Not sure whether Canva Free is enough, or if you should upgrade to Canva Pro? In this Canva tutorial, I’ll break down the differences between the two plans so you can confidently choose the one that’s right for you.
Resources Mentioned
- Free Trial of Canva Pro (Affiliate Link)
Transcript
When you’re first getting started with Canva, one of the most common questions is whether the free plan will be enough, or if it’s worth upgrading to Canva Pro. Both options give you access to a powerful set of design tools, but there are some important differences that can really affect your workflow — especially if you’re using Canva to support a business.
This tutorial is designed to help you understand those differences so you can choose the plan that’s the best fit for your needs.
So let’s talk about the differences between the two plans, and Canva outlines them quite nicely on their pricing page, which you will find at Canva.com/pricing.
The cost you see listed for Canva Pro is going to vary depending on what country and what region you’re in.
I’m not going to go over every single feature here but I do want to highlight for you what I think are the most important features that are available to you regardless of the whether you’re on the free or Pro version of Canva, and I also want to flag for you some of what I consider to be the most significant reasons to upgrade to the paid Canva Pro.
Design & Publishing
Whether you’re on the free or Pro version, you will have access to a wide range of free stock images, videos, audio and fonts.
You’ll also have access to free Canva templates, over 1000 different design document types, and the ability to create designs with custom dimensions.
And all users have the ability to export their designs in a variety of formats.
What is only available on a Pro or Teams account in terms of design & publishing is:
- Access to Canva’s entire premium stock library, and this includes not just photos but also all sorts of icons & illustrations, video and audio. I know that a lot of the illustrations I have used in social media designs and various worksheets have all been part of that premium library.
- It indicates here that you can export designs as PDF, JPG and PNG files in both the free and paid plans, but what it doesn’t indicate here is that a key differentiator is that you can only download designs with a transparent background in the paid version.
- Also, only on a paid account is the ability to save your designs as templates… and to access the entirety of Canva’s template library. You do have access to a wide variety of templates on the free plan, but significantly more on Pro, which will give you far more flexibility in terms of designing great-looking content in Canva.
- You’ll have access to basic design insights in Canva’s free plan, which includes the ability to see how many people have viewed your design, but only Pro users will be able to access advanced design insights like the number of unique views and clicks.
- Plus, you can only access sound effects on a Canva Pro account.
AI Tools
Under AI-powered design tools, you have access to a number of features on both free and paid plans, though there are usage limitations that come with the free subscription, in some cases, some pretty significant limitations on features like Create an image with Dream Lab and Canva Code.
However, you’ll see here that quite a few of the Magic Studio features are only available on Canva Pro and Teams accounts, such as Magic Resize, Magic Edit, Magic Eraser, Magic Expand, Magic Grab and more.
Additionally, Canva’s background remover and generator tools are Pro-only features, as is access to Canva’s integration with Google’s Veo 3 for creating video clips.
Workplace Tools
We’ll skip over Workplace tools, as this is just highlighting the different document types that Canva provides, and you will be able to access all design types regardless of the plan you’re on.
Collaboration
Under Collaboration, you’ll see that you have access to a variety of collaboration tools on both the free and paid plans.
Brand Management & Controls
The primary thing to note under brand management is that brand controls, templates and brand kits are only available on Pro and Teams accounts.
It says you have access to 1 brand kit here under the free plan, but the only feature you’ll have access to is the ability to add 3 colours in the colour palette area. You won’t be able to add any additional colours or to access any of the other core features of the brand kit.
Whereas on a Pro account, you can add up to 1000 complete brand kits.
The ability to set up and use the Canva brand kit feature is an *enormous* reason why I believe the Pro account is so important for business owners, and it’s probably one of the biggest reasons why folks using Canva to support a small business will end up choosing to upgrade from the free Canva plan to Canva Pro.
Team Management & Permissions
We’ll skip right over Team management and permissions as that’s not going to apply to the Pro account, only to a Teams account.
Apps & Integrations
You’ll be able to access the Apps marketplace regardless of which plan you’re on.
Storage & Organization
And then we have Storage and Organization.
On a free plan, you will only have 5 GB of storage space for your designs and media, while Pro and Teams accounts allow for up to 1 TB of storage.
Depending on how much you use Canva, this may not be an issue. But if you do upload a lot of images or videos, you may find yourself running into that storage limitation.
There is currently no feature available to indicate how much storage space you have left, but you should receive an alert message if you do hit that maximum allotment. Also note that media in the trash folder does not count towards your storage totals at this time.
In terms of creating custom folders, you can create an unlimited number of folders on all plans, though the number of items you can store in a given folder does differ. While it’s not indicated here, at last update, free users could store a maximum of 200 items in a folder, whereas Pro users could store up to 1000 designs or images in a folder.
And finally, it has indicated Media tagging here, which is only available on the paid plan, but you can actually tag not just images and videos with keywords for easier searching, but also your designs.
Support
Then, under Support, Pro plans will have access to support tickets and live chat, whereas free plans will only have access to Canva’s AI assistant and chatbot for support.
Non-Profit & Education
The last thing I want to highlight about the free versus pro account is that you might actually be eligible for a free Canva Pro account.
Canva Pro is available for free to K-12 educational organizations and for eligible non-profit organizations, so if you fall into one of those categories, I would encourage you to check out the eligibility requirements and the process for applying for a free Canva account.
Final Thoughts
So whether you stick with the free version of Canva or decide to upgrade to Pro really comes down to how you plan to use it. If you’re only creating the occasional design and don’t need advanced features, the free plan may be all you need. But if you’re running a business, working with clients, or want access to Canva’s full template and stock libraries, along with time-saving tools like the Brand Kit, Magic Resize, and background remover, then Canva Pro is likely going to be a worthwhile investment.
Either way, the goal is to choose the plan that supports the way you work, so you can focus on creating content without running into frustrating limitations.
