How to Make Money With Canva: The 2023 Ultimate Guide for Beginners

Canva has revolutionized graphic design by making it accessible even to non-designers. But beyond its use for personal projects, did you know Canva also offers a variety of money-making opportunities?

Whether you‘re a seasoned pro or just starting out, this comprehensive guide will teach you 11 proven strategies to monetize your creativity with everyone‘s favorite DIY design platform.

Let‘s dive in!

Getting Started with Canva

Before we explore making money, first you need a solid grasp of Canva‘s features and capabilities as a tool.

Key Benefits

• Intuitive and easy-to-use: Canva‘s drag-and-drop interface allows anyone to create professional-level designs in minutes. No complex software or design skills required.

• Vast library of templates and assets: Access over 100,000 templates, 1 million+ stock photos/videos, and 190,000 design elements to create quality work quickly. Saves time and resources.

• Real-time collaboration: Work together with team members and clients in real-time with Canva‘s handy collaboration tools. Easily exchange feedback right within the editor.

• Cross-platform versatility: Available both as a desktop site and mobile app, allowing you to design on the fly wherever inspiration strikes! Syncs seamlessly across devices.

Canva Pro Unlocks Premium Features

While Canva‘s free version offers plenty, upgrading to Canva Pro provides additional capabilities to truly take your designs up a notch:

• Remove watermarks
• Unlimited cloud storage
• Premium fonts, templates and graphic elements
• Advanced photo editing tools
• Custom color palettes
• Presentation tools
• YouTube thumbnail maker

As we‘ll discuss later, the benefits of Canva Pro make it indispensable when monetizing design work professionally.

Building Your Design Skills

While Canva makes the design process easy, a solid grasp of core principles takes your work to the next level by communicating visual ideas more effectively.

Here are foundations every aspiring Canva artist should know:

Master Color Theory

Understanding how colors influence emotions and perceptions is key for appealing visuals. Learn color psychology, harmonious palettes, and contrasting schemes.

Typography Best Practices

Fonts dictate the tone and enhance readability. Study pairing fonts, sizes for readability, and how typefaces impact first impressions.

Composition and Layouts

Applying design fundamentals like the rule of thirds, visual hierarchy, white space, alignment and more attracts viewers to key elements.

With core skills down, let‘s get into 11 proven ways you can convert design passion into real income!

1. Offer Custom Design Services

One of the most straightforward ways you can make money with Canva is by offering to create custom designs as a creative freelancer.

With Canva‘s quick turnaround, you can take on small one-off gigs or establish long-term clients across industries like:

• Business/Marketing: Logos, branding kits, flyers, ads, signage, email headers, social posts
• Authors: Book covers, marketing materials
• Influencers: YouTube banners, Instagram stories, podcast art
• Events: Invites, PROGRAMS, tickets, headers

The business owner, author and influencer market especially presents a huge opportunity as standing out visually is crucial in crowded niches.

And services like book cover design remain in perpetual demand given the continuous influx of indie authors self-publishing every year.

Pricing Your Services

When establishing rates, consider factors like:

• Industry averages for the type of design
• Your level of skill and experience
• Turnaround time
• Rights to the design assets

As you build a clientele, premium pricing not only increases profits but also positions you as an exclusive, high-end creative.

For example, popular Canva designers charge $200-500 for an ebook cover, $1500-2000 to brand a small business, upwards of $5000 to design an entire book layout.

Of course, scale your prices appropriately starting out. Tools like Bonsai help professionally invoice clients and get paid upon completion milestones.

2. Sell Design Assets on the Canva Marketplace

Beyond client services, passive income can be earned by selling your designs right within Canva as digital products.

The Canva Marketplace allows creators to distribute templates, elements, illustrations and more to Canva‘s massive community of 100 million monthly users from 190 countries.

With potential for global exposure and sales at scale, it‘s a lucrative avenue for monetization.

What Types of Designs Sell Best?

Popular assets include:

• Presentation templates
• Social media kits
• Logos
• Icons
• Print projects (planners, journals, coloring books)
• Illustrations

Study top-selling designers in your niche to identify high-demand offerings. Unique, quality creations tailored to Canva‘s audience are most likely to stand out.

You retain ownership over assets and earn 30-60% royalties per sale. Payouts are handled quarterly.

3. Develop an Audience on Social Media

Leveraging a personal brand on platforms like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok can drive interest in your design services, products and overall expertise.

Build Credibility With Value-Packed Content

Share handy tutorials, before-after projects, industry insights and behind-the-scenes looks at your process to provide value.

Hook followers by consistently posting highly sharable content optimized with captivating Canva-made creations.

Tools like Later.com allow you to easily plan and schedule content in advance.

Strategic Collaborations Expand Reach

Partnering with relevant influencers and brands gives you access to engaged, targeted audiences and helps rapidly grow your own following.

Mutually collaborating on co-branded design projects or cross-promotional giveaways offers lucrative opportunities for exposure.

Maintain an active social presence consistently over time, and the compounding organic reach can become a formidable lead generation engine.

