As you are on this page, you probably already have a pretty decent idea of what Canva is, so I won’t go into too much detail about the product itself and instead will just mainly focus on the question of if it is worth paying for the Pro or Enterprise version of Canva, instead of just using the free version. But to put it shortly: Canva is a graphic design platform that you can use to create, for example, images and videos. And that does not just mean things that you can post to websites or social media, but also things such as professional looking resumes / CVs.
As a background for this page: I have been a paying customer of Canva since early 2018. So I would like to think that I have a decent idea about the product’s quality and about the Pro-version of Canva.
What does Canva cost?
In order to establish if its worth paying for Canva one obviously needs to know what it costs. And at the time of writing this, the Pro-version of Canva costs $9.95/user/month when in paid annual-basis and $12.95/user/month paid in monthly-basis. And the Enterprise-version costs $30/user/month when paid annually. As far as I can tell there no is month-to-month version of the Enterprise-plan.
How does Canva-Pro differ from the free version of Canva?
To start off, with the Pro-version you get free access to 60 million+ photos and elements. That itself can in theory provide massive value as buying stock photos can easily cost $3/photo. However, there are also free sites for getting stock photos. And what is quite interesting in the case of Canva is that they actually themselves own some of the free stock photo sites and if I’m not mistaken the photos you see via Canva at least to a large extent come from those sites. So you shouldn’t read too much into the benefit of getting access “for free” into that massive amount of stock photos.
However, there are also features of the Pro-plan that I really like and see as bringing huge value. One of those is the ability to have Brand Kits. Brand Kits are basically a way to save a font’s, colors and more for future use. Meaning that next time you want to create content you can just quickly use the saved features to make sure that your brand’s messaging stays consistent. And its good to note that in this context “brand” could also, for example, mean your personal social media page and how you present yourself on it.
The second thing that is really nice about the Pro-version is the much higher amount of cloud storage space. High quality images and videos can be rather large and as such there is a real risk that under the free version of Canva you will run out of storage space. At the time of writing this the difference in the storage space appears to be 1 GB for the free plan and 100 GB for the Pro-plan, so in other words absolutely huge.
24/7 support. If you choose to pay for the Pro-version of Canva instead of using the free version you will get access to 24/7 support. That is obviously nice, but the real value of it might not be huge: during the 2+ years I have been a Canva customer I have never felt the need to contact their customer support.
Bottom line: Is it worth paying for the Pro-version of Canva?
In my opinion and based on my experiences, the price of Canva-Pro is extremely low compared to the value it brings to someone who uses Canva regularly. And as such I would say that, yes, if you are going to use Canva regularly you might as well pay for the Pro-version. And given the discount you get by purchasing an annual plan, the value of Canva gets even better if you opt for that instead of paying for Canva in month-to-month basis. Although obviously, it might be a good idea to first at least test Canva before paying for the annual plan – luckily they offer a 30-day free trial. Open Canva account.
About the Enterprise-version of Canva
As I haven’t myself used the Enterprise-version of Canva, I’m somewhat hesitant to comment on it. But I do feel that paying $30/user/month is a quite negligible cost for a company that plans to use Canva. At the time of writing this Canva’s enterprise customers include businesses such as Skyscanner and American Airlines.