Canva is one of the most popular design tools available today. It is simple to use and can be used for a wide range of design tasks, from creating graphics for your website or blog to designing leaflets and posters.
What many people don’t know though, is that you can also use Canva to make money. In this post, I will outline nine different ways that you can make money with Canva.
So whether you are a complete newbie, a Canva user or someone just looking to find a side hustle, read on to find out how you can use Canva to make some extra cash.
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means, I will earn a commission (without any additional cost to you) if you click and make a purchase through those links. And if you do make a purchase, thanks for the support!
9 Different Ways to make money with Canva
A Canva Pro subscription does not cost a fortune, but it does come at a price. Buying the Pro plan may not be costly, but how wonderful would it be to earn back that money by starting a side hustle using Canva itself?
And this can be achieved by using the 9 different ways to make money with Canva from the side hustles I’ve outlined below.
1. Become a Canva Creative
If you are a designer, one of the best ways to make money with Canva is to sell your designs on their platform by becoming a Canva Creative. Canva has a built-in storefront for its designers where they can upload and sell their creations.
However, the Canva Creator program is still in its early phase and they are only selecting a small group of people from some select countries only.
To become a Canva Creative, simply go to your Canva home page and find the “Creator” link in the footer or simply type Canva.com/creators in the search bar. That will lead you to the Creator application page as shown in the image above.
Now, click on the “Become a Creator” button. That will lead you to the creator page. In the Creator Page add the link to your designs in the form, select your country and apply.
Now, wait for their response which usually takes not more than four weeks, and if you get selected, start designing and uploading your templates.
Templates you can design for Canva:
2. Sell your Media on Canva
Another great way to make money with Canva is to sell your media for other users to use within Canva. Canva offers a wide range of different media, from stock photos to graphics, and everything in between.
If you have a talent for design and an eye for detail or have a good love for photography, you can upload your media and sell them on Canva’s website. To start selling your media, head over to Canva Contributors and apply to become a contributor.
After you’ve been selected, you can start uploading your media and graphics. Whenever your designs are used by a Canva user, you will get paid for them.
Note: Canva has paused its contributor program as of now. You can always check their website for updates or visit this blog. I’ll be updating this post if something new comes up.
What can you sell?
3. Become a Canva affiliate
If you have a blog or website, you can make money by becoming a Canva affiliate. As a Canva affiliate, you will earn a commission every time someone clicks on your affiliate link and signs up for a paid account.
To become a Canva affiliate, head over to the footer section of the Canva website, click the “Affiliates Program” link and sign up for the Canva affiliate program.
Canva manages its affiliate program through Impact Radius, which means you need to have an account there. If you don’t have one, don’t worry, when you sign up as an affiliate for Canva, you will find the option in the form to open an Impact account for you. You just have to accept it.
After signing up, Canva will give you a unique affiliate link that you can start promoting on your blog or website. For every new Canva user that signs up using your affiliate link, you will earn a commission.
Note: By the way, if you’re interested in affiliate marketing, know more about how it works in this post. And if you are looking for some awesome affiliate networks to work with, check this post.
4. Use Canva to create graphics for your blog or website
This one is not a direct way to make money with Canva but just an idea of how to use Canva to generate income through your other projects.
For example: If you have a blog or website, you can use Canva to create graphics for your site. A great-looking website can attract more visitors which will eventually bring you more visitors and sales.
Canva offers a wide range of templates, graphics, stock images and infographics that you can use to create designs, post images and even lead magnets that can help you in converting your visitors.
To start creating graphics for your blog or website, simply sign up for a Canva free or a Pro account. From there, you can browse through Canva’s wide range of templates and choose one that suits your needs.
Once you have selected a template, you can customize it to match your brand and then download it for use on your site. Here’s a complete Canva features list and also the latest AI-powered features Canva introduced recently in case you haven’t used Canva before.
Note: All these simple designs and images you’ll find on my website have been made using Canva. If you’re a bit creative, unlike me, you can make far better designs on Canva.
5. Become a social media manager.
If you are good at designing social media and have a bit of experience with how it works, you can simply become a social media manager for businesses. you can use Canva to create graphics for your client’s posts.
Canva has a wide range of features that can help you with becoming a social media manager. You can create designs for your clients and manage their social media accounts.
To start offering social media management services, you can start building a portfolio for your designs to share with your clients. You can do this inside of your Canva dashboard itself or make a website from the website features that Canva offers.
Or, you can sign up with Fiverr to attract clients for your social media management job. Here’s an example of some gigs on Fiverr:
After you’re done with your portfolio, you can promote your business on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube.
This can be a great way to make money with Canva as you can charge your clients a monthly fee for your services, and then use Canva to create their designs.
Note: Here’s a post I made on how you can make a Link-in-bio website using Canva. You can follow the steps to create a website instead of a bio-link.
Services you can offer:
6. Sell eBooks
If you are an author, or blogger or have a passion for writing, you can use Canva to create eBooks or PDFs. Canva offers a wide range of templates that you can use to create everything from eBooks to PDFs and even printables.
