Canva is an amazing editing tool, no doubt about that. I’ve been using it every day ever since I first discovered it.
And the reason why so many creators and biz owners love it is because it’s super simple to use. Want to create a social media post? Just open Canva and start designing using a drag-and-drop editor!
It’s not an exaggeration to say that we bloggers, creators and biz owners must be thankful that a tool like Canva exists. I mean it.
Other than being a fabulous designing and editing tool, did you know that there are many ways to make money using Canva?
That’s what we’ll discuss in this post, so if you’re looking for ways to make some extra income online or even a full-time income, sit tight!
Here’s how to make money with Canva using 10 creative ways.
Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products, tools and services that I trust. For more information, read the full disclosure here.
Let’s not waste more time and jump straight to the list!
1. Sell Canva Templates
I’m sure you’ve seen many people selling Canva templates because it’s one of the most lucrative ways to make money online.
I, myself, sell Canva templates because I enjoy creating graphics in Canva. I sell my templates mainly on two places: this website and on Creative Market.
You don’t necessarily have to be a pro at designing to sell Canva templates. Canva itself is super simple to use. All you need to do is learn some basic design concepts and skills, practice designing and set up a template shop.
These are some of the best places to sell Canva templates:
- Your own website (WooCommerce for a WordPress site)
- Squarespace
- Etsy
- Creative Market
- Gumroad
- Design Bundles
I recommend choosing a niche for your Canva templates so that you can have a target audience and a better idea of what to create. For example, I create Canva templates for creators and entrepreneurs.
You can choose any niche for your templates such as health, wellness, skincare, wedding, fashion etc. Whatever you love the most!
Some types of Canva templates to sell are:
- Workbooks
- Social Media posts
- Lead magnet/freebie templates
- Presentation templates
- Portfolio templates
- Wedding invitation templates
- Journal templates
And the list goes on.
After choosing a niche, make sure to do some research on what type of templates other people within your niche are selling, what people are looking for and what’s selling the most.
2. Become a Canva Affiliate
Affiliate marketing is another lucrative way to make passive income online and it will keep growing in the future.
If you don’t know what affiliate marketing is, allow me to explain in simple terms.
As an affiliate, you have to promote the product and upon making a sale, you get a fraction of the sale as a commission. More sales = more affiliate income.
Canva has made a change in its affiliate program. Before, the Canva affiliate program was run by the Impact affiliate program but as of writing this, it has been discontinued.
To become a Canva affiliate, you have to apply to become a ‘Canvassador’. As a Canvassador, you’ll also get other perks along with becoming a Canva affiliate.
There are some requirements to become a Canvassador. You can get more details right here.
Keep in mind that affiliate marketing is a long-term game. You must stay dedicated to be able to make passive income from it.
3. Become a Canva Creator
All of the templates available in the Canva template library are designed by the official ‘Canva creators’.
Lemme say this. If you’re confident about your Canva design skills, you should apply to become a Canva creator. You can either become a template creator or an elements creator. Click here to apply and for more details.
To apply to become a Canva creator, they’ll ask you to submit a portfolio of a collection of Canva templates/elements designs.
Here are some tips to create a good portfolio:
- Make sure to create a variety of designs for the portfolio
- Use Google Drive to create a well-arranged and neat portfolio
- Showcase your best designs
- Do not copy the designs from templates/elements already available in the Canva template library. Only include original designs.
Your portfolio is the main thing here, so take some time to craft a good one. Do not rush it.
As a Canva creator, you earn royalties based on how many times someone has used you’re templates/elements. You also get other perks!
See how amazing Canva is? It offers such great programs for people like us who enjoy using Canva!
4. Offer Services
The next way to make money with Canva is to start offering design services on your own website.
You can launch a self-hosted WordPress site and create a ‘work with me’ page to offer your Canva services to those in need. You can also make use of freelancing platforms like Upwork and Fiverr, whichever suits you best.
To get clients, I suggest doing the following:
- Start a Pinterest account and upload daily pins offering your services
- Use social media like Instagram to promote your services
- Create a LinkedIn profile and showcase your brand/services there
- Cold email your potential clients. Don’t sound salesy and keep it casual.
If you enjoy creating Canva designs in your free time, then doing some freelance work is a really great way to make some side income.
5. Create a Course
Creating and selling online courses is another lucrative way to make money online. If you have expertise on a topic, you can teach your audience through an online course.
