Canva’s licensing explained
Differences between Free and Pro
At Canva, content can be either Free or Pro. You can use Free content at no cost – as the name suggests! Our Free and Pro Content licenses cover all of the content we offer (except for Popular Music!) from photos, icons and illustrations, to videos, audio, fonts and templates. Below, we explain what these licences allow.
If you’re a free user, you’ll see a watermark on Pro content.
You can remove this watermark by buying a license to use the content in that design for a one-off fee, or by subscribing to Canva Pro.
Paying for Pro content supports our awesome content creators.
Pro Content license
For Free users, you pay a one-off fee to use a piece of Pro content in a design.* This grants you a Pro Content license. You’ll need to pay to use this same piece of content in a different design.
As a Pro user, there is nothing more to pay, no watermarks. You are automatically granted a Pro Content licence. When you resize a design, or create a new design and want to use the same piece of Content, you get another Pro Content license issued for each of the new designs.
* Note: We don't offer one-off license purchases for Popular Music. Read the Popular Music License here.
What’s allowed?
- You can use our content in a Canva design, for a wide range of personal and commercial uses.
- You can use our content in marketing or social media or even sell merchandise with your design on it.
- Don’t resell, redistribute or take credit for content provided through Canva.
Using content in your designs
By using content in a design, you’re creating something unique – once you do, there are lots of things you can do with your creations!
However, standalone content (e.g. a photo used on its own without any other design elements) has restrictions – for example, it can’t be printed on products or merchandise for sale.
When using Pro content for certain online uses (such as Canva designs for websites and ebooks) please be aware that there is a pixel limit for unedited media in your design (e.g. a large photo being included on a webpage design). This limit is in place to protect our Pro Content from being downloaded from your website for use outside of Canva.
Trademarks and logos
A trademark has to be a unique symbol which is exclusively used by a brand owner. For that reason, you cannot use any Free or Pro content from Canva’s library in a trademark (except for fonts, basic shapes and lines).
If you want to design a unique logo for a trademark, you can:
- Use any of our fonts
- Use basic shapes and lines
- Upload your own graphics (this might be a graphic you designed yourself, or commissioned from a local graphic designer)
Our logo templates are useful for small or personal projects where you don’t need exclusive rights. You can also use them for inspiration – a starting point for your own unique design. But remember, other Canva users will be free to use the same content in their designs.
Selling templates
When we talk about templates, we mean a design that has a pre-determined layout and style and is intended to be further edited or customised by a another person to produce the required final design - like the templates we provide at Canva! Unless it’s a template created for use on Canva, you can’t use Pro content in templates of any nature. If you’re a template designer, check out how you can join our Canva Creators program here.
Music in advertising
Pro music (excluding Popular Music) can be used in online advertisements (such as pre-, mid- and post-roll ads in a YouTube video). It can’t be used in traditional media advertisements or commercials in paid channels (such as TV, cinema, radio, podcasts, or billboards).
Popular Music can't be used for any commercial purposes, including advertising.
Frequently Asked Questions
When you’re looking for content in the library, hover over the thumbnail of the content you want to use. If it’s Pro, you’ll see a little crown icon pop up in the bottom right hand corner of the thumbnail. If not, it’s Free!
Yes! As a Pro subscriber, you will simply be issued with a new One Design Use License for the second, third and fourth designs (and so on). You do not need to pay for these individual licenses, they are included in your subscription. Free users need to pay for a new license for each subsequent design.
Yes! All of our photos, fonts and graphics can be used to create designs for printing on products for sale (like t-shirts, mugs, books and other merchandise), as long as you comply with our license. Please note, you can’t sell standalone prints of Canva content, such as a printout of a stock photo (without any other design elements) on a t-shirt.
One of the reasons we’re able to make our amazing Canva for Education product available for free to teachers and students is because it is for non-commercial purposes. Canva for Education users may only use Pro content for educational, non-commercial purposes.
If you want to create designs for commercial purposes, you’ll need to create a second team in your Canva account and use that brand for those designs.
None of our licenses require attribution, however it is always welcome!
Click on the three dots in the right corner of the audio element in the object panel on Canva, which will show a pop-up box with further information. If that pop-up box says “Commercial use allowed” - the track is stock music. If it says “Popular music ⬝ Only personal use allowed” - the track is popular music.