The price of some Canva subscriptions are set to skyrocket next year following the company’s aggressive rollout of generative AI features. Global customers for Canva Teams — a business-orientated subscription that supports adding multiple users — can expect prices to increase by just over 300 percent in some instances. Canva says the increase is justified due to the “expanded product experience” and value that generative AI tools have added to the platform.
In the US, some Canva Teams users are reporting subscription increases from $120 per year for up to five users, to an eye-watering $500 per year. A 40 percent discount will be applied to bring that down to $300 for the first 12 months. In Australia, the flat $39.99 AUS (about $26 USD) per month fee for five users is switching to $13.50 AUS (about $9 USD) for each user. That means a team of five will pay at least 68 percent more, not withstanding any other discounts.
That’s too bad since they recently purchased the excellent Affinity suite… which I originally bought for a single lifetime price, but they’re switching to a subscription model. So my favorite editing suite might get ruined two ways.
Are they? When they bought it they explicitly promised that they would not change the licensing. And no one believed them. Affinity was the only true competitor to Adobe products with equivalent functionality for a reasonable one-off payment instead of an extortionate subscription. I was so happy to find it - software that actually feels good to buy and use, Of course they’re going to ruin it.
I’ll give them credit for sticking with it so far. I even keep getting updates. But I assume they’re brainstorming ways to end the one-time payment installations.
I believe at some point they said the may explore additional models, like offering both pay once and subscription at the same time. We can hope