Just Sign up for a Canva Free or a Pro and start creating your ebook and selling it using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Smashwords etc. The other option can be to start your own eBooks website.
Pro Tip: If you struggle to generate ideas and create content for your eBooks, there are some PLR sites that you can use to help you with that. You can find more about what are PLR products here and where to find them in this post.
7. Make a Canva Design Course
If you are an expert in designing with Canva, you can create a Canva design course. The Canva design course can be in an eBook format or a video course. But the best option to make this kind, of course, would be to go with a video course.
You can create this Canva design course and sell it on sites like Skillshare and Udemy. If you want to make a video Canva design course, you can start by recording your Canva tutorials using the screen recorder feature available at Canva itself.
The other awesome software you can use to record screens and edit your videos is Wondershare Filmora which is also cheap and easy to use for beginners.
After you have recorded all your Canva tutorials, you can upload them to Skillshare or Udemy and start selling your Canva design course or even sell it through your own website.
8. Start Freelancing on Fiverr
If you’re good at designing with Canva, you can start freelancing on Fiverr. Canva is a great platform to use for starting freelancing as it offers a wide range of templates that you can use to create designs for your clients.
There are also some easy gigs that you can offer on Fiverr using Canva. One such easy service is offering background removal service of images. And it’s so easy as Canva has a built-in Background Remover feature that you can use to quickly remove the background of images.
Easy Gigs on Fiverr(Example):
However, to use the background removal feature on Canva, you’ll need a Canva Pro account.
To sell your services on Fiverr, you’ll need a sign up for a seller account at Fiverr and start offering your Canva design services. You can set your own prices for your services and start earning money with Canva.
8. Sell Canva template packs
If you have a talent for design, you can create a Canva template pack. A Canva template pack is a collection of templates that you can sell to your customers.
To sell your templates pack, you can start with a website where you can showcase your Canva templates and sell them online. If you want to mix your Canva template store with a blog to attract more clients, I would recommend you use WordPress for your website.
But if you just want to sell Canva templates and don’t want the hassle of setting up and maintaining a website, you can opt for some Landing page or Funnel builders like Systeme.io or GetResponse. Both platforms also have email marketing features that you can use to build your email list and boost your Canva template business.
However, if you sell your templates through a funnel or a landing page, the fastest way to attract clients would be through paid ads on social media platforms like Facebook or Pinterest.
The other way you sell your templates is by using the Etsy Marketplace. Here’s a screenshot of an Etsy template store:
To get started, head over to Etsy.com, Sign up for an account and set up your store and start promoting.
9. Start a Print on demand store using Canva
Another great way to make money with Canva is by starting a Print on demand store. With lots of design and template options on Canva, you can make and use your design to create products like T-Shirts, Mugs, Posters, Mobile phone covers, Journals etc.
To start a print-on-demand business, the first thing you should do is select a niche related to your target audience and build your store. For example, your merch can be for yoga enthusiasts, fitness enthusiasts or any other niches like this.
After you have come up with your niche ideas, you can use any of these platforms to sell your products:
All these platforms are online marketplaces where you can sell home decor, apparel, phone cases, and other products with your Canva designs. You can create a free account with any one of them and start selling your merch and products using your Canva designs.
Apart from Etsy, all these platforms will take care of printing and shipping your products to customers. All you need to do is design and upload your Canva designs to the product mockups.
However, if you want more control and flexibility over your online store, you can create your store on either Shopify, Wix or WordPress. These platforms give you more control over your store as you can install any theme or plugin of your choice.
And the best part is that they also have different apps that you can use to connect your store with different print-on-demand services like Printful and Printify. These services fulfil your customer’s orders directly from your website.
Basic terms to consider while selling Canva designs.
Now that you know about some platforms where you can sell Canva designs, it’s time to learn about some guidelines to sell Canva designs to make sure that you don’t fall into some legal trouble with Canva.
Here are some guidelines that you need to follow while selling Canva designs:
- The first and most important one is while you can design logos for your personal use in Canva, you cannot design logos for Trademark as all the Canva elements are copyrighted to their owners.
- You can’t utilize Canva stock photos on your website or blog without altering them because someone could just download them. And if you want to use them without altering, just use them in smaller-sized pixels.
- If you’re selling Canva templates, your customers must download them from the Canva dashboard itself. That means selling your templates through your design links. You can find the links in the browser tab.
- While using design for your print on demand or other such stores, don’t use the premade design templates from Canva instead create your own unique designs using different elements and fonts from Canva.
- Lastly, make sure to check the Canva terms of use document carefully before selling your designs.
Pro Tip: Always make your templates or create templates on demand for your clients using the free elements provided by Canva. If you utilized Pro elements on your design and your clients have a free Canva account, they will be unable to download it or will have to pay extra for the elements used in your template design.
Conclusion
So there you have it! Just a few of the ways that you can make money from Canva. With a little creativity, you can find many more ways to use Canva’s wide selection of templates to your advantage.
The sky is the limit when it comes to what you can create with this versatile design tool. Are you ready to start making some extra cash? If any questions come up as you get started, leave them in the comment section below and I’ll be happy to help out. Thanks for reading!
