How to Make Money with Canva

Software companies make significant improvements and sometimes revolutionize a whole industry. So, how big a software’s user base should be to choose it for making money?

Canva’s platform has experienced substantial growth over the past few years, with the number of users skyrocketing between 2019 to 2022.

Canva reported having approximately 30 million users in 2019 and increasing to 40 million by 2020 and 60 million in 2021.

Impressively, as of March 2022, Canva has already accumulated 75 million users before reaching the 100 million milestone on 12th October 2022.

With this momentum, the total number of Canva users currently stands at an astounding 125 million. This remarkable growth proves Canva’s continued success and popularity among users worldwide.

Today, we are going to look into Canva’s diversified features that made it possible to reach most types of digital content creation processes. We’ll also discuss how to make money with Canva primarily or as a side hustle.

What is Canva?

Canva is an online based digital graphics design tool that has been designed for most non-designer people. Anyone can design stunning creative assets using Canva Pro. The digital assets can be from digital banners, website images, social media images & videos, multimedia presentations, etc.

For every category of designing work, Canva Pro has thousands of pre-made templates to utilize a concept and make corrections to this template and come up with a new ideal design. This is why Canva became so popular in the business world.

Can Canva be a Primary Income or Side Hustle?

Source: Unsplash

As we’ve seen, Canva’s growth significantly improves every year, so Canva has proven itself to be a valuable design tool to the market. This tool has reached users who don’t know using Adobe Photoshop and give them the best alternative. For this reason, many non-professional designers come to this industry with their graphic design services.

These are the most popular jobs Canva users doing:

• Social media image or video content creation & management.

• Designing website logo, banner, icon, etc

• Designing marketing images and videos.

• Designing advertising images and videos.

• Designing professional CV and bio data.

For all its worth, I want to say that Canva is not a full-fledged professional designing tool because it is designed to help non-professionals. So, Canva isn’t the best choice for choosing it as a primary income. But many freelancers solely utilize this tool to make money selling Canva templates and designs.

A primary profession or income source should be competitive, and it should have a future. I’m not suggesting Canva as a primary income because using this tool is not rocket science. We can see that only 507,690 graphics designers are in the world.

Most professional graphic designers use Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch, etc. To learn these tools professionally, you’ve got to practice with this software for at least a year.

Besides, anyone can create content with the Canva tool easily, so there’s a high chance of future higher competition.

So, you should be practical by seeing these stats and choose Canva as a side hustle along with your study, job, internship, or business.

Top 15 Ways to Make Money with Canva

Source: Pixabay

If you look at the current freelancing marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverr, then you can see there are many job possibilities that can be done by using Canva.

Some companies have started hiring Canva professionals to speed up their business design process and compete with their competitors. This is how making money online opportunity arises.

Let’s get to the top 15 ways how to make money with Canva:

1. Selling Canva Templates

Canva’s popularity is based on its templates because a template gives an abstract idea of how this content should be expressed. Selling Canva templates online could be a great income source for anyone serious.

There are so many pre-made Canva templates for most niches. But, if you can think creatively, then you can design anything using Canva’s backgrounds, icons, fonts, images, etc. You have full control of creating something out of your mind.

This is where you can produce your own Canva templates and make a collection of them and sell it as digital products.

This is how you can make money selling Canva templates in the market:

• Social media graphics like Instagram story templates or social media banners.

• All types of website & landing page graphics.

• Presentation templates.

• Blog graphics

• Infographics

• eBooks

• Workbooks

• Posters

If you search for this type in the freelancing marketplaces, then you can see the market demand yourself. For instance, you can discover dozens of sellers packing their Canva templates for sale on Creative Market. Selling Canva templates on Creative Market typically costs customers between $12 and $40.

You can study the Creative Market, create a design collection and make money selling Canva templates as a digital product by promoting it on social media or by doing advertising online.

Consider finding gigs on Fiverr or Upwork, or compile hundreds or thousands of designs into a single comprehensive folder and advertise and start selling Canva templates on Facebook to reach a vast audience on autopilot. By doing this, you can potentially earn a steady way to make money with Canva without significant effort.

2. Design & Manage Social Media Graphics for Businesses

Most businesses are now prioritizing an effective social media presence. So, they are now more careful than ever about their brand image on social media since many businesses can’t afford an in-house social media designer, so they end up hiring freelancers online.

