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It seems like everyone is using Canva, but few recognize the platform’s full potential for making money.
The truth is Canva offers tons of money-making opportunities in products, services, and content.
My favorite ways to make money with Canva are where you create something once, and earn passive income into your bank account over and over again.
These take some effort and education to set up, but then you can reap the rewards as people start using, downloading, and buying your products.
Here are the best ways to make money using Canva.
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Table of Contents show
1. Print on Demand
Print on Demand is a popular side hustle that can bring in thousands of dollars each month.
How it works is you create designs for:
- t-shirts
- mugs
- wall art
- tote bags
- and tons of other products
That might sound daunting, but Canva has thousands of templates and graphics that you simply re-work or redesign to make them unique.
The next step is to post those designs on sites like:
- Redbubble
- Amazon (through Merch by Amazon)
- Etsy (through a print-on-demand service provider like Printify)
You’ll set your own price for each product, and earn a royalty whenever it sells. The cool part is you never have to touch any inventory — the platform handles all the production, packaging, shipping, and fulfillment.
Yes, you can even use AI to help you create your designs like Becky Beach does.
If you have an existing website or e-commerce store, you can also sell your print on demand products directly.
My advice? Start with a single niche — like gifts for shih tzu owners — and expand from there.
100 Print on Demand Niches!
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2. Design and Sell Printables and Digital Products
Printable products are huge right now. People love the fact that they can download them in a few seconds and print them at home.
And what exactly are they printing, you’re asking? Think:
- Calendars
- Art illustrations
- Journals
- Planners
- Budget templates
- Meal planners
- Intake forms
- Checklists
- and more — anything you can think of that could be useful to people
The best place to sell these would be on Etsy, which has millions of users with open wallets looking to buy something. The whole process is also almost completely automated once you create and upload your items.
A friend of mine turned her printables side hustle into a $10k+ per month business.
Here’s afree guide to the best-selling digital products month-by-monthto get your creative juices flowing.
3. Low Content Books
Then there’s also a whole category of easy-to-make books. These are called low-content books and include:
- log books
- puzzle books
- sketchbooks
- music composition notebooks
- coloring books (for kids and for adults)
- planners
- journals
- anything else with pages to be filled in by the buyer (not by you)
Believe it or not, you can sell these low-content books directly on Amazon. You simply need to design and upload your products to earn $1-4 per copy on autopilot.
4. Make Ads
Did you ever want to be like Don Draper from Mad Men? Now’s your chance.
As tens of thousands of people start their own businesses each month, there’s always a need for digital marketers to help them spread their message via ads on Instagram, Facebook, and even YouTube.
You can do freelance work and find customers on Fiverr or Upwork, or even open a digital marketing agency. For the sake of reference, I found freelance banner designers earning $25-35 an hour on Upwork:
Canva makes it incredibly easy to make stunning designs that will appeal to your clients and make you look like some sort of marketing God or guru!
5. Sell Canva Templates
As I mentioned, print on demand and printables are popular Canva-centered business ideas. But many people lack the technical and creative skills, time, or even will to make their own designs.
That’s where you come into the picture. With thousands of existing templates on Canva, you can easily make a bundle of funny, beautiful, engaging, or quirky designs and sell them to aspiring PoD entrepreneurs.
For example, on Creative Market, you’ll find dozens of sellers packaging their Canva templates for sale:
These are usually priced in the $12-40 range.
Find gigs on Fiverr or Upwork, or package these hundreds or thousands of designs into one big folder and make ads on Facebook to find a massive audience on autopilot, making this a truly passive income.
6. Create Marketing Videos
Most people don’t know that Canva has an intuitive and easy-to-use video editor. That means you don’t have to pay for professional video editing software or a person to edit great-looking videos.
This editor can be used to quickly put together marketing videos and ads for local small businesses that don’t have the marketing budget for an agency.
The easiest thing to do is to build a video portfolio that you can show to prospective clients.
You can then email them or even visit them in person to pitch your ideas. Businesses like Airbnbs, hairdressers, cafes, and bars use these marketing videos for their social media, ads, or simply to showcase their products and services on their website.
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Sweet!
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Step 1?
Please enter your name.
Please enter a valid email address.
Send it!
You're in! Want to supercharge your challenge? Grab the companion workbook and earn $125 more (on average).
Something went wrong. Please check your entries and try again.
I'll also send you my best side hustle tips and weekly-ish newsletter.
Opt-out anytime.
7. Create Social Media Content
Every business needs to create and publish content for social media like:
- TikTok
Some content can be repurposed for other social media platforms, but not all.
That’s where you jump in. You can easily create engaging posts in Canva, thanks to the library templates and content already inside.
The money comes from selling the design service to clients, like Design Pickle does, starting at $649 a month.
8. Become an Empower Canvassador (a Canva Affiliate)
If you have an existing audience, an easy way to make money with Canva is to sign up for their “Canvassador” program.
