Updated June 12, 2023
Welcome to the Canva API and App Developer Terms (“Terms”)! This page explains the terms that govern:
By accessing the Canva APIs and/or publishing or maintaining an App on the Canva Apps Marketplace, you agree that these terms will become a legally binding agreement between you and Canva and you represent and warrant that you have the full right, power and authority to agree to and be bound by these Terms, and to fully perform all of your obligations under these Terms.
In these Terms, Canva Pty Ltd is referred to as “Canva”, “we”, “our” or “us”. You are referred to as “you” or “Developer”. If you are entering into these Terms on behalf of a company, organization or other entity, then:
a. Canva Platform. Canva owns and operates a visual communications platform that is made available on Canva.com (as well as any sub-domains and international versions) and via mobile applications, desktop applications, and in other forms provided or made available by Canva (“Canva Platform”). We make our Canva APIs available to developers for the purpose of enabling Apps to integrate with the Canva Platform.
b. License to use the Canva APIs. Subject to the terms and conditions set forth in these Terms and in consideration of the mutual benefits derived from you and us through this arrangement, we grant you a limited, royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide, non-sublicensable, non-transferable, non-assignable and revocable license to use the Canva APIs for the purpose of building or updating Apps that are solely intended to be offered on the Canva Apps Marketplace for distribution to and use by end-users of the Canva Platform (“End-Users”).
c. Changes to Canva APIs. We may make changes to the Canva APIs or the Canva Platform from time to time (“Changes”). Changes may cause Apps to become incompatible with the Canva Platform. Canva will not have any liability to you for incompatibility or disruption to your App caused by Changes. When we notify you of Changes to the Canva APIs, you will use reasonable efforts to promptly make necessary updates to your App so that it remains compatible with the Canva Platform following the Changes.
d. Suspension rights. We may suspend your use of the Canva APIs if we are required to do so by law, if we no longer offer the Canva APIs, or if you breach these Terms, or for any other reason at our discretion.
e. Canva Open Source License. Nothing in these Terms limits your rights to use a Canva API to the extent that Canva has made the Canva API available to you under a Canva Open Source License. For the avoidance of doubt, you must continue to comply with the terms of all such Canva Open Source Licenses. “Canva Open Source License” means:
i. the Canva UI Component Source Code License made available in the UI kit documentation; and
ii. any other licenses, which are current and have not expired or been replaced or terminated, under which Canva has granted you rights to use computer source code for no charge, but excluding previous versions of these Terms.
a. Submission. We invite developers to submit their App for inclusion on the Canva Apps Marketplace by following the process outlined at https://www.canva.com/developers/. The decision to include an App on the Canva Apps Marketplace is entirely at Canva’s discretion and may be withdrawn at any time without notice to you. Canva shall have the right, but not the obligation, to include your App on the Canva Apps Marketplace.
b. Selection. If we select your App for inclusion in the Canva Apps Marketplace, you grant to Canva and its present and future subsidiaries and related bodies corporate, assignees, licensees, and each of their employees, contractors, agents, officers and directors (together, Related Parties) the right and license to:
i. make your App available on the Canva Apps Marketplace, including by copying, reproducing, displaying, publishing, publicly performing, exhibiting, communicating, transmitting, distributing, editing, modifying, adapting, combining with other media, and otherwise using your App;
ii. use your trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos for marketing purposes on, and in connection with, the Canva Apps Marketplace; and
iii. use your personal information, such as your name and contact information in accordance with these Terms and Canva’s Privacy Policy, available at https://www.canva.com/policies/privacy-policy/.
c. Representation and warranty. You represent and warrant that you have all of the right, title and interest necessary to provide the license grant in this section 3 and that you will not cause Canva (including its Related Parties) to violate the rights of any third party by exercising its rights or performing its obligations under these Terms.
a. Use of Canva APIs. By using the Canva APIs, you agree that you will:
i. use the Canva APIs solely in accordance with these Terms and in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations; and
ii. comply with any technical documentation, usage guidelines, rate limits, and policies made available to you by us.