By using Canva, you can help companies by designing social content for their multiple social media accounts.

There are some ways this works:

Create Content Weekly

A company will hire you to create 5 content a week. Here you’ll be responsible for creating 1-2 social media posts on business working days. You’ll create designs every day and submit them to your client, and they’ll publish them on their own.

Create Content Monthly

A company will hire you to create graphics for a month of content in advance. Here the company will give you the topic or content calendar plan to maintain. This is where you can step ahead and make yourself valuable.

You can learn how to plan a social media content plan and offer your clients who don’t have a plan, or you can do better. This is how you can improve yourself and be valuable to your client and get an increased income opportunity.

Manage Social Media Content & Accounts

A company will hire you to design the social media content and publish them, maintaining the social media standards with a positive brand image. For this, you must know a little bit about social media marketing. By learning this, you can curate personalized & professional social media management services for your clients.

You should know how to create content to target the ideal customer as a social media manager. So, if you combine your Canva designing skill with SMM, then your demand will be higher, and you can be one step forward of the competition.

3. Design and Sell Printables and Digital Products

Printables are digital products in which you can download a designed product directly to your device, print it on your own and start using it. Printables are anything that could be useful for people to boost their productivity and spirituality or help maintain their routines.

This is why printables can be the best way of selling digital products online.

These are the most popular printables in the digital market:

• Art illustrations

• Calendars

• Checklists

• Digital planners

• Journals

• Intake forms

• Budget templates

If you are wondering where to sell templates and printable items, an insightful suggestion would be Etsy. With a vast community of millions of users actively searching to purchase something, it’s an optimal platform for making transactions.

Furthermore, the process becomes nearly 100% automated post-item creation and upload. You can also sell them in Creative Market easily.

4. Design Websites

As with other types of content templates, Canva has its own website templates to streamline your work process. You can find categorized Canva templates for websites that can be ready to edit easily and customized with your thoughts and ideas.

But Canva-created websites have some limitations, like implementing any special feature to your own website is a little tricky. So, I suggest you should offer your website design service for those persons and businesses who just need a front page filled with information.

Target online business that doesn’t need a lot of corrections and add functionalities frequently. I’m talking about static websites.

You can design your website design services for:

• Portfolio website

• Professional website

• Public Figure website

• Local business website

• Landing page, etc.

You can provide dedicated website designing services to your client, and you can also create templates and sell them on the creative market easily.

5. Design Standard Logos

A recognizable and exceptional logo is essential for every business. The expense of designing a logo can be significant, with companies often paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

It is a wise investment that can pay off in building brand recognition and customer trust. But I’m not telling you to expect that kind of amount for your Canva-made logos because designing logos for enterprise-level companies should be highly professional.

You can design logos by using Canva’s templates template collection alongside thousands of icons, banners, transitions, etc, essential items for logo design. You can utilize them as a whole with your creativity and the client’s requirement for creating standard logos.

The reason I’m saying “Standard Logo” is that Canva has limitations in giving you full freedom to create logos. That’s why I’m telling you to keep your expectation practical and sell your logo design service with this limitation.

But remember, there’s always room for getting ahead of the average people. So, if you give effort to your work, then you can be ahead of the market competition and make money with Canva.

6. Create Website Graphics

A website is the front page of every business, so most of the business’s first move is to create a website. For creating a website, the website developer needs various types of graphics content.

You can fulfill this pain point and offer your website graphics content creation service to your clients.

On average, a website requires a variety of designs, including logos, banners, icons, featured images, favicons, sidebar images, ad images, infographics, etc.

So, there’s good room for generating extra money for a single project.

7. Create & Enhance Product Images

The worth of the e-commerce market has reached $6.3 trillion globally. 75% of shoppers said that their buying decision had been significantly influenced by seeing product photos.

This is why e-commerce businesses have prioritized displaying their product photos in a more professional and optimized way.

This is where you can help e-commerce businesses with your photo manipulation services. You can offer product photo optimization services by utilizing these Canva features:

• Background removal

• Image enhancer.

• Photo effects.

• Add text to photos.

• Add frames to photos.

• Curved text generator, etc.

Since an e-commerce website usually have a lot of products so there might be a great opportunity for long-term work and getting hired for a full-time position remotely.

