Is Canva Pro worth the fee? - The Shop by Michelle

What is Canva?

Canva as a free design software is pretty amazing with what it can do for you. If you plan to occasionally make a flier, social media post or letterhead the free version will work great. The caveat is, Canva will only allow you to use the free graphics and photos. If you want to use a pro version graphic or promo you will have to purchase, or it will contain a watermark. Each purchase is only good for one design, so if you use that same graphic again, you’ll be charged again.

In the free version you can upload your own graphics, so if you have graphics you love you can use them. Canva also has a large selection of free elements and fonts available. The free version will allow you to edit your design, change fonts, font spacing, and add shadows and effects. You can absolutely create a great design with these features.

Downside of Canva Pro

Using Canva Pro graphics is a bit of a tricky game even with the Pro version because their license is very restrictive. If you want to sell a design you made with the elements or create a shareable template violating the license agreement. This will put you in danger of getting your account shut down, so best to avoid it all together. Sticking to the free graphics is best if you plan to use them for any of these purposes.

Creative Fabrica for graphics

You are probably thinking, “okay so what’s the use of pro?” I don’t use Canva Pro for the elements and graphics anyway. I get a lot of my graphics from Creative Fabrica. Creative Fabrica has a really great license and the yearly fee is very affordable. Right now they are running a deal for $4.99 per month if you pay yearly and then they offer the second year for $3.99 a month. You really can’t go wrong.

Why Canva Pro?

Then why use Pro? I use Canva Pro because it gives me the ability to do things I cannot do in the free version. For instance, in Pro I can create a link to share a template that others can make changes to without affecting my original template. This is great for selling templates on Etsy or your own website. Another feature I use all the time is the resize feature. This gives you the ability to create one design and resize it multiple times without having to edit the original design much. Huge timesaver!

Features

The other feature I absolutely love with Canva, I literally just discovered… That is the ability to pull work from other projects into the current project you are working on. So, let’s say you are creating a slide for work and need to add a slide from a different project. You’ll just click on projects, locate the slide you need and click on it. It will ask if you want to replace the current page, or add another. Viola, that slide is now in your current project. This may seem like no big deal, but I promise you, trying to copy from one project to another can be really time consuming.

I love Canva Pro and it’s great for people who need to create a lot of social media posts, slides, promotional material etc. So if that’s you, I’d go with Pro. If you want to try before you commit, you can use Canva Pro for 30 days for free. Just click on this link and you’ll get that 30 days to see if it’s for you. After that 30 day period, if you love it, it is $12.95 a month. You can also purchase yearly for $119.99. This is a screaming deal for software that works as well as Canva.

I hope this was helpful, please reach out with any questions!