If you’re curious about how to sell Canva templates, you’ve come to the right place.
I’m digging deep into everything you need to know about selling templates so you can make money online.
Whether you’re a blogger who’s looking to make additional income or someone looking for a side hustle, selling Canva templates can be a fantastic way to bring in more monthly income.
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This post contains affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Read disclosure here.
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How to Sell Canva Templates: Getting Started
The first thing you must do to sell Canva templates is sign up for a Canva Pro account.
Why?
Canva Pro has a feature that allows you to change any design into a template that anyone online can use!
This feature is not available in the free version of Canva, so if you’re going to invest your time into making Canva templates you can sell, a Canva Pro account will help you make this happen.
You can give it a try and get 30 days free with this link >> Canva Pro Free Trial
Before we get into how to create a Canva template you can sell, let’s talk about selling templates in general.
Why Sell Templates? Aren’t there already enough on Canva?
It’s true. Canva already has thousands of gorgeous templates available for people to use.
These templates that are included in your Canva account are meant to be updated and essentially redesigned to suit various business needs.
The reason people want to pay for templates…
They want to buy templates from experts who understand their specific business needs.
Sure, you can make you own Pinterest pin from templates already on Canva, but the question is… Does Canva know Pinterest’s current best practices? Most likely not.
So, if you’re a Pinterest marketer like myself, the templates you offer provide a better solution for people who want to reach their business goals with Pinterest.
Another example is presentation slides.
Wouldn’t you rather purchase slide templates from someone who understands how to craft a story that sells a brand promise and secures customers?
Absolutely yes!
This is why people purchase templates – it’s not only for the design but what the design gives them…
- Time savings
- Security knowing their strategy is being supported
- Professional designs and solutions that perform well in their industry
- Branding consistency across various templates
Where to Sell Templates
Below are some great options on where you can sell Canva templates, but keep in mind – you don’t only have to sell in one place!
Your Website:
First if you don’t yet have a website or blog and you want to start one, join my free course that walks you through every step of the way. Sign up here: How to Start a Blog – Free Course.
There are a few ways you can sell Canva templates on your website or blog, and here are the most popular (which I personally use on oth my website).
WooCommerce Plugin
WooComerce is a free plugin that allows you to set up a shop on your WordPress website.
As you can see from my WooCommerce shop you can easily set up as many listings as you like.
It’s really easy to change pricing, add new product listings, upload images and change descriptions.
Here is an example of a few templates I sell in my shop:
If you want to go for straight-forward and easy WooCommerce is for you.
To use WooCommerce login into your WordPress dashboard, then go to the plugins section/add new. Here you can search for WooCommerce to get started.
SendOwl
SendOwl works differently from WooCommerce as it’s a platform that allows you to sell on your website by adding simple functionality to a sales page you create in WordPress.
You can check out an example of this with my Pinterest Planner & Strategy Guide that is powered with SendOwl.
- Go ahead and click on the buy now button to get to the checkout page
What I like about SendOwl is the ability to create unlimited coupon codes and you can also invite people to be an affiliate to help promote the Canva templates you’re going to sell.
Sendowl is perfect for people who plan to have one large product offering where promoting it on a sales page makes the most sense.
Shopify
Shopify isn’t technically on your website as it’s a separate platform, however, you can add your Shopify store to your navigation so it seamlessly links to your shop. You can also add your website link to your Shopify store.
Shopify is the biggest investment as there is a monthly fee, however, this is ideal if you have big plans to sell a lot of templates.
They have a lot of flexibility on shop designs, plus great free add-ons to for reviews and additional shop features.
Shopify is ideal for those of you who already have a decent audience/following and want to begin making another source of income on your blog.
You can check out my Shopify store here (which is part of my other blog). This is a printables store, but this can easily be used for Canva templates as well.
3rd Party Marketplaces
Many people may be wondering how to sell Canva templates on Etsy, but also know that you can not only sell on Etsy but there are also other 3rd party marketplace sites out there.