b. Selection of App for Canva Apps Marketplace. If we select your App for inclusion on the Canva Apps Marketplace, you agree that you will:
i. ensure your App is at all times compliant with these Terms and with all applicable laws and regulations;
ii. remain at all times solely responsible for the functionality of your Apps;
iii. be responsible for providing support to End-Users in relation to your App;
iv. be responsible for creating, maintaining and making available to End-Users of your App for review and acceptance applicable terms of use, data processing addendums, and privacy policies (“End-User Terms”);
v. ensure that your End-User Terms restrict use of your App by children under the age of 13 (or the minimum legal age required to provide consent for processing of personal data in the country where the child is located) or you obtain verifiable parental consent;
vi. seek approval from Canva prior to making or implementing any material changes, updates or variations to your App, or any changes, updates or variations to your App that impact user experience, after it has been selected by Canva for inclusion on the Canva Apps Marketplace;
vii. if the use of your App involves processing media (such as images, videos, audio or similar) in any way (including without limit, by transforming, modifying, editing or in any way changing the original media):
a. When using the Canva API’s or publishing and/or maintaining an App on Canva’s App Platform you shall not yourself or through any third party:
i rent, lease, sell, distribute, offer in a service bureau, sublicense, or otherwise make available the Canva APIs to any third party (except as permitted under these Terms);
ii. copy, replicate, decompile, reverse-engineer, attempt to derive the source code of, modify, or create derivative works of the Canva APIs, the Canva Platform, or any part of it;
iii. access the Canva APIs for purposes of competitive analysis;
iv. access the Canva APIs for purposes of building or marketing a product or service that is competitive with Canva;
v. access the Canva APIs in any manner that compromises, breaks or circumvents any of our technical processes or security measures, poses a security vulnerability to End-Users, tests the vulnerability of our systems or networks (note that this section does not prohibit security research on Canva’s Platform or the Canva APIs as set forth in Canva’s Bug Bounty Program), interferes with the Canva APIs or the Canva Platform, or tries to access anything not expressly authorized by Canva;
vi. store or transmit a virus or malicious code;
vii. create or publish an app that enables the creation or transmission of unsolicited emails or spam;
viii. create or publish an app primarily intended to be used to export Designs from Canva into a third party design platform or system, unless express written consent is provided by Canva;
ix. use any form of data mining, extraction, or scraping of the Canva Platform or End User data;
x. bypass the measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to the Service, including without limitation the requirement to create a valid Canva account to access the Canva Platform;
xi. use the Canva APIs in a way, or publish an App, that may cause damage to or impair the functionality or operation of the Canva Platform or harm or damage Canva (including its reputation); or
xii. make any false or misleading statements or false representations (including by impersonating Canva, an End-User or a third party or suggesting the existence of a partnership with, certification from, affiliation with, sponsorship by, endorsement from or guarantee by Canva, an End-User or a third party which is false).
b. Your App shall not engage in, support, incite or promote any activity, or offer any content that would violate Canva’s Acceptable Use Policy.
c. If your App involves the use of artificial intelligence, your App shall not include any content that would mislead anyone that the content generated by your App is human-generated when it is not.
d. If your App involves the use of generative artificial intelligence or machine learning, your App shall not have the functionality to enable the following uses or your End-User Terms shall prohibit the following uses:
i. provide medical advice or any content regarding the treatment, prevention, diagnosis or transmission of diseases;
ii. provide legal or financial advice;
iii. generate contracts or legally binding obligations;
iv. generate political content including for dissemination in electoral campaigns;
v. generate source code;
vi. generate spam, ransomware, keyloggers, viruses or other software;
vii. generate nudity or shocking content including obscene gestures, bodily fluids or other profane subjects;
viii. generate or disseminate information to be used for the administration of justice or other legal purposes; and
ix. implement fully-automated decision making.
e. Your App shall not serve advertising to End-Users, including by displaying ads within your App, the Canva Platform or the Canva Apps Marketplace, or by using any content, information or data from the Canva Platform or the Canva Apps Marketplace for the purpose of contacting End-Users for advertising purposes or targeting advertisements to End-Users.
