Canva’s decision to make Affinity completely free marks one of the most significant shifts in
the professional design landscape in recent years. What began as a bold announcement
instantly resonated across the global creative community, over one million people signed up
within the first four days alone, a surge that signals not just excitement, but a clear hunger
for change in how professional tools are accessed.
Affinity has always been a suite built for designers who value precision, craft, and control. It
appealed to professionals who care about every pixel, every anchor point, every subtlety of
colour and composition. With Canva’s relaunch, Affinity has evolved into a unified, powerful
platform that brings vector design, photo editing, and layout into a single experience. And for
the first time ever, this full professional capability is accessible to everyone, completely free.
Why free? Canva explains it as a continuation of its founding philosophy: design tools should
be accessible to everyone, regardless of background, location, or financial means. From its
early days, Canva operated on a simple and sustainable model, offer core creative tools for
free, and charge only for optional advanced features such as premium content, collaboration
tools, or AI-powered enhancements. Today, with more than 28 million paying customers and
$3.5 billion in annualized revenue, Canva has the financial strength to support this model at
scale. That stability allows the company to keep investing in both Canva and Affinity, while
ensuring the core Affinity experience remains free forever.
The team behind Affinity has also remained intact, continuing to build the product with the
same craftsmanship and attention to detail that originally won the hearts of professionals.
Backed by Canva’s investment, they now have greater resources and long-term stability,
ensuring that Affinity grows stronger while staying true to its heritage.
The implications for the creative industry are profound. For decades, professional design
tools have been locked behind expensive subscription paywalls, pricing out students,
freelancers, emerging creatives, and designers in developing markets. By removing that
barrier entirely, Affinity opens the door for millions to begin or elevate their creative careers
using tools once considered out of reach. Canva also emphasizes that as design leaders
adopt Affinity, their workflows, design systems, and creative ecosystems naturally influence
teams, clients, and organisations. As Canva builds deeper integrations between Affinity and
its broader platform, the benefits will ripple outward, from individual creators to global
brands.
Canva also directly addresses a key concern: data and privacy. Affinity stores all work locally
on the user’s device. Nothing created in Affinity is used to train Canva’s AI models, not even
content made with Canva AI tools inside Affinity. And if users choose to upload work to
Canva, their data preferences remain fully under their control.
Finally, Canva positions this move as part of a broader mission, using its success to do
good. The company has already donated over $1 billion worth of premium products to
schools and nonprofits and committed $100 million to global poverty-alleviation initiatives.
Making Affinity free aligns with this purpose: expanding access, empowering creativity, and
unlocking potential at a global scale.
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