Contributor Quality and Participation Standards
Purpose and Philosophy
Canva’s mission is to empower the world to design, and our Creators make that mission possible. Every photo, video, graphic, and template in the Canva library helps people around the world bring their ideas to life.
These Contributor Quality and Participation Standards are designed to maintain a thriving, high-performing creative ecosystem that attracts and supports the world’s most talented Creators. These standards help ensure Canva’s library remains inspiring, relevant and valuable to users, while providing a fair and transparent framework for reviewing Creator activity and output.
Creators who don’t meet the Contributor Quality and Participation Standards for two consecutive review cycles may have their submissions limited, their accounts paused, or be removed from the program.
Our Commitment to Quality and Integrity
We strive to maintain a library that is high-quality, relevant and built with user trust and responsible use in mind.
We regularly review how content performs in the Canva library using objective, data-informed Content Performance Criteria.
Every Creator also plays an important role in maintaining Canva’s creative integrity by following our key platform policies and Contributor requirements:
- Contributor Agreement – the core agreement that sets out the terms of a Creator’s participation in Canva’s Creator program.
- Acceptable Use Policy – sets out what kinds of content and behaviour are appropriate on Canva.
- Intellectual Property Policy – explains our expectations around respecting copyright and trademarks, and how we handle complaints about IP rights.
- Element Guidelines and Template Guidelines – provide best practices for submitting creative, high-quality content.
Together, the above policies and these Contributor Quality and Participation Standards ensure that Canva remains a trusted, creative, and inclusive environment for Creators and users alike.
About the Content Performance Criteria
We review Creator quality and participation using two key Content Performance Criteria: 1. Production Rate and 2. Content Quality.
Our reviews combine measurable activity data with qualitative indicators of design quality and performance. We focus on overall trends and consistency rather than one-off performance, and benchmark Creators against others in similar categories to ensure parity and fairness across styles and specialisations. Performance includes both how often users engage with Creator content (such as views and interactions) and how their content is used in real projects across Canva (such as applies and publishes).
Reviews typically occur about every three months and help identify both high-performing and under-performing Creators. Below is a description of our Content Performance Criteria, including how we review and measure content.
1. Production Rate
Description | What we measure | Why it matters | How we review |
- Production rate takes into account the amount of approved content a Creator produces within each 3-month review cycle. - Reviewing content that has been approved empowers Creators to focus on quality over volume. | - The total amount of approved content during each review cycle. - How that number compares with the average for similar Creators or content types. - The mix of new vs. older content in a Creator’s portfolio. | - Regularly contributing new content keeps their portfolio visible and helps us meet user demand for high-quality, fresh, and timely content. - Regularly adding new content demonstrates a Creator’s commitment to their audience and helps their work surface in searches and recommendations. | - Around every 3 months, we will review all Creators’ production rates to determine average, high, and low production rates across the entire library. These numbers are contextual, based on what all Creators are doing over a 3-month period. - If, over 3 months, a Creator publishes far fewer designs than most Creators in their cohort and remains in the lowest tier, they will receive a notification that their production rate is below expectations. - If, after a second 3-month period (total of about 6 months), they remain in the lowest cohort, they may be eligible for offboarding. |
2. Content Quality
Description | What we measure | Why it matters | How we review |
- We assess content quality by reviewing how users engage with a Creator’s content. This helps us understand what’s resonating with the Canva audience. - Regularly assessing content quality helps maintain high design standards in our library. | - Engagement metrics that show their content’s popularity and attractiveness. For example, how often their content is interacted with and published by users. - Contextual indicators like how often their content appears in users’ designs relative to its category. For example, how many pieces of their content account for the top number of applies or publishes in a category. | - The quality of our product and library drives user trust and helps Canva remain the most inspiring design platform globally. - Creators who consistently produce original, high-performing content set the tone for Canva’s creative community. | - Around every 3 months, we will review content performance to determine average, high, and low content quality tiers. These numbers are contextual, based on the performance of all content in the library over a 3-month period. - If a Creator’s content falls into the low category as indicated by our attractiveness and usability metrics (number of impressions, applies, and publishes), they will receive a notification that their quality rating is insufficient as compared to other Creators. - If, after a second 3-month period (total of around 6 months), their quality rating remains low, they may be eligible for offboarding. |
Review Process and Outcomes
Canva reviews Creator performance against the Content Performance Criteria about every 3 months. We use automated tools and machine learning to help us understand how users interact with content and how it performs alongside similar work in the library (as described above). These tools help surface trends, but they don’t make the final call — a human always reviews and confirms any decisions about a Creator account. Every Creator is reviewed for two consecutive review cycles, a total of around 6 months, before any action is taken. Reviews look at overall trends and consistency, not single pieces of content, and compare Creators within similar categories to ensure parity and fairness.
If a Creator’s performance falls below expectations, Canva will:
- Take reasonable efforts to notify the Creator. At the email address they have associated with their Creator account or via the Service itself.
- Provide time to improve. After the first notification, the Creator will have one further review cycle to improve their production rate and content quality. They will be notified a second time if they fail to meet the Content Performance Criteria again in the next review cycle.
- Reassess the Creator’s account. If they fail to meet the Content Performance Criteria for at least two evaluation cycles (about 6 months total), Canva may limit submissions, pause their account, or remove them from the program. If a Creator feels the evaluation doesn’t reflect their work, they can get in touch with us. We’ll happily take another look within our Standards.
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