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Total Economic Impact
Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Canva Enterprise
A FORRESTER TOTAL ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY COMMISSIONED BY Canva, January 2026
Total Economic Impact
A FORRESTER TOTAL ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY COMMISSIONED BY Canva, January 2026
The volume of content required to compete in today’s market has exploded. Organizations must produce visually compelling, scroll-stopping materials across an ever-expanding mix of channels while marketing budgets remain focused on maintenance, not momentum. The ability to quickly turn ideas into compelling visual content at-scale is a key competitive advantage. Yet, as teams work to meet these demands and reinforce brand identity across global operations, marketers and designers face process inefficiencies, inconsistent branding, and limited resources — obstacles that hinder marketing effectiveness and operational agility. Innovative design solutions that empower marketer self-service and liberate designers to focus on high-level strategic work can help enterprises address these industrywide challenges and close the gap between creative vision and fast execution.
Canva Enterprise is an all-in-one visual communication platform designed to support large organizations in creating, collaborating on, and scaling impactful content. Built on the Canva Design Model, which the company refers to as its Creative Operating System, Canva Enterprise brings together design, collaboration, publishing, and performance capabilities. It enables teams to create media ranging from presentations and documents to videos and websites without requiring specialized design expertise. The platform includes intuitive tools, centralized brand management, and enterprise-grade security controls that support teams in creating consistent, on-brand content.
Canva commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying Canva Enterprise.1 The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of Canva Enterprise on their organizations.
To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed six decision-makers with experience using Canva Enterprise. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the experiences of the interviewees and combined the results into a single composite organization, which is a global, multisegment enterprise with 7,000 employees and revenue of $1.75 billion per year.
Interviewees said that prior to using Canva Enterprise, their organizations relied heavily on specialized design resources and external agencies for asset creation. However, prior attempts to address these challenges yielded limited success, creating inefficient workflows and frequent design request tickets that slowed marketing initiatives and consumed designer bandwidth. These limitations negatively impacted business results: Content creators working around production bottlenecks diluted brand consistency, teams missed opportunities to launch in new markets and channels, and content limitations compounded with external agency reliance that led to suboptimal campaign budget spend.
Interviewees reported that after investing in Canva, their organizations gained a streamlined, self-service approach to asset creation that enabled marketers and business users to quickly produce and localize content within brand guidelines. Key results from the investment include optimized media strategy from marketer creative velocity, expanded channel and market reach, decreased agency spend, a reduction in design requests, corporate user productivity efficiencies, and legacy licensing savings.
Quantified benefits. Three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the composite organization include:
Increased marketer productivity of 300% toward asset creation. The composite organization’s marketers increase creative velocity and reduce time to market by managing marketing tasks on Canva with less reliance on specialized design resources and external agencies. As a result, the organization launches campaigns more quickly and tests assets more frequently through A/B testing, supporting a culture of experimentation. Over three years, optimized media strategy from marketer creative velocity saves the composite organization $2.5 million in campaign spend.
Incremental returns of 25%. The composite organization preserves and reinvests a portion of campaign budget savings each year to reach audiences in new regions and dynamic channels. Using Canva, its teams more quickly localize and adapt marketing assets, which supports efforts to engage new customer segments. As a result, teams launch campaigns across regions in parallel, extending the reach of marketing initiatives. Over three years, the expanded customer channel and market reach is worth $1.1 million to the composite organization.
Decreased agency spend of 50%. The composite organization reduces agency spend by enabling in-house asset creation and streamlining workflows with Canva. Centralized template management and brand governance features allow non-designer creatives to complete more routine work internally. As a result, the composite relies on agencies primarily for higher-value tasks. Over three years, this reduced agency spend saves the composite organization $2.2 million.
Seventy-five percent reduction of production-level design requests for designers and 30% productivity efficiency for business users. Designers spend less time on repetitive production tasks and more time on higher-value strategic projects, while corporate business users gain the ability to self-serve within brand guidelines. This reallocation supports more efficient use of design resources and greater organizational agility. Over three years, this increased productivity is worth $1.7 million to the composite organization.
