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Benefits of Using the Paid Version of Canva

Design Tool Features for Success

What is Canva?

Canva is a design application that can be extremely beneficial for companies that do not have an in-house designer or want to take over their marketing from a 3rd party company. Canva provides templates to use as inspiration and guidelines for creating various marketing assets such as social media posts, business cards, flyers, infographics, newsletters and so much more. They also provide stock photography in case authentic photography isn’t an option. However, if you are a single business looking to start with Canva you will first need to decide if you should choose the free version or the paid version of the tool.

Free vs Paid Version of Canva

Free is definitely a great way to get started to see if it is the right tool for you and your business, but you may be missing some key features from the paid version that can make this tool much more powerful for the work you are trying to achieve. Here are some of our top favorite features that come with the paid model:

Large Stock Photo Database

If you don’t have your own photography then stock photography database can be extremely helpful and the amount of photos and quality of photos is much greater with the paid version. It is also helpful that Canva places an icon on each photo while you are searching to tell you if a photo is free or only available with the paid option as this can help you decide what photo to use. After all, if you are on the paid version then paid only photos may be the better option as it isn’t as available to other companies. If you are using stock photos, we would suggest trying to make them unique with some of the effects tools and using them strategically within a template versus using the image as standalone to make them more unique to your company and brand.

One Click Resize

On the paid version of Canva you will have access to the one click resize feature. This can be a huge time saver and also help anyone who doesn’t want to remember the many different size requirements across media platforms. With the one click resize if you design a post specifically for Facebook for example, with one click you can resize and save a new version for wherever else you may be placing the image such as Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. and allow you to adjust it to make sure your campaign looks the best possible based on that platforms sizing guidelines. This is especially helpful when dimensions are very different like Pinterest where being a tall design can certainly become distorted if not sized properly.

Background Remover

The background remover is a great tool if you do have your own authentic photos and you are looking to isolate an item from a nosier picture. With a click of a button Canva can strip out a background on most photos so that you can have a singular image. Take a look at the example below where we took the original image which had a lightbox background and removed & isolated the bowl in order to place it within a design.

Canva Background Remove Before Photo
canva background remover with canva template design

Another feature of the paid tool is the ability to schedule posts to your social platform. We would be remised if we didn’t mention it, but we wanted to clarify while this may be a nice feature for some platforms like LinkedIn or Pinterest we would recommend posting Facebook and Instagram either natively or through Facebook Business Suite which will be further discussed in a future blog post (so don’t forget to subscribe below).

Canva can be a terrific tool for those who don’t have the time, finances, or desire to learn more hefty design programs. We know many individuals, companies and agencies that still use a platform like Canva in addition to other design platforms due to the ease and efficiency and with a free option, why not give it a try!