If you’re wondering what you can get from the Canva free trial of its “Pro” software, you’re in the right place. The Canva Pro free trial offers users an opportunity to unlock all of the benefits of Canva’s premium service, for up to 30 days.
Notably, the “free trial” isn’t the same as Canva’s free forever plan, which provides users with a simplified version of the Canva design platform.
If you’re interested in exploring the Canva Pro trial yourself, you can find the sign up button here. Alternatively, read on for a complete overview of everything you can expect from the service.
What is Canva? An Introduction
Canva is a browser-based graphic design platform offering users a simple way to create visual materials without design experience. You can use the platform to create everything from videos and presentations, to social media graphics, slides, posters, and even basic websites.
Canva is one of the most popular graphic design tools on the web, thanks to its ease of use, feature richness, and exceptional variety of tools.
It even offers access to a wide range of customizable templates, royalty-free images, and pre-made assets to get you started.
Alongside common design tools, for altering and enhancing images, Canva offers a range of productivity features, such as a content planning tool, and an interactive whiteboard for teams.
The platform offers a handful of plans to choose from, including its free service, Canva Pro, and Canva for Teams (intended for collaboration).
Pros and Cons of the Canva Pro Free Trial
If you’re not sure whether Canva Pro is worthwhile for your visual content needs, then experimenting with the free trial is a good idea.
You can access premium templates, and unique features without paying anything for 30 days.
But there are some downsides.
Pros:
- Complete access to unique features and tools for 30 days
- Intuitive user interface for beginners in the design world
- Millions of free stock photos, fonts, videos, audio and illustrations
- Large amount of storage space for your projects
- Exclusive design elements like video backgrounds and animations
Cons:
- You will need to enter credit card details to sign up
- You’ll begin paying for the Pro plan automatically if you don’t cancel
- Some features will still require additional payments to unlock them
- Cancelling your free trial requires you to use the same device you signed up with
Can You use Canva for Commercial Purposes?
If you’re using Canva for access to stock photos and simple design tools, you might be wondering whether you can use your designs for commercial purposes.
The good news is that you can create designs for commercial use, provided you’re using a paid plan. You may not be able to use all of your designs for commercial purposes if you’re using Canva for Education, or Nonprofits.
You can learn more about Canva’s commercial content license options, as well as the license free assets on the platform here.
Can You Use Canva for Free Permanently?
In this review, we’re looking specifically at the Canva Pro free trial. However, you can use Canva for free indefinitely.
The free version of Canva offers a simplified version of the platform, with many of the same user-friendly tools. If you want to start using Canva without entering your credit card details, the free plan is an excellent choice.
However, there are some limitations to the design tools you get. For instance, you’ll only get a fraction of the royalty free videos and images available on the platform. You also only get a handful of output options to choose from when you’re exporting your designs.
Canva’s free version also limits access to advanced design features, such as the magic resize tool for social media, the image background remover tool, and the video background remover. Plus, you can’t create brand kits, for commercial purposes.
The Key Differences Between Canva Free and Canva Pro
Canva Free and Canva Pro offer a similar design experience for beginners, with some major differences. If you don’t want to opt for a paid subscription, you will be limited in the tools you can access.
Here are some of the major differences between the Canva Fre plan, and the Canva Pro plan:
Feature | Canva Free | Canva Pro |
---|---|---|
Cost | Free | $14.99 per month |
Cloud storage | 5GB | 1TB |
Templates | 250,000+ | 610,000+ |
Video, images and free audio assets | 1+ million | 4+ million |
Customized exports | Limited | Full |
Magic Eraser tool | No | Yes |
Magic Switch – Resize tool | No | Yes |
AI magic write tool | 25 total uses | 250 uses per month |
AI text to image tool | 50 lifetime uses | 500 uses per month |
AI text to video tool | 5 lifetime uses | 50 uses per month |
Background removal | No | Yes |
Custom templates | No | Yes |
Audio auto-sync | No | Yes |
Brand kits feature | No | Yes |
Font upload | No | Yes |
Social media scheduling tools | No | Yes |
Text translation | 50 total uses | 500 per month |
Support | Support emails answered within 1 week | Support emails answered within 24 hours |
Notably, both the paid and free plan still support access for a single user, and offer access to unlimited folders. They also both offer access to the same easy-to-use platform.
Both tools also offer access to customer support, though you get priority support with the Pro plan. However, you can still access tutorials, FAQs, and other self-help solutions with either service.
Canva Free vs The Canva Pro Free Trial
As mentioned above, the Canva free trial isn’t exactly the same as the Canva Free plan. The Canva Free plan allows you to try Canva features (on a limited basis) for as long as you like, without paying anything. Alternatively, the Canva Pro account free trial gives you access to the various features offered by the Pro plan for only 30 days.
If you want unlimited access to the advanced features and premium content offered by Canva Pro, you’ll need to pay for your Canva account at the end of the trial period. You can either upgrade to Canva Pro permanently, or choose plans like Canva for Education, or Canva for Team members.