Reduction of 90% of licenses for a prior solution. Consolidated functionality within Canva allows the composite organization to replace a creative tool previously used by the marketing team, and this fosters collaboration across users. Over three years, this reduction saves the composite $38,000.
Unquantified benefits. Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:
Enhanced brand consistency for increased brand recognition and consumer trust. The composite organization leverages Canva to enforce brand standards across distributed teams and geographies by using locked brand elements such as logos, colors, and fonts. Marketers and corporate business users produce assets from brand-compliant templates that align with corporate guidelines. This systematic control reduces the risk of off-brand communications and supports a unified brand presence across market. As a result, the organization strengthens brand consistency and recognition with customers.
Localized marketing to support new customer engagement. By moving away from standardized, centrally created assets to campaigns customized for local markets, the composite organization supports localized approaches to engaging new customer groups and entering new markets. Using Canva, local teams take greater ownership of the creative process, which supports more timely and locally relevant customer engagement.
Support for improved employee satisfaction and engagement. Using Canva, designers in the composite organization spend less time on repetitive production tasks and more time on strategic, high-impact projects that employ their expertise. Marketers and business users gain greater autonomy in creating and customizing assets, which supports higher satisfaction across teams. This shift reduces internal friction between teams.
Enhanced collaboration and communication. Canva’s collaborative features (e.g., commenting, versioning, shared templates) support smoother interactions between marketers, designers, and other stakeholders at the composite organization. Feedback cycles are streamlined, with visual mock-ups replacing lengthy email threads and reducing ambiguity in requests. This added clarity supports faster project delivery and improved cross-functional collaboration. As a result, the organization has more fluid communication, allowing teams to align more quickly on creative vision and execution.
IT labor savings. Canva’s cloud-based architecture and enterprise features (e.g., advanced security, privacy controls) reduce the effort required to manage system administration tasks, including centralized management of brand assets and team access to AI-powered features.
Costs. Three-year, risk-adjusted PV costs for the composite organization include:
Canva subscription. The composite organization licenses Canva Enterprise on a per-user basis, with the number of licensed users increasing over time as adoption expands beyond an initial pilot team that includes select marketers, designers, and business users. Over three years, the composite organization invests $682,000 into Canva Enterprise licenses.
Implementation and ongoing management. During the composite’s initial implementation period, the organization’s design and IT teams dedicate time to configuring Canva Enterprise, which includes building brand kits, creating locked templates, and establishing controlled environments for marketers. Ongoing management activities include periodic updates to brand kits and templates. Over three years, the composite organization invests $155,300 in labor value into implementation and ongoing management.
Training and change management. The composite’s Canva users undergo 2 hours of onboarding training and an additional 4 hours of ongoing training per year. Over three years, the composite invests $620,000 into training and change management.
The financial analysis that is based on the interviews found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $7.5 million over three years versus costs of $1.5 million, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $6 million and an ROI of 414%.
Decrease in average cost of a campaign with Canva
Return on investment (ROI)
Benefits PV
Net present value (NPV)
Payback
| Role | Industry | Employees | Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand and digital content team lead | Financial services | 82,000 | $61.8B |
| Head of global performance marketing | Financial services | 8,500 | $5.1B |
| Vice president of brand | Cloud communications | 6,000 | $5B |
| Director of marketing operations | Real estate | 2,000 non-agents, 82,000 agents | $4.6B |
| Senior director of brand and creative | Software | 8,000 | $3B |
| Head of marketing | Real estate | 25 non-agents and 33,000 agents | N/A |
Prior to licensing Canva, interviewees’ organizations typically relied on internal design teams or external agencies to create marketing assets. Almost all creative requests — from minor edits to major campaigns — were funneled through designers who managed most aspects of production. This creative process often involved submitting design request tickets, waiting extended periods for work to begin, and enduring lengthy review and approval cycles. Marketers and other stakeholders had little ability to create or modify assets themselves, leading to significant bottlenecks, high costs, and slow turnaround times. Outsourcing to agencies was common but expensive, and it added additional delays due to onboarding and governance requirements. Valuable designer time was consumed with production work instead of higher-value initiatives and transformations. As a result, many campaigns — especially small or experimental ones — were deprioritized or never executed, and localization for international markets was limited by the slow pace and expense of creative production.
