For those of you that are new to the Millennial Boss site, we use a lot of Canva here. It’s one of the most popular editing tools out there, especially for people who don’t have a background in graphic design. That’s because it’s so easy to use.
Canva vs. Canva Pro
Canva
When it comes to Canva, there’s a free version and a pro version. The free version, called Canva, offers you the ability to design anything. That includes social media posts like Facebook and Instagram, as well as Pinterest.
You can also design, posters, postcards, letterheads, and more. Canva has a significant number of templates and designs that you can use to start with. You’re also given access to a few stock photos.
Canva Pro
Canva Pro is sometimes called Canva Premium or the premium version of Canva. It offers you all of the design features of Canva along with a bunch of extras. Among the cool items you have access to:
- 60 million-plus photos and elements;
- More than 1,000 different fonts;
- Ability to upload your own fonts;
- Premium animations.
There’s also a brand kit to help you create uniform branding for your company, we’ll talk about that in just a little bit.
And of course, the premium support is available if you get stuck along the way.
Canva Pro Tools
Brand Kit Manager
As mentioned, one of the highlights of the Canva Pro system is the ability to work with an entire design team. The team manager can manage the templates and permit other team members to work off of those templates.
Even better, there’s a centralized location for all of the templates. That means users can access the templates when they need to and they don’t need a special link.
You can also use the Brand Kit Manager to specify which fonts, color schemes, and logos are consistent with the team brand. That way someone doesn’t do the work of creating an entire social media post only to realize they’ve put the old company logo in the post.
Best of all, completed graphics can be stored in a centralized location, so there’s no more emailing links or files to the other members of the team. Now, they can be accessed by any team member you give permission to.
Magic Resize
The one thing I discovered using basic Canva was the inability to take a design that I worked hard on and turn it into something else. For example, I would create a Facebook post and decide that I wanted to also use it as the starting point for my Pinterest graphic.
Canva wouldn’t allow it.
However, with Canva Pro, I can resize my images for other graphics with a few clicks of the mouse. The time savings is worth a lot more than I imagined.
Animator
There is also an animator tool within Canva Pro, which allows you to animate your graphics and make them more visually appealing.
Access to an Extensive Image Library
As I mentioned before, Canva Pro gives you access to an extensive media library that makes creating new and interesting graphics easy. Images you choose are already cleared for your use, so you don’t have to worry about copyright infringement in your marketing materials.
Canva vs. Canva Pro Pricing
Canva Pricing
As stated earlier, Canva is free. Free to use, though you don’t get all the bells and whistles that you get with Canva Pro.
Canva Pro Pricing
Canva Pro is free for the first 30 days. After that, it’s $12.95 per month when you bill month by month and $9.95 per month or $119.40 a year when you bill annually.
Personally, I would suggest that you use the free version of Canva before you take advantage of the 30-day free trial of Canva Pro. That way you can see what you get with the basic Canva and then decide if the extras that come with Canva Pro are worth the $119.40 per year you’re going to be spending.
The usefulness of Canva Pro is all going to depend on what you plan to use the graphic and design tools for.
Canva vs. Canva Pro Cost
Canva Pro Cost
With Canva Pro, what you see is what you get. So, if you’re paying $12.95 per month, you’re getting all the things Canva has to offer.
Canva Cost
With the free version of Canva, it’s possible to purchase some of the cool features of Canva Pro without spending the entire monthly or annual fee. Canva will sell basic users the use of a single premium image or design for $1. That means if you find an image that works for your graphic and you only want access to that image, you can pay $1 for its use.
There are obviously pluses and minuses to this. $1 is a lot cheaper than the $12.95 for a monthly subscription. However, if you spend $1, 14 times in a month then the monthly subscription becomes a much better value proposition.
You need to determine what images you will need to access and how often you plan to use Canva. $1 is fine to pay one time, but if you find yourself repeatedly paying $1 here and $1 there, it starts to add up.
Can You Sell Designs You Make on Canva Pro?
Canva was prepared for this question, so I will let the company’s legal team answer the question.
“At Canva, we create templates for our users. However, we also welcome people who’d like to create and sell their own Canva-made designs as third-party templates outside our platform. This means that while you cannot resell templates that we created, you still can create yours for your business.”
In other words, if you design it yourself on Canva, then you’re allowed to sell what you designed. If you used a template, you’re not allowed to resell that template.
If you plan to sell your designs, be very careful that what you’re selling is not the Canva template or very similar to the Canva template.
Is Canva Pro Worth it for Etsy Sellers?
If you design the items yourself, sure!
Let’s look at it this way. If you buy a one-month subscription to Canva Pro for $12.95 and you use that to create a design that you sell on Etsy for $3.00, then you would need to sell the design five times to earn your money back.
That’s totally doable!
(I did the math using the Etsy fee structure which includes 20 cents for listing the item and a 5% commission—15 cents in this case—on each sale.)
Canva vs. Canva Pro Review
I started by using the free version of Canva and I was happy with it. But as I started to get more experienced and ambitious, I discovered that sometimes the perfect photo wasn’t available in the free version.
What’s more, some of the graphics I was creating needed something a little extra that I could only get with the Pro version of Canva.
Eventually, I upgraded to Canva Pro and I’m very happy with it.
I have shopped around and most of the things I’ve read point back to Canva. The free version is the perfect price and the perfect tool for people that are just starting in editing. You can’t ask for much more than $0 per month.
As your business grows and you find yourself with a little money to spend or you add a member or two to your team, that’s when Canva Pro comes in handy and the price is affordable.
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