f. Your App shall not infringe any third party intellectual property rights (including Canva’s). This obligation of non-infringement extends to all aspects of your App, including but not limited to branding used in or in connection with your App.
g. Your App shall not suggest the existence of a partnership with, certification from, affiliation with, sponsorship by, endorsement from, or guarantee by Canva.
a. Rights to use Canva Branding. The use of Canva’s trademarks, logos and other branding (“Canva Branding”) is prohibited unless explicitly authorized by Canva. If your App is published on the Canva Apps Marketplace, your rights to use Canva Branding are limited to the rights expressly granted to you by Canva under any branding toolkits or guidelines shared with you, including any restrictions or terms contained in those toolkits or guidelines. You must strictly comply with such toolkits or guidelines and any direction which is provided to you by Canva from time to time. Nothing else in these Terms should be taken as granting you rights to use Canva Branding.
b. Updated to toolkits and guidelines: We reserve the right to amend any toolkits or guidelines provided to you relating to the use of Canva Branding from time to time in our sole discretion. Amendments to the toolkits or guidelines will be notified to you. Your continued use of Canva Branding after notification shall be deemed acceptance of any such changes.
c. Terminating use of Canva Branding. We can request that you amend the way that you are using or stop using Canva Branding at any time and you must immediately comply with any such request.
If you are a Developer who is using the Canva APIs to build Apps on behalf of a third party service provider (“App Provider”) this Agreement shall cover your use of the Canva APIs and development of the App. Canva will require that the App Provider be bound by this Agreement upon its submission of the App for publication, and the App Provider shall also be a “Developer” under the terms of this Agreement.
If your App will collect, use or disclose data and/or personal information, including but not limited to user designs, design settings, text, photographs, images, audio or video recordings, metadata, profile information, and/or user comments from End-Users or third parties ("Data"), then you must:
promptly report any data breach that may impact End-Users to Canva by email to legal@canva.com, no more than 48 hours after discovery of the breach.
a. IP ownership. Any intellectual property rights not expressly granted under these Terms are retained by the owning party. For the avoidance of doubt and subject to the rights expressly granted under these Terms, you retain all intellectual property rights in your App and Canva retains all rights (including intellectual property rights) in the Canva Platform, Canva APIs and the Canva Apps Marketplace.
b. Feedback. You assign to Canva any suggestions, ideas, enhancement requests, or other feedback provided by you or End Users relating to the Canva Apps Marketplace and the Canva Platform. You acknowledge and agree that Canva may develop or incorporate as an App or, into the Canva Platform, functionality that is the same or similar to the functionality of your App.
You represent and warrant that:
i. your App (including but not limited to the design of your App, implementation of your App into the Canva Apps Marketplace, support provided to End-Users of your App and Branding used in or in connection with your App) will not violate any third party rights, including intellectual property rights, or any applicable laws or regulations; and
ii. all information you provide to Canva is true, accurate, and complete.
You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Canva and its Related Parties from any and all claims, demands, actions, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, debt, expenses (including but not limited to attorney’s fees) or obligations of any kind arising from:
i. your use of and access to the Canva APIs;
ii. your violation of any of these Terms, including without limitation your breach of any of the representations and warranties included in these Terms;
iii. any third party relating to your violation of any of these Terms or any dispute between you and a user of your App;
iv. your violation of any third-party right, including without limitation any right of privacy, publicity, data protection obligation, or intellectual property rights;
v. your violation of any applicable law, rule, or regulation; and
vi. any claim or damages that arise as a result of your App/s.
a. Collection of analytics. Canva may collect analytics regarding the use of your App within the Canva Apps Marketplace. Such data shall be maintained in accordance with Canva’s Privacy Policy.
b. Audit rights. Canva reserves the right to audit your App to ensure it does not violate these Terms, including but not limited to conducting a security and trust and safety review. You agree to cooperate with such an audit and if requested, provide Canva with proof of compliance with these Terms. You also agree to remediate any security issues rated medium, high, or critical found in a security review within a reasonable timeframe as agreed between you and Canva. Failure to remediate such security issues will lead to suspension as set forth below.