Interviewees noted how their organizations struggled with common challenges, including:
Low creative throughput from severe bottlenecks in creative production. Several interviewees said their organization’s internal design team created all marketing assets and that it could not meet demand without additional headcount. The vice president of brand in cloud communications said: “[Before using Canva,] when putting in a design ticket, it may have been a week or —more likely — two to three weeks before the ticket even got touched. Then there was back and forth [review] for another week, so it was at least a month or more before the requester received the asset.” The head of global performance marketing in financial services said: “Literally every single image that we would use to create for an ad would get created by a designer, either internal or — for the most — part external at an agency. It became cost-prohibitive.”
Even with external agencies as a resource, long cycle times and governance overhead created bottlenecks. The head of global performance marketing in the financial services industry described campaign launches being delayed months, limiting responsiveness to market needs. The interviewee explained: “Prior to Canva, it would take two to three months from the time we kicked off a project with the external agency until we launched the ads. We used to have a prioritization sheet for campaigns. Marketers placing a request had to attend a meeting and make sure their request was stack-ranked above other things. People were told, ‘You can do it this quarter, but you’re fifth in line.’” Interviewees largely described their organizations’ prioritization processes as painful because ideas had to go through a heavy approval process involving disparate tools, meetings, and stack and ranking.
Design capacity restrained by production workload. High volumes of low-tier, production-level requests consumed most of the time of the organizations’ creative teams, leaving little room for designers to focus on strategic work. Many requests were not related to design but required the valuable time of a designer. The senior director of brand and creative in the software industry said: “Prior to Canva, a user would send a brief. We’d build the asset. The user would change the headline and send the asset back to say, ‘Keep a period instead of a comma.’ [The design team] did all of that.” The interviewee stated revisions alone consumed 40 hours per week — equal to a full workload — for requests that did not fully utilize the technical expertise of a designer.
The vice president of brand in cloud communications echoed the sentiment: “The ankle-biters eat up all your time. ... Canva helps us get through the fast stuff and democratize it so that it’s self‑help.” The brand and content digital team lead in the financial services industry said: “Before Canva, we were running into a lot of design capacity issues. Internal teams couldn’t keep up with the volume.”
The dependency on designers who were overburdened with volumes of small, repetitive requests slowed down campaign execution and limited experimentation for marketers.
Limited ability for marketers to self-serve. The dependency on designers also created frustration for marketers because they were not empowered to create their own assets. Most of the work was routed through designers or agencies, resulting in a lack of control for marketers. Non-designers like marketers could not easily create brand-compliant assets, leading to inefficiencies and dissatisfaction from marketing teams who didn’t want limitations on their own creative expression.
High costs of agencies. To find capacity, teams faced a choice between hiring more in-house designers or outsourcing to production agencies, and both solutions were costly and not scalable. Heavy reliance on external agencies for creative production resulted in lengthy onboarding, brand governance, and significant dollar spend.
With high agency costs and slow turnaround, outsourcing design work limited the number of assets that could be produced. The brand and content team lead in the financial services industry said their organization was paying an external agency $400 per social media post, which restricted how much content the company could produce for its social channels.
Slow testing and iteration of creative campaign assets. External agency reliance also restricted the ability to test new messaging because asset variations required agency or design involvement. Lack of agility meant the organizations could not quickly validate ideas or pivot mid-campaign based on performance. The brand and content digital team lead in financial services said, “Before Canva, only about 10% of assets would have been A/B tested.” The senior director of brand and creative in the software industry explained, “By the time the red button version came back from us, the data was no longer good.” Several organizations also missed opportunities to optimize the effectiveness of their assets and improve reach and engagement with their target audiences.
