Canva announces a big (and controversial) price increase in its Teams plan

If you have a Canva Teams subscription, you might have woken up to an unpleasant surprise in your email inbox: Canva Teams will increase its prices starting on January 23, 2025. The Australian graphic design company has justified this price hike by explaining that it is a necessary measure to continue improving its product.

“To continue enhancing Canva, we have changed the price of our Canva Teams plan to €90.00/year per person (for a minimum of 3 people). This change helps us keep developing great products like Visual Suite, Magic Studio, brand tools, and other highly requested features,” the company stated in the email sent to its users.

This change means that, for example, a plan for 5 people that used to cost €107.88 (around €21.5 per person) will now cost €450. This represents a price increase that quadruples the previous cost.

40% discount for the first year

To soften the impact of this news, Canva has announced that it will apply a 40% discount on the new Canva Teams price during the first year. This discount will also apply to the prices for new users added to the team during this period. However, the company highlights that “if you cancel your subscription, switch your Teams plan to a Pro plan, or choose monthly billing after January 19, 2025, you will not be able to benefit from the discount.”

Those affected by this change will receive a reminder 30 days before the new price takes effect. Likewise, Canva will also send a notice to those who maintain their subscription 30 days before the discount period ends, on January 23, 2026.

Returning to the previous example, the Canva Teams account that currently costs €107.88 and will increase to €450 after the price update will cost €270 during the first year with the discount applied.

A measure that has not been well received

As expected, a change of this magnitude has not been well received by Canva Teams users. It’s worth noting that until now, Canva was positioned as a simple and affordable alternative to other design software like Photoshop.

However, its recent updates, especially those based on AI tools, and acquisitions have already hinted that the platform was making a significant push to elevate its offering and compete with the major players in the industry. This shift has been reflected in its price increase, but even so, we couldn’t have anticipated such a drastic change in conditions. Naturally, the controversy has already gone viral on social media.

well @canva it’s been nice but dropping an email saying your tripling the cost of my small team account will cost you a subscriber. @AdobeExpress here we come

— JT (@jontracey) August 29, 2024

@canva well guess I will need to find an alternative because this price jump isn’t it.

I understand adjusting to meet business needs but for customers that have been around for several years, this rubs off the wrong way.

Thanks for the heads up I guess pic.twitter.com/wgqiEFAIZt

— luna (@luna_driver) August 28, 2024

My @canva teams account is increasing from $167.88 per year to $675.00 per year! Slightly above inflation! Wow wee Difficult to justify..

— Cameron Voss (@camvoss) August 29, 2024

Image: GPT4