c. Monitoring rights. Canva reserves the right to monitor user reports on App content. If a user reports App content that violates these Terms, Canva may submit the user report to you and you agree to respond and/or remediate such content. Failure to respond to and/or remediate user content reports will lead to suspension as set forth below.
a. Suspension rights. We may suspend your App and disable accessibility to it in the Canva Apps Marketplace at any time without notice to you if:
i. we reasonably suspect that your App or content available on your App is in violation of these Terms or any applicable law or regulation;
ii. we reasonably suspect that you are not respecting privacy or security obligations toward Canva and/or its End-Users; or
iii. we reasonably suspect that your App is causing other harm to Canva, its End-Users, and/or any other third party;
b. Term of suspension. Any suspension under this Section shall remain in place until Canva has determined the reason for the suspension has been remediated.
a. Your termination right. You may terminate the license granted to us under section 3 at any time by requesting the withdrawal of your App from the Canva Apps Marketplace.
b. Our termination right. We may terminate these Terms immediately upon written notice to you:
c. Effect of termination. Upon termination by you or us:
i. you agree to cease all use of the Canva APIs and to have no further access to them;
ii. we will remove your App from the Canva Apps Marketplace within a reasonable period of termination. Canva will retain documentation, files, materials, and other content related to your app for a commercially reasonable time period, unless a longer time period is required due to law, investigation, or other legal requirement;
iii. all licences and rights granted to you in respect of Canva’s property (including intellectual property rights) will cease immediately, including the licence granted to you under section 2; and
iv. you will return or destroy (at Canva’s election) any and all documentation, files, materials and other content (including electronic versions) which contain information about or relating to Canva, its property (including intellectual property rights) or its personnel and you procure that you will cause any personnel under your direction or control to also return or delay such content.
a. Notification obligations. You must promptly notify Canva upon becoming aware:
i. that the provision or use of any part of the App, or anything else connected with the App, infringes or may infringe any third party rights, including intellectual property rights or moral rights or other rights of a third party; or
ii. any circumstances which causes you to reasonably believe that you or Canva may receive a notification from a third party alleging that the provision or use of any part of the App, or anything else connected with the App, infringes or may infringe any third party rights, including intellectual property rights or moral rights or other rights of a third party.
b. Effect of notification. After any such notification, Canva will decide (in its absolute discretion) whether the provision or use of the App, or anything else connected with the App, or part of it, ought to be suspended until the matter is resolved.
a. Meaning of Confidential Information. In these Terms, “Confidential Information” means, without limitation, any proprietary information, customer information, customer data, product plans, inventions, technical data, trade secrets, know-how or other business information, in each case disclosed or made available by a party (“Discloser”) to the other party (“Recipient”) whether orally or in writing.
b. Obligations of confidence. The Recipient shall, with respect to Confidential Information of the Discloser: (i) not disclose such Confidential Information to any third party at any time and limit disclosure to its employees, contractors, or its legal, financial and accounting advisors having a need to know and who have agreed to be bound by confidentiality obligations that are at least as restrictive as these Terms; and (ii) protect the confidentiality of the Confidential Information with at least the same degree of care as Recipient uses to protect its own Confidential Information of a like nature, but no less than a reasonable degree of care. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Recipient may disclose Confidential Information solely to the extent necessary to comply with a court order or as otherwise required by law or a government body, provided that Recipient must give Discloser prompt written notice and obtain or allow for a reasonable effort by Discloser to obtain a protective order prior to disclosure.
c. Exceptions. The obligations with respect to Confidential Information shall not apply with respect to Confidential Information Recipient can demonstrate: (i) is now or becomes publicly available through no fault of Recipient; (ii) is lawfully obtained from a third party without a duty of confidentiality; (iii) is known to Recipient without obligation of confidentiality prior to such disclosure; or (iv) is, at any time, independently developed by Recipient without use of Discloser’s Confidential Information.