Canva is looking for individual content creators who:
- live the Canva Values
- have an active and engaged social following
- can create and publish at least one piece of Canva-related content every month
In exchange for your efforts, Canva will pay you up to $36 for each new person you refer that subscribes to Canva Pro.
9. Become a Canva YouTuber
If you have a smartphone and Wi-Fi, you already have everything it takes to publish quality videos on YouTube.
In fact, here’s your first video idea: teach people how to edit YouTube videos on Canva!
You can share Canva tutorials, demos, reviews, or simply use the software to create videos on another topic.
Ultimately your channel will make money from:
- YouTube ads
- affiliate commissions
- sales of your own products or services
- brand partnerships
You’ll need to attract 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time to be eligible for YouTube ads, but you can start sharing your affiliate links right away.
After all, there are millions of people earning money on YouTube right now. If they can do it, so can you!
10. Launch a Canva Course
If you already have a working knowledge of Canva, you can make and launch a course on Teachable, Skillshare, or Udemy.
In general, if you have an existing audience, you’ll earn more selling directly to them and hosting on a platform like Teachable. If you don’t have an online following already, Udemy and Skillshare are the places to host your course.
On Udemy, you’ll earn money every time someone buys your course. Top instructors are earning thousands of dollars a month.
On Skillshare, you’ll earn monthly royalties based on the watch time for your classes. Several Canva classes on Skillshare already have thousands of students, so you know it’s a popular topic:
Because Canva is so powerful, it probably makes sense to tackle a specific sub-niche first, such as:
- Creating and selling Canva templates
- Using Canva to create printables
- Making TikTok videos in Canva
- Editing videos for Pinterest or Instagram reels with Canva
You don’t need to be the world’s leading expert—you just need to be a couple steps ahead of your students. Show people your best practices, tips, and tricks to leave them satisfied and empowered to put their new skills to use.
11. Start a Canva Consulting or Coaching Business
Canva is already super popular, both among individual creators and Fortune 500 companies. Still, there are millions of people that would like to use it but don’t know how.
Even an intuitive tool like Canva can be intimidating to some people, and they’d like someone to educate them or train their team. A team training could net you $2,000-5,000 or more, depending on the size of the company and department.
The best way to advertise your Canva consulting business is on YouTube.
One formula I like comes from Paul Minors. In his videos, he’d introduce himself as an Asana consultant, and then go over a specific tutorial: how to do xyz in Asana.
These worked really well because he was answering specific questions and showing his expertise. Naturally, a segment of his viewers reached out for his consulting services.
You could follow the same general structure for your Canva videos.
12. Design Websites
Designing websites used to be a daunting process and you had to have serious skills to be a web designer. These days, all you need is basic knowledge and Canva to be able to design a beautiful, fast, and mobile-responsive website.
You can do all of that directly with Canva — it really is an incredible tool. Their off-the-shelf templates make designing a simple website a very quick process.
You could start with a single niche, like real estate agents, for example, and build your portfolio.
13. Design Logos
Every business needs a recognizable and unique logo. Businesses pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for logos.
Luckily, designing logos is a breeze these days, so kick-starting such a venture is extremely easy. Turn to Fiverr to advertise your logo-designing service and start earning money today.
14. The Canva Creator Program
Canva’s Creator program is their way of crowdsourcing design elements for the site.
How it works is you create and upload:
- Graphics and illustrations
- Photos
- Videos
- Educational resources
- Templates
Then, you get paid based on the popularity of your content. Each month, Canva splits a portion of its Pro subscription revenue among its Creators.
15. Create YouTube Thumbnails
Canva is set up perfectly for creating thumbnails for a YouTube channel.
Here’s why.
If you create thumbnails that follow a similar format, you can easily duplicate a design and change specific information quickly.
And if you’re designing them for clients, it’s easy to separate your projects by folders and stay organized.
How to Make Money Using Canva: Conclusion
I applaud you for looking for ways to turn your Canva skills into extra cash. Hopefully this post got your gears turning on some ways to make money both actively and passively.
Which option is the most exciting for you? If you need to earn money quickly, I’d lean toward the service-based offerings like website design, logo design or social media graphic creation, or Canva consulting.
If you have more income flexibility, I’d be drawn to creating your own products or content using Canva. I’m always a fan of businesses where I can create something once and sell it over and over again.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best Canva side hustle?
Are you an expert Canva user, or are you just beginning? If you’re just starting out, it will make more sense to use their templates and try something like print on demand. If you’re a pro user, then creating logos or the Canva Creator Program might be up your lane.
Is making money with Canva easy?
The process can be simple, but easy isn’t the right word. Every money making idea takes some hustle muscle to get it going. But as a design tool, Canva makes it as easy as possible.
How to earn money with Canva and Amazon?
If you use Canva for your designs, you can apply for the Merch by Amazon program and submit your designs there to be sold as a part of their print on demand platform.
