The price of some Canva subscriptions are set to skyrocket next year following the company’s aggressive rollout of generative AI features. Global customers for Canva Teams — a business-orientated subscription that supports adding multiple users — can expect prices to increase by just over 300 percent in some instances. Canva says the increase is justified due to the “expanded product experience” and value that generative AI tools have added to the platform.
In the US, some Canva Teams users are reporting subscription increases from $120 per year for up to five users, to an eye-watering $500 per year. A 40 percent discount will be applied to bring that down to $300 for the first 12 months. In Australia, the flat $39.99 AUS (about $26 USD) per month fee for five users is switching to $13.50 AUS (about $9 USD) for each user. That means a team of five will pay at least 68 percent more, not withstanding any other discounts.
They are probably failing to get enough users, so they will attempt to squeeze as much money from their existing users as they can before they go under.
I just assumed the VC money dried up.
All post-COVID tech companies in a nutshell.
AI seems to be getting used as the latest way to keep VCs still interested in a world of higher interest rates and otherwise tighter corporate spending.
It was the cheap fed money that allowed VC to speculate for so long.
That’s too bad since they recently purchased the excellent Affinity suite… which I originally bought for a single lifetime price, but they’re switching to a subscription model. So my favorite editing suite might get ruined two ways.
Are they? When they bought it they explicitly promised that they would not change the licensing. And no one believed them. Affinity was the only true competitor to Adobe products with equivalent functionality for a reasonable one-off payment instead of an extortionate subscription. I was so happy to find it - software that actually feels good to buy and use, Of course they’re going to ruin it.
I’ll give them credit for sticking with it so far. I even keep getting updates. But I assume they’re brainstorming ways to end the one-time payment installations.
I believe at some point they said the may explore additional models, like offering both pay once and subscription at the same time. We can hope
I have a feeling they are going to retroactively shorten the “lifetime” of my license.
I don’t think so. Unless I’m mistaken, your lifetime license is for major versions, so when 3.0 comes around, you will still be able to use 2.x.x, but not upgrade for free. They have been offering pretty good upgrade prices, though. We’ll see what happens.
Not was. Is.
Step 3 of enshittification has begun
Or they are gearing up to sell, so they pull this stunt to make their subscription numbers look better, before the cancellations start rolling in.
The article’s author seems to think this is an IPO play. Their revenue would spike over 2025 and would inflate the growth metrics for a 2026 IPO.
Does Canva realize that they have more in common with Microsoft’s free power point templates than Adobe CS?
What scares me shitless is that this could happen to the Affinity suite, which they bought recently. Affinity is the main pro level alternative to some Adobe products, and is very affordable in a pay once model instead of subscription.
Wait, wait, wait. Canva bought Affinity?!
Sadly, yes. They’ve promised* to not change the business model of the Affinity Suite however.
*corporate fluff speak that means absolutely nothing and they’re not beholden to this statement in any way, shape or form
Also, I seem to remeber that the Affinity CEO made those statements, but Canva are calling the shots now, so…
Yes. They’ve made positivw noises about pricing, etc, but pretty much everybody in the community fears changes for the worse
But… no you don’t get it… like… they have AI. Understand? AI!!
Capitalism is awesome!
Just because some “AI” scam costs Canva 300% more, that doesn’t mean it’s worth 300% more.
Well what else are they gonna say? That it sucks and you shouldn’t buy into it? That would make them extremely shitty salespeople and not just extremely sleazy salespeople.
Will Affinity product line be the next as Canva bought them?
Every proprietary software will be enshittified eventually; it’s only a matter of time.
The only way to not be subject to the enshittification, in the long run, is to adopt a militant zero-tolerance policy against all proprietary software and insist on using only 100% Free Software instead.
I like this (and largely follow it), except that I occasionally need CMYK color space for printing, and GIMP makes that extreeeeeeeeemely difficult and annoying. That’s why I use Affinity. I got the software for the single lifetime price and I’m hoping they let me keep it…
I’m in the same position. I prefer free software but there is none that does what Affinity does. If it goes subscription-only and they shut down the bought versions, it will have to be piracy time.
Everyone prefers free until they have to contribute to actually making things better. Most popular opensource project are funded by corporations for a reason.
Yeah I’m not going to pay their subscription. The whole point was to avoid Adobe.
I’m fine with (reasonably priced) paid software, that’s why I use Affinity; it pretty much hits the sweet spot between affordability and capability. If there is a free software program that does what I need, I’ll gladly use it, but I don’t demand it, plus you really can’t make FOSS developers develop what you need or want, while with paid software you have some leverage.
if it goes subscription, atp i’ll just put up with adobe bullshit because i’m pretty sure if affinity goes that route they’ll forget what made them so good in the first place- not being adobe.
Eventually some pissed off engineer who knows a thing or two about color will create a conversion utility to allow GIMP to seamlessly work with CMYK.
That angry engineer might be you if you have friends who fill in the gaps within your own knowledge base.
I should research what would be required for that.
Maybe Krita is the solution to your problem?
I’m still open to giving the Immich licensing model a chance.
More AI nonsense, this time named Leonardo
Pay three times as much for a “feature” nobody asked for.
A feature that has been shown to actively put people off your product. But in the end these companies would rather have investors than users, and it’s the investors they’re marketing to.
I wonder what the thought process was to name the AI after a teenage mutant ninja turtle
%##% you canva. just when you think you’ve found someone to replace piece of =**^%# adobe. then this happens. ffs