Now you may be wondering, how can you use Canva to create an online course? Allow me to explain.
An online course is made up of many things, such as:
- Presentation slides
- Workbook/E-book
- Sales Page
- Promotional content
And much more!
You can use Canva to design this content very easily. Plan out what you want to include in the course, write a draft and do the final editing in Canva. That’s all!
Another thing you can do is create a course about Canva itself. It can be any topic: Canva design course, template selling course, Canva tutorials for beginners and much more!
Interesting, isn’t it?
6. Start a YouTube Channel
One thing you can do side-by-side is start a YouTube channel and create Canva-related content.
You can create tutorials, explanation videos, easy-to-follow guides and much more!
The best part is that you can just do a voiceover with screen recording to create YouTube videos if you’re not comfortable with showing your face! You’ll need some basic gear to create videos.
Here are some free options:
You can choose any microphone that fits your budget. If your desktop offers a good quality in-built microphone, you can use that too!!
I recommend creating long-form videos along with YouTube shorts to increase your reach. You can then recycle the same YouTube short as an Instagram reel, too! That’s so handy!
Once you reach all the monetization criteria, you can start earning passive income from YouTube and Instagram. Let’s discuss the next method!
7. Brand Designing
Canva offers many amazing features to offer brand designing to clients such as logo designing, color palette, mood boards, style boards, fonts and much more!
You can sell branding kit templates or even offer branding services to your audience on a website or freelancing platforms like Fiverr.
Here are some platforms to sell your brand design services using Canva:
- Your website
- Creative Market
- Upwork
- Fiverr
- Design Crowd
I’m sure there are more platforms. You can choose wherever you want to sell or offer your services/templates.
8. Sell Printables
Printables sell really well. You can design different kinds of printables in Canva (for free, yes) and set up an online store to sell them.
Here are some types of printables to sell:
- Planners (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly)
- To-Do Lists
- Social Media Content Planners
- Goal-Setting Worksheets
- Time-Blocking Templates
- Brand Boards & Style Guides
- Business Budget Trackers
- Self-Care Planners
- Habit Trackers
- Mood Trackers
- Mental Health Journals
- Recipe Cards
- Travel Planners
And so much more! Choose a niche, start designing printables, set up a shop and list these printables in your shop.
There’s no limit on how many products you should list in your shop, whether printables or templates. The more, the merrier.
9. Sell Digital Products
Earlier, we discussed selling Canva templates, courses and printables. These three are considered digital products but there are more things you can sell as digital products.
This includes:
- E-books for your students
- Workbooks for your coaching clients
- Checklists and cheatsheets
- Tutorial bundles
- Content Strategy Kits
- Paid newsletter (you can design newsletter graphics using Canva)
- Membership site (you can sell templates with membership)
- You can create art in Canva using the editor
There are a whole lot of things you can do with Canva and make money. It’s a creative process. You can create whatever you enjoy and start selling it as a product!
10. Create Lead Magnets
Let me tell you this: email marketing is a powerful method to make money online. It’s one of the best ways to create a loyal audience and build a successful online business!
Take a look below. This is a lead magnet I created in Canva that’s giving me a lot of email subscribers! This way, I’m converting my website traffic into my customers. Brilliant!
This is how to use Canva to create lead magnets and make money:
- Create a freebie using Canva. It can be a cheatsheet, checklist, mini-guide, E-book, masterclass or anything.
- Offer this freebie to your audience. Make sure that your freebie offers value so that people will opt for it and subscribe to your email list.
- Once you get a good number of email subscribers, you can go ahead and offer paid services, courses, templates or any type of digital product to your audience.
The main thing here is the freebie you’re offering. If your audience likes the content in the freebie, they’ll most likely buy your other goods as well.
You can promote your products through email. That’s the beauty of email marketing.
We’ve reached the end of this post! Do you think these are doable? I would love to know your thoughts!
Please keep in mind that none of these methods are get-rich-quick schemes. You must stay dedicated and patient. Earning passive income online takes time and there will be times when you’ll have to learn things from scratch.
Now that you’ve learnt how to make money with Canva, the choice is up to you! Do you wanna sell templates, offer services, become an affiliate or sell digital products? Take your time to think about it 🙂
More Canva Tips and Tutorials you may find helpful:
-> 20 Hidden Canva Features You Must Know About
-> How to create Product Images for digital Products in Canva
