different designs - web/email banners, social media posts, postcards, etc. It's great that they already have the sizes available to use.
I do not have the premium version, but it would be nice to be able to change the size of a graphic while working with it, instead of having to start from scratch.
I've been able to make many different items with Canva for marketing/advertising events and for creating postcards and invitations. I've used web/email banners, postcards, and different size invitations the most. It has been a great way to make something look more appealing than just text.
I am not an expert in Desing but I started using it because of my current job. I have found out that Canva is an excellent tool for this purpose even for beginners like me! One of the think that I like the most is that I can use for free, which is really good since I just need it sometimes to create good presentations for my kids. Another quality of this tool is that is versatile and intuitive. It uses a drag and drop system. Also, it offers many graphics and images to add to your presentations.
Just a phew thing that I started a couple of days a ago: It started showing some bugs or errors on the page. Also it would awesome if they can add more templates or backgrounds to their stock.
It helped me create visual attractive presentations for my kids to explain about any concept of science or math we were studying. Also, I have used it to create announcements for parents if they have to assist to any school event.
I'm still learning the ins and outs of canva, but I like how incredibly intuitive it is to use. I'm not a terribly design-savvy person, but canva makes it easy to design great materials!
I only use it every couple weeks, and I seem to have to re-learn how to use it each time. But that could just be me being forgetful.
- Lots of options for templates and sizes - I love the font suggestions. The pairs of fonts work really nicely, and most of them are fonts I've never heard of nor would ever decide to use. But when I see them in templates, they pique my interest and eye.
so many options! I love that it gives me templates to start with, or I can use a blank page. I can change the size without losing my design. I can upload graphics, set my style guide, set a logo, and more. I can download as a variety of different file types. I use this program for EVERYTHING.
no affiliate program - would love to be compensated by sharing my love for Canva with others!
I run my entire small-business on canva (beyond the barre digital downloads) and it has been a huge help. everything is stored online!