Limited market coverage. The director of marketing operations in the real estate industry said that before using Canva, their organization often launched campaigns only in English-speaking markets (e.g., the US, the UK, Canada, Australia) because localization was too slow and expensive. International growth was constrained by lack of creative velocity. Localizing content required third-party services and lengthy validation processes, slowing down international operations. The interviewee said, “We would use a third party to translate, need local validation, and then we’d insert the content.”
Similarly, the head of global performance marketing in the financial services industry stated, “[Before using Canva,] we didn’t have enough creative that we needed for all the different channels, and we especially didn’t have enough for all the different countries that we operate in.” Interviewees said content creation and delivery asset creation was manual and time-consuming. Those from organizations that operate in multiple regions reported that they needed to repeat the same steps for each region’s campaign, which led to wasted time and missed opportunities to expand into new markets or connect more deeply to existing ones.
Fragmented legacy tool use that inhibited collaboration. The director of marketing operations in real estate said their company’s agents previously used a marketing platform specific to real estate, but they described it as “very limiting for agents” because they couldn’t update templates quickly and had to go through a third party. This restricted their ability to customize templates and create printed materials, and the lack of flexibility stifled agent creativity and made it difficult to meet diverse marketing needs.
The same interviewee also remarked that staff and agents previously used a mix of tools, leading to inefficiency and a lack of standardization. The assets created in these specialized tools could not be easily shared or reused by agents, and they did not allow the marketing team to update templates quickly. The director of marketing operations in real estate reported many agents sought alternative solutions independently and sometimes paid for Canva out-of-pocket. The organization also previously invested in a platform that did not see user growth, and user feedback indicated dissatisfaction.
Brand consistency challenges. Attempts to use disparate tools for templates resulted in inconsistent branding and required significant cleanup by design teams, which added to their workloads. As a result, the organizations experienced difficulty maintaining brand consistency across regions and assets. External vendors were less familiar with brand guidelines, which required constant oversight, and the inability to lock down templates in prior tools was also an issue.
Limited scalability. Interviewees said training hundreds of business users to use complex, traditional design tools was impractical. The vice president of brand in cloud communications called it a “death march.” This made it difficult to scale creative output while manual processes and nonscalable tooling limited reach to business users. Several interviewees who reported their organization relied on external agencies for creative work stated that scaling was cost-prohibitive. The vice president of brand in cloud communications said: “It was always a trade-off. Hire designers or hire a production agency. It’s about the same cost either way.” Internal team headcount was also growing slower than business needs, which made it difficult to scale impact.
High demand for greater creative freedom. Customer-facing employees wanted more options and the ability to unleash their creativity, which was not possible with the previous solutions their companies provided. The interviewees from the real estate industry said they believed empowering agents with better tools could improve marketing outcomes. The director of marketing operations at a real estate organization said, “The previous tool stifled agent creativity.”
Interviewees said their organizations chose Canva for the following reasons:
Ease of use and accessibility for non-designers. Each interviewee stated that the primary appeal of Canva was that it’s accessible for users without formal design training, which they hoped would unlock the ability to scale asset creation. Interviewees emphasized the need for a platform that could empower marketers, agents, and business users to create assets independently without relying on specialized design skills or expensive external resources. The head of marketing in real estate explained: “Canva was the easiest solution. For many, many years, we had been investigating different solutions that would enable us to share our templates easier and make them easily customizable for our network. Other solutions were not as flexible as Canva when it comes to uploading templates and then making them available within minutes to our network. That was our main reason.” The vice president of design in cloud communications noted: “Canva makes design universal to all people. Everyone can be a designer.”
All-in-one workflow. Interviewees said they wanted a platform that would allow content creators to plan robust campaigns that incorporate different media in a single project. The head of marketing in real estate explained: “With Canva, you can have several different document types in one file. One project can contain the social media template and the presentation. Canva makes this really easy.”