Here are some places you can sell Canva templates:
- Etsy
- Design Cuts
- Creative Market
- Creative Fabrica
There are many more out there, however, these ones are pretty popular for Canva templates.
To sell templates on one (or more) of these marketplaces you can simply create an account and get started by creating listings for your products.
Each of these online marketplaces receives a percentage of your sale and/or charges a set rate for each product listing.
Types of Canva Templates to Sell
The types of Canva templates you plan to sell should link back to a problem you’re trying to solve for your ideal customer.
Always think of how a template can make your customer’s life and business easier.
Here are some examples of the types of Canva templates you can sell, but don’t be afraid to get creative and try new things outside of this list.
- Pinterest: Pin templates
- Social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) – stories, quotes for feeds, product announcements,
- Online ads – for social media
- Lead magnets – checklists, workbooks, planners, calendars
- eBooks
- Media kits
- Presentation slides
- Client templates – pricing, onboarding, monthly reporting
What you create really comes down to your experience and expertise.
How to Price Canva Templates
Here are some popular ways you can price your templates. I encourage you to try different pricing strategies so you can see what works best for your business
Price Per Template
This is simply where you charge a set amount for a specific template, for example, the way I price my templates in my shop.
You can of course have sales or coupons set up when you price your templates, either a set amount off ($5) or a percentage off.
Product Bundling
If you offer a number of templates, consider bundling them at a discounted price. You can either bundle these by type – for example, social media templates or bundle them by aesthetic, i.e. colours, etc.
Monthly Membership
If you are creating templates on a regular basis you can set up a monthly membership like Carly from Blogging Like We Mean It does. She offers a monthly Pinterest template membership in conjunction with her online mastermind group.
Go ahead and sign up to Carly’s free pin starter pack to see how she offers Pinterest solutions to her clients.
Tripwire Discount
Remember when we talked about SendOwl earlier? Well, SendOwl allows you to set up different price points for your templates/products.
This means you can set up a tripwire to:
- Get people on your email list
- Get some sales of your templates as a discounted price for your audience
What exactly is a Tripwire?
A tripwire is a low-priced (highly discounted) offer you can sell to find new customers.
It is typically offered as an upsell option when someone signs up to a lead magnet (freebie).
To see a tripwire in action, sign up for my free pin templates from this blog post and you’ll see exactly how it works.
You’ll notice that even though I sell these templates full price on my WooCommerce store, I also have a separate landing page set up for the tripwire and am selling them at a discounted rate.
Who Can You Sell Canva Templates to?
There are SO many people looking to purchase Canva templates.
So let’s break them down into groups, but please know that anyone who is doing business online can use templates!
Online Businesses
- Bloggers
- Life Coaches
- Authors
- Affiliate Marketers
- Freelancers
- Consultants
- Writers
- MLM marketers
Small Business Owners
- Real Estate Agents
- Restaurants
- Agencies
- Therapists, Social Workers
- Local shops
How to Make Canva Templates to Sell
As mentioned earlier, to create a Canva template you can sell, you must have a Canva Pro account.
Make sure to check out the Canva Pro plan and sign up for a 30 day free trial to get started.
In order to create Canva templates you can sell, you’re going to need a good eye for design, plus an understanding of best practices from a design standpoint, but also in terms of the template you’re creating.
Make sure you have a strong understanding of how your expertise will help your end-user.
If you can articulate to your ideal target audience:
- Why your Canva templates are preferred and,
- How they will help solve a problem this is a win-win for you and your prospective client. Meaning, you can make some money selling a template and they will make their life easier by using your template.
I’m not going to get into designing your Canva templates, as I’ll let your creativity take the reins on this.
However, if you’d like some design training, I highly recommend this free design course by Applecart Lane Design. It’s only 30 minutes but teaches you a load of best practices when designing.
Making a Template in Canva
In order to make a template, you can sell you need to give people access to your files, without altering your original work.
Step 1:
Login into your Canva Pro account. Find the file you want to sell as a template and open.
To do this you simply go to the top right hand corner of Canva’s software to the ‘share’ button.