While Canva’s free plan restricts you to a basic version of the platform, with the same drag-and-drop tools and easy-to-use services, Canva Pro gives you full access to the service.
Notably, though you can add some Canva Pro content into professional designs with the free service, anything you download will be watermarked, unless you pay ($1) to access the content.
Another point worth noting is that you don’t need to enter your credit card details to access Canva’s Free plan, but you do need to add these details when starting a Pro free trial.
The Features of Canva Pro
If you choose to unlock a trial version of a Canva pro account for 30 days, you’ll access all of the features offered by the Pro plan. This basically upgrades your Canva experience with full access to premium content and tools, such as:
- Unlimited downloads for premium content with no additional cost
- Real-time collaboration with team members on designs
- Unlimited access to Canva design tools and integrations
- More 4 million royalty-free assets and 610,000 templates
- Over 1,000 premium and custom fonts
- The magic resize tool for resizing your designs to standard or custom dimensions
- Advanced analytics for tracking design performance
- 1TB of cloud storage space
- Priority support from the Canva customer service team
- Brand kits and the Brand hub to keep branded designs organized
- The publishing assistant for scheduling content on social platforms
- Downloads without watermarks in a variety of formats
- Background removal tools for images and videos
- Animation tools for GIFs and other animated content
Notably, there are other accounts you can explore when your 30-day trial ends, such as the Enterprise version of the platform “Canva Pro for Teams”, which comes with administrative controls, design approval functionality and branded elements.
Can You Cancel the Canva Free Trial Before Paying?
If you want to test all of the features of Canva Pro, but you’re not sure you’re ready to upgrade to a paid plan straight away, you can cancel your subscription before making any payments. Notably, however, you will need to cancel your plan on the same device you started your trial with.
To cancel your trial, you’ll need to log into your account, head to the “Account Settings” page, then click on “Billing and Plans”.
From there, choose “More Actions” followed by “Subscriptions”, and click the button to cancel your subscription.
There’s also the option to pause a plan on Canva for up to 3 months. You can use the same steps above to find the pause option. If you don’t cancel your subscription before the trial ends, you’ll be upgraded to a Canva Pro account automatically, which costs $14.99 per month for one user.
Alternatively, you can upgrade to Canva for Teams, which has a variable pricing structure depending on the number of users you want to give access. The first five users will cost $29.99 per month.
Can You Get Canva Pro for Free Permanently?
If you’re a commercial or individual user of Canva, you won’t be able to access the Pro service for free permanently. However, educational groups and nonprofits can request access to a special version of Canva that includes premium features for no additional cost. You’ll need to contact the Canva team to find out more about this option.
Is Canva Pro Better than Adobe Photoshop?
Canva Pro and Adobe Photoshop are two of the most popular design tools available today, but they target very different audiences.
Canva offers access to a beginner-friendly design tool, with step-by-step guidance for those who don’t have much design experience.
With Canva, you can access a huge variety of royalty-free images and assets, which you would have to source separately with Photoshop.
Additionally, Canva is a much simpler solution overall, and offers unique web design and video editing tools you don’t get in Photoshop.
However, if you’re looking to create more advanced visual assets, Photoshop is a far more sophisticated tool. It’s intended for people with more extensive photo editing skills, and is ideal for complex design processes.
Canva Alternatives: What are the Main Options?
After trying Canva Pro with the free trial, you may decide you want to switch back to a free plan to unlock the basic free templates and tools for creating social media posts and other content. However, you may also choose to consider an alternative service.
The most obvious alternative to Canva for those with basic design needs is Adobe Creative Cloud Express for browser-based design.
You can also consider Visme or VistaCreate, these are two user-friendly and affordable solutions for people without design expertise.
Adobe’s more advanced tools, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere, are all excellent for more advanced design needs.
However, it’s worth remembering all of these tools will require you to source stock photos, videos, and audios on your own.
If you want a tool for creating presentations, you can explore options like Microsoft PowerPoint. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a simple web design solution, SquareSpace, Wix, and Shopify (for ecommerce) are all excellent alternatives.
On the other hand, if you’re creating visual designs for merchandise, such as branded t-shirts and clothing, you can explore options like Printful and Printify.
Both of these platforms will give you a wider range of products to experiment with than you’d get on Canva.
Is Canva Pro Worth It?
If your free trial has ended and you’re not sure whether to upgrade to a paid version of the platform, you might be wondering whether the subscription is worthwhile. Ultimately, we believe Canva Pro is an excellent tool, with fantastic value.
Compared to other design tools, Canva Pro is an affordable option for beginners, giving you access to a huge range of audio, videos, and stock images, as well as a host of useful tools.
You also get access to a wide variety of powerful AI tools, such as the magic eraser, beat syncing tool, and magic write features. Notably, however, there are some limitations to Canva.
If you’re going to be creating complex assets for printed merchandise, or your designing unique art and edited photos, there are more advanced tools out there. Saying that, Canva is a fantastic tool for creating presentations, charts, social media content, online ads, and other business assets.