Template management and brand control. Interviewees said their organizations recognized a need to ensure brand control, and they sought a solution that would allow for centralized template management and strong brand governance — especially for large or distributed organizations. Gaining the ability to lock down templates and ensure brand consistency was a decisive factor. The vice president of brand in cloud communications said: “We don’t want thousands of people in the company just going and starting from scratch and creating something new because they don’t know the nuances of the brand. So, that causes a lot more work and clean-up for me to go back and fix all that.” Interviewees said Canva’s template locking and brand kit features address this need and made it preferable to alternatives that lack robust governance.
Scalability and speed of deployment. Interviewees from organizations with large, geographically dispersed teams said their companies prioritize solutions that can be rolled out quickly and scale to hundreds or thousands of users, so having the ability to onboard users rapidly and provide immediate access to templates was a key selection criterion. The director of marketing operations in real estate explained: “We knew that our agents were already using [Canva]. We wanted to consolidate that, and provide them with all the great benefits that happen in Canva. So, we gathered everyone under one roof versus having them go and pay individually for something where it was not cohesive.” The head of marketing in real estate echoed this, noting: “On one hand, Canva makes templates easily editable for agents. But on the other hand, Canva also supports a unified and consistent brand look and feel across regions.”
Cost-effectiveness and licensing flexibility. Interviewees described lengthy procurement processes and cost comparisons with other platforms, including proprietary tools. But they said Canva’s pricing model and licensing flexibility were more attractive than competitors’ and appreciated that features like asset libraries and AI tools were included in Canva’s pricing. The vice president of brand in cloud communications stated, “Canva’s pricing model and the flexibility of it [is easy].”
Responsiveness and support for sales and implementation teams. Several interviewees highlighted that their organizations sought a solution with responsive support from sales and customer success teams. The vice president of brand in cloud communications said, “The Canva sales team is extremely responsive and extremely flexible.”
Enterprise readiness and security requirements. Interviewees from large enterprises or organizations in regulated industries said it was essential to find a platform that would meet security, compliance, and procurement requirements. The head of global performance marketing in the financial services industry explained: “Because we’re a regulated financial services company, we have a pretty onerous procurement process. That means we can’t work with companies that answer no to things that we need them to say yes to as we go through the initial checklist. ... These include things like [having] certifications, [knowing] where our data will live, [ensuring] our assets won’t train their models or be made available to other users, security requirements, and indemnification. This disqualified a lot of vendors that didn’t meet our baseline enterprise requirements.”
User demand. Interviewees said individuals at their organizations were already using Canva on their own — not under their company’s official enterprise license — and funding their paid subscriptions out-of-pocket, which led to a desire to standardize and scale. The senior director of brand and creative in software said, “There were hundreds if not thousands of email addresses with our company domain with Canva accounts [that were] not tied to the enterprise license.” Similarly, the head of global performance marketing in financial services said, “Canva pulled up the list and showed us there were about 600 people at the company already using it across the organization.”
The interviewees searched for a solution that could:
Meet enterprise-grade security and compliance standards.
Lock templates for brand control.
Centralize template management while preserving individual creativity.
Empower marketers with ease-of-use and creative expression.
Increase creative velocity.
Free designers to work on the high-value, strategic work that fulfills them and deepens job satisfaction.
Facilitate collaboration between marketing, design, and other teams creating content.
Address the needs of corporate business users.
Integrate with existing workflows and platforms while also providing integrated features such as AI tools.
Offer a cost-effective pricing model.
Have a quick initial deployment period.
Easily provide ongoing template updates.
Support multiple languages and localization.
Provide a responsive sales and support team.
Feature modern, flexible, industry-agnostic functionality.
Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, a composite company, and an ROI analysis that illustrates the areas financially affected. The composite organization is representative of the interviewees’ organizations, and it is used to present the aggregate financial analysis in the next section. The composite organization has the following characteristics:
Description of composite. The technology-driven, global, multi-segment enterprise is headquartered in North America and generates $1.75 billion in revenue. It operates with 7,000 employees spread across North America, EMEA, and APAC. Its marketing team and business users are located in various regions, and they are supported by a team of 40 designers.
