November 8, 2023

Canva Pro Review: Is It Worth the Investment for Marketers?

This article reviews Canva Pro's design tools and capabilities for marketers, comparing it to competitors like Adobe Creative Cloud to help determine if the investment is worthwhile based on workflow, features, and budget needs.

Cam Velasco

5 years of Experience

Empowering marketing agencies with top-tier offshore talent from LATAM. Passionate about bridging the gap and redefining global hiring for growing companies.

Expert in

Marketing

Introduction to Canva Pro

Canva Pro offers robust design tools for marketers and businesses looking to elevate their visual content. With features like brand kits, advanced image editing, and real-time collaboration, it provides a premium design experience beyond the capabilities of free Canva. This review will assess if Canva Pro is worth the investment for marketing teams based on their specific needs and goals. We’ll compare Canva Pro to competitors like Adobe Creative Cloud to determine if it aligns with your workflow, features, and budget.

Overview of Canva Pro

Canva Pro provides premium design capabilities that expand upon the features of free Canva. It includes brand kits to ensure visual consistency, advanced image editing tools like background removers and photo effects, animated video and presentation creation with smooth transitions, and real-time collaboration. Canva Pro also offers a huge library of templates, fonts, graphics, and photos to enhance designs. It seamlessly integrates with other platforms like email marketing, social media scheduling, and e-commerce. Pricing starts at $12.95/month per user for the Pro version.

Key Benefits of Canva Pro for Marketers

Some of the key benefits that Canva Pro offers marketers include:

Brand kits allow teams to upload logos, specify brand fonts and colors, and lock other branding elements to maintain visual consistency across all projects. This saves time compared to manually updating individual assets.
Advanced image editing tools like background removers, photo effects, cropping, and resizing enable marketers to customize stock photos and graphics to perfectly fit their needs.
Animated video creation with dynamic transitions provide engaging motion graphics for social media video ads, landing pages, and more.
Real-time collaboration allows multiple team members to simultaneously work on designs and presentations. This improves team productivity.
Ability to upload custom brand assets like fonts, logos, and graphics to expand creative options.

Evaluating Canva Pro for Different Marketing Roles

When evaluating if Canva Pro is worth the investment, it helps to assess the needs of specific marketing roles:

Social media managers can benefit from easily customized templates for posts, stories, and ads. Brand kits ensure consistency across channels.
Content creators gain access to a huge library of graphics and photos to visualize blogs and articles. Advnaced editing provides more customization.
Email marketers can leverage brand kits to quickly design on-brand newsletters, plus integrate with email platforms like Mailchimp.
Graphic designers get features like image transparency and layering for more complex infographic design. But Adobe may offer more advanced functionality.

Comparing Canva Pro to the Competition

Here’s how Canva Pro stacks up against advanced design platforms like Adobe Creative Cloud:

Feature	Canva Pro	Adobe Creative Cloud
Learning Curve	More beginner-friendly	Steeper learning curve
Design Approach	Useful templates	Fully custom designs
Branding Features	Brand kits with asset management	Creative Cloud plugin ecosystem
Collaboration	Built-in real-time collaboration	File sharing and review workflows
Integrations	Direct integrations with other platforms	Exporting files to other platforms

For certain needs like highly complex infographic design, Adobe may provide more advanced customization. But Canva’s user-friendly templates suit many day-to-day tasks.

Getting the Most Value from Canva Pro

Here are tips to maximize value if you invest in Canva Pro:

Streamlining Workflows

Set up brand kit assets like logos, fonts, colors and styles for easy access
Create templates for frequently used projects like blog posts, ads, and newsletters
Automate social media scheduling by connecting platforms like Hootsuite
Establish folder structure and asset libraries for organized collaboration

Building Team Skills

Use Canva’s tutorials and community forums for guidance
Get certified in Canva skills with online courses and training
Schedule regular Canva training sessions to share design best practices
Consider hiring Canva-certified freelancers for extra design support

Final Take: Who Should Buy Canva Pro?

In summary, Canva Pro offers robust design capabilities compared to the free version. The powerful brand management, editing tools, templates, and integrations provide great value for marketing teams that produce a high volume of visual content. However, teams with highly advanced design needs may require greater customization options. For those seeking an affordable, user-friendly solution for everyday design tasks, Canva Pro strikes the optimal balance of functionality and simplicity. Their free trial lets you experience firsthand whether it’s the right investment for your marketing workflows.