8. Design Low Content Books

A low-content book is a book that doesn’t have a traditional amount of content. It usually has interior pages designed with minimal or no content. They are usually designed to be engaged by the user.

The low-content books are:

• Scorecard templates

• Prompt journals

• Planners

• Log books

• Notebooks etc

The opportunity of making low-content books with Canva is you can have a huge collection of icons, fonts, borders, shapes, backgrounds, etc. It’ll allow you to go beyond the average low-book design and sell them.

Low-content books can be easily sold on Amazon and Etsy. It’s a passive income because you are going to make them one time and sell them for a lifetime.

9. Design eBook Covers

eBook covers are very popular items for a writer to publish their work on a publishing platform. They write their book and hire freelancers to design their covers. Many digital marketers and personal branding people are also focusing on making ebooks to boost their professionalism.

You can use Canva to design ebook covers easier than ever because it has a huge template pre-made library which will help you express your creativity.

10. Create Marketing Videos

Using Canva, you can create marketing videos easily with their web editing platform. Here you can use millions of stock photos and videos with lots of transitions, texts, backgrounds, etc.

Almost all kinds of product and service-based companies can be benefited from marketing videos because videos are the #1 type of content on social media platforms.

11. Create Digital Ads Images & Videos

Digital ads are much like marketing videos, but they should be highly attractive content elements with a powerful call to action for the product.

I’m talking about advertising videos for Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, etc., where you are making a video with the sole purpose of selling.

To do this properly, you should watch as many video ads as you can. It’ll give you a video to understand the current trend.

12. Teach Canva on YouTube

If you have become very good at Canva, then you can start teaching it on Youtube. This can help you make your personal brand with your crazy creative ideas expressed to the world. You can also create a paid Canva course.

Nowadays, companies hire instructors who teach people online. Becoming a Canva Youtuber will give you a blast of exposure that will attract clients.

If you can continuously grow your channel, then you can apply for the Adsense program and earn passive income from your Youtube channel.

13. Start a Canva Consulting or Coaching Business

If you get the necessary exposure with your Canva Pro skills, then you can be a professional Canva instructor.

You can train company employees or a student base to improve their design abilities by showcasing your experience, knowledge, and special tips.

14. Join the Canva Creator Program

Canva Creators strive to establish the most superior and inclusive content marketplace globally. It offers a platform for a range of creators, including designers, photographers, artists, and subject matter experts, to exhibit their creations to more than 85 million Canva users.

You can be part of the official Canva Creator Program. Canva Creator Program helps creators get to work independently with complete control and liberty as they inspire people worldwide toward designing.

You can become part of the passive income journey because you just need to create a template and publish them. Every time your template is used, you’ll get a commission.

15. Join the Canva Affiliate Program

Affiliate marketing serves as an avenue to earn income by simply promoting a product or service to your followers through your personalized link. If you already have social media followers, joining Canva’s affiliate program is a smart move to make money effortlessly.

As an affiliate, you have the prospect of receiving up to $36 for every Canva Pro subscription from a new referral. Meanwhile, the subscribers can enjoy limitless access to all the tools and features on the platform.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS)

Can I sell Canva Templates on Etsy?

Yes, you can sell your Canva templates and designs on Etsy.

It could be a passive income opportunity for you if you take it seriously.

Is it legal to sell Canva templates?

Yes, it is permitted to sell Canva templates if you are the only owner of the design concept, images, videos, icons, etc.

Know more details about Canva’s commercial license agreement. You can find very detailed information regarding this matter in section 5 of this page.

Who Owns My Canva Designs?

If you are the creator of your unique design, then you own your Canva design. You should have full ownership of every element you use in your designs.

Is Canva Market Saturated?

It’s not. Competition begins when a task can be easily done by many people at the moment. Canva is always implementing new tools and features for every design type.

So, if you utilize the new features as fast as they are released and study the freelance market properly, then you’ll always be one step ahead of the competition.

Conclusion

Making money with Canva is a great way to turn your invention into a profitable venture. There are various routes to monetize your Canva skills.

You can get started with Canva Pro now or even try the free version

Taking the gift of these opportunities and using the many resources available on Canva, you can turn your devotion to design into a successful business. So which way do you think is useful for you?

Consider exploring different options and finding the one that best matches your skills and goals. With devotion and hard work, you can turn your Canva expertise into a profitable career.