4. Create Online Courses and Ebooks

Capitalize on your expertise to develop premium education products teaching others how to excel at design with Canva.

As video learning booms, online courses published via platforms like Teachable, Thinkific or Podia offer lucrative customer-funded scale.

Likewise, informational ebooks sold through Amazon Kindle, Gumroad or SendOwl remain evergreen by capturing niche knowledge into a convenient, portable format.

Leverage Canva itself to create polished sales pages and sleek, professional branding that establishes credibility.

Cross-promote your premium offerings through your website, email list and social channels to maximize students. Consider a free lead magnet incentivizing sign-ups as well.

5. License and Sell Printables/Merch

Canva’s wide format printing opens the door to passive income through merchandising your designs on physical products.

Independent creators on platforms like Etsy, Redbubble and Teespring earn royalties from items featuring their artwork like t-shirts, phone cases, home decor and more. No inventory or fulfillment needed!

Digital printable planners, journals, wall art, greeting cards, coloring pages, stickers and more also make great evergreen offerings listed on Gumroad, Etsy and beyond.

Experiment with trending designs, then scale up production on consistently selling items. Retain full control over your shop and prices.

6. Design Assets for Third-Party Sellers

An additional passive avenue is creating designs like logo templates, icon packs, planner elements, and editable graphics for other digital entrepreneurs to utilize in their own products – whether digital goods, merchandise or physical storefronts.

Platforms like Graphic River, Creative Market or Design Bundles are popular marketplaces where creators sell these licensable assets.

While royalty rates per sale tend to be lower compared to direct offerings, passive asset licensing still compounds over time with enough volume, requires less active work maintaining or fulfilling orders, and leverages Canva’s full suite of creation tools.

7. Launch a Monetized Blog or YouTube

Media sites focused around design can drive authority and traffic, converting audiences into clients or sales.

Valuable topics include tutorials, product/service reviews, interviews with industry professionals, trend reports and more centering the visual space.

Once traction is gained after an initial ramp-up period, blogs offer numerous monetization avenues:

• Native ads through networks like Ezoic
• Affiliate promotions for relevant tools/software
• Sponsored posts partnering with brands
• Premium courses/membership offerings
• Services/product listings
• Downloadable templates/guides

Likewise YouTube unlocks revenue streams like Google Adsense, sponsorships, affiliate links and product integration after hitting eligibility thresholds.

Content should solve problems and engage visually. Optimize with SEO research to attract search traffic, and promote new posts heavily upon launch.

8. License Your Designs

While selling digital assets provides a one-time payout, you can earn ongoing royalties by licensing your original designs for commercial use.

Creators submit selected works to stock media sites like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock and Getty Images, then receive licensing fees whenever someone purchases a license to use that design professionally.

Common commercial applications driving stock sales include:

• Website design
• Print and digital ads
• Flyers/brochures
• Packaging
• Presentations
• Apparel

Because visual content remains in perpetual high demand for marketing and branding, stock licensing provides semi-passive lifetime royalties from a single submission targeted to end-buyer needs.

9. Offer Retouching and Enhancement Services

Leverage Canva’s easy yet powerful editing tools to fix, polish and enhance photographs as a creative service.

This allows photographers, online stores, bloggers and social media influencers to improve their images for professional use. Offerings like:

• Background removal
• Color correction
• Cropping/resizing
• Red-eye/blemish fix
• Adding text/graphics
• Photo compositing
• Special effects

Streamline your workflow by designing kits with predefined adjustments like vintage filters, dimension presets and more.

Set packages based on complexity, delivery timeframes and usage rights. Many designers charge $5-$100 per image edited.

10. Provide Business Consulting

Monetize your design expertise by helping brands craft visual strategies rooted in consumer psychology and industry best practices.

Consulting services like audit reviews, style guide development, campaign planning/ideation and creative team training carry premium value, with packages starting around $1000-$1500/month.

Long-term retainers establishing you as a trusted strategic partner prove quite lucrative over time. Promote case studies and testimonials to attract other potential high-level clients.

11. Interview for a Remote Design Job

Finally, full-time remote employment provides steady income allowing you to monetize skills from the comfort of home.

With positions like graphic designer, content creator, copywriter, web/app designer and more all utilizing visual tools like Canva extensively, remote work aligns perfectly.

Top companies offer benefits like health insurance, retirement plans, paid vacation and often above-average compensation compared to in-office roles.

Listings can be found via sites like FlexJobs, We Work Remotely and Remote.co. Make sure your portfolio and resume are updated to showcase relevant skills.

Turn Your Passion Into Profit

As you can see, Canva‘s versatility opens numerous paths to monetize design skills beyond just personal projects.

Whether tackling client work, developing digital products or building an audience, the key is consistently delivering visual solutions tailored to customer needs.

By combining strategic business fundamentals with your unique creative perspective, a thriving income fueled by imagination awaits!

Now put these 11 strategies into action, and watch your passion blossom into a prosperous Canva career!