Every few weeks someone asks me a version of the same question: “Can I just make templates and have Canva pay me, instead of dealing with Etsy?”
Yes. It’s a real program, the money is real, and it works while you sleep in a way Etsy never quite does. It’s also slower, pickier and more opaque than most YouTube videos make it sound – and one of the three routes in is currently closed entirely, which almost nobody mentions.
The direct answer: you become a Canva Creator by applying to the Canva Creators program with a portfolio of original template designs. There is no follower requirement and no audience minimum – Canva reviews your design work, not your reach. Once accepted, you’re paid monthly from a royalty pool based on how many times people actually use your templates. The Template Creator program is still in beta as of September 2026, and applications can take a couple of months to get an answer.
Two things to know before you spend a weekend on a portfolio: Element Creator signups are on hold right now, and the royalty pool amounts are confidential, so nobody outside Canva can tell you what a template earns. I’ll be straight about both below.
What Is the Canva Creators Program?
It’s Canva’s marketplace for designers who make the templates and elements that other Canva users drop into their own designs, and it pays those designers royalties every time their work gets used.
The scale is the whole argument for bothering. Canva crossed 260 million monthly users in 2026, across a library of roughly 4.5 million templates, with users producing about 38.5 million designs every single day. Every one of those designs starts somewhere, and a good chunk of them start on somebody’s template. Canva’s own Creators page frames the reach as 85+ million users across 190 countries who can use what Creators publish.
There are three routes in, and they are not equally open:
- Template Creators – graphic designers making customisable layouts. This is the route for almost everyone reading this. Currently in beta, applications open, portfolio required.
- Element Creators – photographers, illustrators, typographers, videographers, audio producers submitting individual assets. Signups are currently on hold due to demand. If a tutorial tells you to “just sign up as an Element Creator,” it’s out of date.
- Education Specialty Creators – verified teachers making classroom resources, applied for through the separate Canva Education Creator page. If you’re a teacher, this is a genuinely under-crowded door.
The honest framing: this is not a get-rich-quick route and it’s not a replacement for your own shop. It’s a second income stream that compounds quietly, built on skills you’re already using if you make templates.
How Do You Actually Apply to Be a Canva Creator?
You submit a portfolio of your own template designs through Canva’s application form at canva.com/creators/apply. No follower count, no subscriber minimum, no audience – they look at the work.
What Canva is checking, in plain terms:
1. Is it original? Your designs must be your own work, with no copyright violations. This is where a lot of applications quietly die, because people submit layouts assembled from other people’s templates. If you’ve been selling PLR products, do not submit PLR-derived work here – that’s exactly the distinction I get into in the PLR templates post.
2. Is the craft clean? Canva names four things specifically: spacing, alignment, colour harmony, and typography. Not creativity. Not novelty. Craft. A boring template with perfect alignment beats an inventive one with wobbly margins.
3. Did you avoid Pro elements? This one catches people constantly. Canva asks that you don’t build with Pro elements in submitted designs – use free elements instead. A gorgeous portfolio built on Pro graphics can get bounced on a technicality.
4. Is it genuinely customisable? You’re designing a starting point for a stranger, not a finished piece. Text has to be editable, images swappable, and the layout has to survive someone replacing your copy with copy twice as long.
On timing: the Template Creator program is in beta and Canva says it may take up to a couple of months to hear back. Apply and then forget about it. Do not sit refreshing your inbox – go build products you can sell in the meantime.
How Much Do Canva Creators Actually Get Paid?
Canva pays from a monthly royalty pool, and your share depends on how many times your templates get used – but Canva states outright that the exact monthly pool figures are confidential business information.
So anyone quoting you a precise per-template rate is guessing. What we do know, from Canva’s own documentation, is how the mechanism works, and the mechanics matter more than a number:
- For templates: you’re paid on usages – each time a design is downloaded, printed or presented. Critically, Creators are paid for both Free and Pro template usage. A template used by someone on the free plan still earns.
- For elements: you’re paid only on Pro element usages (exports). Free usage doesn’t count. This is a meaningfully worse deal than templates, which is one more reason the template route is the one to chase.
- The pool itself grows with Canva’s subscription revenue and is recalculated every month. Canva’s revenue is running around $3.5 billion against a $42 billion valuation in 2026, and the pool scales with that – so the pie is growing even as more creators join.
- Tax forms are mandatory. Canva can withhold royalties if you don’t complete them. Sort this out the week you’re accepted, not the month you expect a payment.
Here’s the part that determines whether this is worth your time: usage-based pay rewards volume and evergreen niches, not viral hits. A single wedding-invitation template that 4,000 people use over two years beats a spectacular one-off that 60 people love. Boring, high-demand categories – presentations, social posts, resumes, invoices, school worksheets – are where the usage lives.
Canva Creator vs Selling on Etsy – Which Is Better?
They solve different problems, and the honest answer for most beginners is to do Etsy first and apply to Canva Creators on the side.
| Canva Creators | Your own Etsy shop | |
|---|---|---|
| Who brings traffic | Canva, 260M users | Etsy search + your Pinterest |
| Time to first money | Months (beta review queue) | Days to weeks |
| You set the price | No – royalty pool | Yes |
| You own the customer | No | No, but you get the sale |
| You build an email list | No | Only if you work at it |
| Effort per template | High (review standards) | Medium |
| Rejection risk | Real | None |
| Earnings ceiling | Uncapped but opaque | Uncapped and visible |
The strategic case for Etsy first: you get feedback in days instead of months, you keep pricing control, and every sale is a data point about what people want – which then makes your Canva Creator portfolio better. My Etsy fees breakdown covers what you actually keep there.