When you click share it gives you the option to share a link – you want to select ‘share a link to use as a template’.
Step 2.
No matter where you’re selling your Canva templates the next step is to ensure the template link is being sent to your customer.
You can do this by creating a PDF document that includes the Canva template link. Plus, this is a great opportunity to provide instructions or best practices as well.
When the customer receives this PDF (through whatever sales channel you choose) they will click the link and end up on a page like this…
That’s it!
Where Can You Promote Canva templates?
Deciding where to promote Canva templates really depends on where your core target audience is spending their time.
If you have a website already you can use these free places to promote your Canva templates.
You can also promote your templates within blog posts that are related to the template in question.
If you are selling your templates on a marketplace you can still promote in the usual areas such as social media, an email list and by getting reviews on your templates from bloggers.
You can also choose to promote your Canva templates with advertising within your marketplace, but before you do this it’s important you learn SEO (search engine optimization) for the specific marketplace you’re selling on.
Essentially this means you want to use the right keywords in your product listings – keywords people are already searching for on that marketplace.
How Much Money Can You Make Selling Canva Templates?
Selling Canva templates can be a lucrative side income with some people making a couple hundred to a few thousand+ dollars a month.
Yes, you really can make money selling templates you create in Canva. The amount you earn really comes down to how much time and effort you put into it.
Personally, templates are an area that I make a few hundred a month from, however this is not my primary focus at this time due to my other blog and my client work.
If you want to make much more money from templates, I recommend coming up with a business plan you can stick to which includes the creation of templates, but more importantly the marketing and promotion that goes into selling templates.
How to Sell Canva Templates: Final Thoughts
I hope you found this tutorial helpful and you’re considering giving template creation and monetization a try.
It’s a perfect income stream if you find graphic design easy and you’re finding success with templates you currently create for your business.
Go ahead and get started with a Canva Pro account (30 day free trial) and get your first template up for sale now!
If you have any questions about the process of selling Canva templates leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you with more details.
Happy creating!
This was so helpful!!I am definitely going to be using this guide to make awesome things to sell! Thank you!
Hi Annalise – Glad to hear you found this useful – Canva templates really are a great way to add to your income as a blogger!
This was a great read with so much information! I have been looking into this for a while, I think I should get started! Thank you the motivation!
Hi Nandini – So happy to hear this motivated you. If you end up creating some templates soon I’d love to see them!
I’m not creative enough to make ones but I will continue to buy the templates! haha
Hey Sarah! I love designing and selling templates, yet I still buy them too! They save loads of time and I love new templates to play with!
I never thought everybody can sell Canva templates, I thought it was for specialists only……
Hi Irene – Well, I agree somewhat with you 🙂 If someone is thinking about selling Cnava templates, they need to be great at design and best practices for the specific template they’re selling – so yes, this is best suited for a specialist.
I appreciate all of your detailed information about creating, pricing, and selling Canva templates. I never even thought about this being an option, but it is definitely something I will be giving more thought to!
I’ve noticed people offering their Canva templates and had been curious how they do that. Now I know! This was extremely thorough and helpful!
I’m really trying to break into the digital product game and love how easy it is to use Canva. Love that I now have a how-to to use Canva for the income stream when I’m ready!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing this as I’m new to this. I will be using then and i’ve pinned this as well.
Great suggestions!!! I need to look more into this!
Yes! Just what I needed! saving this article for myself to use once the holidays are past – I’ve ben planning to get into selling Canva templates for awhile.
Hi Jenn – That’s great to hear. I hope this helps!
I started getting into selling printables online and there is definitely a strategy to it, but it’s definitely fun to do and I have made a few sales. Woohoo!!! Thanks for sharing some great tips.
If you like to design it definitely is fun! Keep at it. It can be a great way to grow your passive income!
Thanks, great tips, canva is amazing, great idea to make templates, I have an Etsy store, templates would be helpful for so many, even for media kits. Thank you.
Hi Tia! Yes, Etsy is a great place to sell templates. So many people do!