With over 100 million users each month, few tools reach the heights of market dominance that Canva has achieved. And as the tool grows, so does its feature set — following successful acquisitions of brands such as Zeetings and Pixabay, Canva users can now enjoy extensive capabilities for presentation production and stock photography use.
But while the company is one of the few software vendors that offers a basic version of its package for free to solo users, if you’re operating a team of creatives, you might consider adding a paid plan to your SaaS portfolio.
The question is, how much does it cost? And is it possible to get a discount?
Here’s everything you need to know about Canva’s pricing plans.
How much does Canva cost?
The SaaS industry is well-known for its lack of pricing transparency — but Canva is among the 45% of vendors that publicly lists its costs online. There are several different pricing packages that users can subscribe to, and while a free plan is available, paid memberships start at $12.99 per month when billed monthly.
Depending on your usage requirements, however, you may be better suited to another type of Canva subscription. Here’s a brief summary of the packages available:
Canva pricing plans
Canva Free
Canva offers a free plan to budding designers that provides access to the standard Canva platform. Free users can access over 250,000 templates across 100 design types within the suite of basic Canva features.
Canva Pro
The first of Canva’s two types of paid plan is Canva Pro, costing $12.99 per month, or $119.99 when billed yearly. Pro is suitable for individuals or freelancers requiring unlimited access to Canva’s premium content, offering the full feature set found in Free, in addition to customer support, 1TB cloud storage and additional design tools.
Canva for Teams
Also known as Canva for Enterprise, Canva for Teams is the most advanced tier of Canva subscription, offering premium features such as real-time collaboration. The plan costs $14.99 per month in total for the first five users, or $149.90 when billed yearly. For teams larger than five, organizations will pay a fee for each additional user added, which decreases incrementally with higher seat counts.
While the prices above give an idea of how much you’d be looking to pay for Canva Enterprise based on the number of licenses you’re requiring, it is worth playing around with the calculator on the company’s pricing page as this can provide a slightly different figure.
For example, the image above indicates that the cost per user for a team of 80 would be $115 per person, whereas the actual price displays as $126.56 per person, which is an extra $924.80 per year for a team of that size.
Is it possible to get a discount on Canva pricing?
So, just how fixed are these prices?
Well, despite Canva being incredibly transparent with its costs – even at enterprise-level which rarely happens – SaaS prices are rarely set in stone.
In fact, our own data indicates that the average discount offered by design tool providers in general is 23% off of the quote price.
So, what are your options for obtaining a Canva discount?
According to its pricing page, Canva offers a 100% discount via two different programs. The first, Canva for Nonprofits, gives charity groups free access to Canva’s premium design tools to help them to create impactful campaign materials. The second, Canva for Education, empowers teachers and students at eligible schools with the tools to create dynamic lesson plans, infographics, posters and presentations for free.
But what if you don’t meet the criteria for either of those schemes?
Our own data tells us that Canva has a medium parity score of 52, suggesting that there isn’t total consistency between what organizations with similar profiles pay for comparable subscriptions. This means that with the right negotiation strategy and leverage, there could be an opportunity to negotiate better contract terms and reduced pricing.
Let’s look at some of the top tactics that you could implement for a better deal.
Consider an annual or multi-year contract
Signing up for a longer subscription term is one simple way to secure a reduced fee. Canva offers a 16% discount on the total cost of a year’s subscription to Pro or Teams plans for users who opt to be billed yearly rather than on a month-to-month basis.
This same principle could yield even larger savings across your wider software portfolio. Our data shows that on average, vendors will generally offer an extra 5% discount for every extra year that a user commits to. This means that for software you intend to use well into the future, negotiating annual or even multi-year agreements could translate to significant savings across your entire stack.
Research competitor comparisons
Another method is to equip yourself with the contract information from competing vendors. For instance, if you research the terms offered by other solutions within your chosen vendor’s market, such as products like InDesign and Creative Cloud Express from Adobe, in the case of Canva, you could incentivise the sales team to match or beat a deal that you’ve been offered elsewhere.
However, as well as the upfront billing cost, it’s also important to assess what your shortlisted vendors offer in terms of:
- Renewal clauses
- Notice periods
- Customization options
- Maintenance and support
By negotiating with the full breadth of factors in mind, you’re in a better position to secure a deal that caters to your specific business requirements.
Gain leverage with pricing benchmarks
The most powerful form of leverage, however, is intel into what organizations similar to your own are paying for their subscriptions. When you approach negotiations armed with this data, you have the opportunity to negotiate a competitive rate for your business.
This is because these pricing benchmarks provide a transparent view of how your quoted price or discount compares to the average rate. Subsequently, you can determine whether you’re getting a good deal on your package or need to push for better terms. But where exactly can you find this data?
In short, from Vertice.
Reduce the cost of Canva with Vertice
We have access to the transactional data from more than 16,000 global SaaS vendors, which our dedicated SaaS purchasing team leverages during software negotiations. This means we can secure you savings not only on Canva, but for any of the tools in your portfolio.
But it’s not just the cost that you’ll save on.
When we handle SaaS procurement on your behalf, we also save you the time you spend buying, managing and renewing your software subscriptions. With an average of 130 tools deployed, effective SaaS management can be a big time drain for even the most organized of companies. But with Vertice as your SaaS procurement partner, it doesn’t have to be.
Learn more about the organizations we’re already helping, or request a cost-savings audit to see how much you could be saving on your annual SaaS spend.