The strategic case for Canva Creators: it’s the only one of the two where the traffic problem is completely solved for you. No Pinterest pins, no SEO, no launch. You design, they distribute. For a creator with 60-90 minutes a day and no interest in marketing, that trade is genuinely appealing.
The real answer is both, on different timelines. Sell on Etsy now for cash and feedback. Apply to Canva Creators this month so the clock on that two-month review is already running.
What to Put in Your Portfolio (and What Gets You Rejected)
Build 10-15 templates in one category, not one template in fifteen categories. A focused portfolio reads as a specialist; a scattered one reads as someone still figuring out what they like.
Pick a category by demand, not by taste. Canva’s library skews heavily toward marketing (around 200,000 templates), business (around 295,000) and education (around 92,000), which tells you where usage volume lives. Going into a crowded category is fine – crowded means people are using templates there. Going into a category nobody searches is the actual risk.
A portfolio that gets accepted usually has:
- One clear category and a consistent visual point of view across all of it
- Free elements only, no Pro assets
- Text that’s actually editable, and layouts that survive longer copy
- Clean margins and consistent spacing – measure them, don’t eyeball them
- A style that isn’t already the default Canva look
What gets people rejected:
- Designs built from other people’s templates or PLR packs
- Pro elements sitting in the submitted file
- Fifteen templates in fifteen unrelated categories
- Trend-chasing designs that will look dated in eight months
- Anything with a copyright problem – fonts, stock photos, character likenesses
If you need a faster way to produce a consistent set, Creative Fabrica is where I get commercially-licensed fonts and graphics that don’t create the licensing headaches free-font sites do. Just check each licence covers this use before you build a portfolio on it.
Do You Need Canva Pro to Be a Canva Creator?
No – and there’s a nice irony here, because Canva specifically asks you not to use Pro elements in the designs you submit.
You can build a full Creator portfolio on a free Canva account. Pro is worth having for your own product business (Brand Kit, Magic Resize, background remover all save real time), but it is not a gate on this program. I wrote a whole post on whether you need Canva Pro if you’re weighing the subscription.
What you do need is patience and a review process of your own. Every submission goes through Canva’s review against baseline requirements, and the full Review Guidelines only get shared with you after acceptance – which means your first submissions are partly a guess. Treat rejection as information, fix the craft issues, apply again.
The Realistic 30-Day Plan
At 60-90 minutes a day, here’s how I’d approach it without letting it eat the rest of your business.
Week 1 – pick and study. Choose one category. Open Canva’s template marketplace and study the top 30 templates in it. Note what they have in common structurally, not decoratively. Sketch 15 layout ideas.
Week 2 – build five. Five templates, free elements only, one consistent style. Measure your spacing. Swap your own text for lorem ipsum twice as long and see what breaks.
Week 3 – build five more and refine. Now cut your two weakest. A portfolio of eight strong templates beats ten with two embarrassments.
Week 4 – apply, then move on. Submit through canva.com/creators/apply. Then close the tab and go back to the thing that pays you this month – your own products. If you’re using the same designs commercially, make sure you understand how sharing templates with customers works so you’re not giving away edit access.
The mindset that makes this work: Canva Creators is a background process. You plant it, you leave it, and in three months either an acceptance email shows up or it doesn’t. Either way your design skills are better and you have 10 templates you can sell yourself.
Grab my free 30-Day Action Content Planner for Canva – it’s what I use to fit a project like this into 60-90 minute days without dropping the content that actually pays. Download it here.
FAQ
How do I become a Canva Creator?
Apply through Canva’s application form at canva.com/creators/apply with a portfolio of your own original template designs. There’s no follower or audience requirement – Canva reviews the design work itself. The Template Creator program is in beta as of 2026 and can take a couple of months to respond.
How much do Canva Creators get paid?
Canva pays monthly from a royalty pool, and your share depends on how many times your templates are used – downloads, prints or presentations. Canva states the exact monthly pool figures are confidential, so no one can quote you a reliable per-template rate. Template creators are paid for both free and Pro usage.
Do you need followers to become a Canva Creator?
No. There is no minimum follower count, subscriber count or audience size. Canva assesses your portfolio of designs, which makes this one of the few creator income routes that is genuinely open to people with no audience at all.
Can I be an Element Creator on Canva right now?
Not currently. Canva has Element Creator signups on hold due to the program’s popularity, as of September 2026. Template Creator applications remain open, and Education Specialty Creator applications go through the separate Canva Education Creator page.
Do I need Canva Pro to become a Canva Creator?
No, and Canva actually asks that you avoid Pro elements in the designs you submit – use free elements instead. A free Canva account is enough to build and submit an entire Creator portfolio.
Is being a Canva Creator better than selling templates on Etsy?
They do different jobs. Canva solves your traffic problem completely but takes months and gives you no pricing control. Etsy pays faster and lets you set prices, but you have to bring traffic. Most beginners are best off selling on Etsy now and applying to Canva Creators in parallel.
How long does the Canva Creator application take?
Canva says it may take up to a couple of months to get an answer while the Template Creator program is in beta. Apply and then get on with other work rather than waiting on it.