The Canva APIs are intended to be used by businesses and to the full extent permissible under law, consumer laws do not apply. If you are a consumer, nothing in these terms is intended to restrict, exclude or otherwise modify any statutory warranties, guarantees, rights or remedies that you have, and Canva’s liability is limited to the replacement or repair of the APIs.
The Canva APIs and all associated documentation and information are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. Your access and use of the Canva APIs and all associated documentation and information is at your own risk. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the Canva APIs are provided without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Canva does not warrant that your use of the Canva APIs will be uninterrupted or error-free nor that any defects or errors will be corrected.
a. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall Canva or its Related Parties be liable for any direct, indirect, punitive, incidental, special, consequential or exemplary damages, including without limitation damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data or other intangible losses, that result from the use of, or inability to use, the Canva Platform, the Canva Apps Marketplace or the Canva APIs.
b. Under no circumstances will Canva or its Related Parties be responsible for any damage, loss or injury resulting from hacking, tampering or other unauthorized access or use of the Canva Platform, the Canva Apps Marketplace or the Canva APIs.
c. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Canva assumes no liability or responsibility for any:
i. errors, mistakes, or inaccuracies of content;
ii. personal injury or property damage, of any nature whatsoever, resulting from your access to or use of the Canva Platform, the Canva Apps Marketplace or the Canva APIs;
iii. any unauthorized access to or use of our secure servers and/or any and all personal information stored in them;
iv. any interruption or cessation of transmission to or from the Canva APIs, the API Key, the Canva Platform or the Canva Apps Marketplace;
v. any bugs, viruses, trojan horses, or the like that may be transmitted to or through the Canva APIs, the API Key, the Canva Platform or the Canva Apps Marketplace by any third party;
vi. any errors or omissions in any content or for any loss or damage incurred as a result of the use of any content posted, emailed, transmitted, or otherwise made available through the Canva APIs, the API Key, the Canva Platform or the Canva Apps Marketplace; and/or
vii. End-Users content or the defamatory, offensive, or illegal conduct of any third party.
d. In no event shall Canva or its Related Parties be liable to you for any claims, proceedings, liabilities, obligations, damages, losses or costs in an amount exceeding the amount you paid to Canva under these terms or $100.00, whichever is greater.
Sections titled Intellectual Property, Warranties, Indemnity, Monitoring and Audit, Suspension, Termination, Notification of Infringement, Confidential information, Disclaimer, Limitation of Liability and General inclusive, shall survive any expiration or termination of these Terms.
a. Severability. If any provision of these Terms is deemed invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, the invalidity of such provision shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions of these Terms, which shall remain in full force and effect.
b. Relationship. You agree that no legal partnership is created between you and Canva under this Agreement and you will not represent otherwise. You shall not make and representations or warranties on behalf of Canva.
c. Amendment. We reserve the right to amend these Terms from time to time in our sole discretion. We will notify you of any material changes to these Terms by email or in-app notification. Your continued access to, and use of, the Canva APIs or listing of your App in the Canva Apps Marketplace shall be deemed acceptance of any such changes.
d. No waiver. No waiver of any of these Terms shall be deemed a further or continuing waiver of such term or any other term.
e. Assignment. These Terms, and the rights and licenses granted, may not be transferred or assigned by you, but may be assigned by Canva without restriction.
f. Force Majeure. Neither party shall be deemed to have breached any provision of these Terms as a result of any delay, failure in performance, or interruption of service resulting directly or indirectly from acts of God, network failures, acts of civil or military authorities, civil disturbances, wars, terrorism, energy crises, fires, transportation contingencies, interruptions in third party telecommunications or Internet equipment or service, other catastrophes, or any other occurrences which are beyond such party’s reasonable control.
g. Governing law. These Terms shall be governed by the laws of the State of California, without respect to its conflict of laws principles. The parties agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of the federal and state courts located in Santa Clara County, California.
h. Contact. Please contact us at support@canva.com with any questions regarding these Terms.