Deployment characteristics. Initially, the composite organization onboards 10 designers, 30 marketers, and 30 business users who are selected to evaluate, pilot, and migrate brand kits and templates onto the platform over three months. In Year 1, the composite expands the number of licenses to 10% of employees, including 125 marketers, all 40 of its designers, and 535 business users. The composite continues rolling out Canva to business users, increasing the number by 12.5% in Year 2 and 15% in Year 3.
$1.75B annual revenue
Global operations
7,000 employees
10% of employees are Canva users in Year 1
12.5% of employees are Canva users in Year 2
15% of employees are Canva users in Year 3
| Ref. | Benefit | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atr | Optimized media strategy from marketer creative velocity | $1,115,625 | $1,116,007 | $743,750 | $2,975,382 | $2,495,314 |
| Btr | Expanded customer channel and market reach | $175,000 | $437,590 | $787,500 | $1,400,090 | $1,112,396 |
| Ctr | Reduced agency spend | $595,000 | $904,400 | $1,190,000 | $2,689,400 | $2,182,412 |
| Dtr | Designer and corporate user productivity | $390,572 | $670,528 | $994,782 | $2,055,882 | $1,656,615 |
| Etr | Decomissioned legacy licensing | $11,250 | $15,750 | $20,250 | $47,250 | $38,458 |
| Total benefits (risk-adjusted) | $2,287,447 | $3,144,274 | $3,736,282 | $9,168,003 | $7,485,195 |
Evidence and data. Interviewees said that with Canva, their organizations fundamentally shifted how marketing teams approached creative production. Previously suppressed output and stifled experimentation due to prior bottlenecks, lengthy approval cycles, and a reliance on specialized design resources or external agencies were no longer structural limitations for marketers. They explained that because Canva removed these restrictions, their organizations experienced step changes in creative velocity marked by dramatic increases in asset production, rapid turnaround times, and the democratization of design capabilities across non-designer creatives. This redefined the operational boundaries of marketing teams and enabled them to scale content creation and accelerate campaign launches without compromising quality.
Increased creative throughput
The head of global performance marketing in financial services described an increase in production by 10 times. They said: “Before [using Canva], the team was creating on the order of 50 [assets] a month. Now we’re [creating] well over 500. Last month, it was 553, and that’s pretty normal for Canva.”
The head of marketing in real estate said: “We are way more flexible in creating templates and pushing out content than we were before. [Previously,] we would always need to go to our design agency, and now we just create assets. Before, we would need at least two days depending on the task. Now we have it done in 2 hours.”
The director of marketing operations in real estate said their organization increased speed to production, even on smaller scales. They noted the industry average time needed to modify a design is about 25 minutes, but said “It’s eight minutes with Canva.”
The brand and content digital team lead in financial services said marketers previously could not create assets due to tools that required specialized skills. But they estimated Canva allows each marketer to create an average of 15 assets per month.
Improved campaign performance
Interviewees said their organizations enhanced assets based on customer engagement due to increased throughput and speed to market. The head of global performance marketing in financial services noted that launching a campaign previously required two to three months from brief to market and that the shortest possible campaign launch timeline (including reviews) was two months. But they said Canva decreased that timeline to within about one week or two weeks at most.
Interviewees explained that due to the increased speed to market, their organizations also increased the amount of A/B testing to improve campaign performance metrics. The brand and content digital team lead estimated their organization previously A/B tested 10% of assets due to constraints on production. But they said with Canva, the company tests 33% of assets, which helped increase campaign click rates by 20%.
The head of global performance marketing in financial services said Canva enabled a more experimental culture at their organization because anyone with an idea can execute quickly and without lengthy prioritization or agency bottlenecks while campaigns are chosen based on data. With the bar lowered for experimentation, the organization pays almost nothing for additional creative so more ideas can be tested to retrieve metrics. The interviewee explained that campaigns launch first with Canva for rapid testing and only successful concepts are scaled up with agency support, which enables data-driven creative decision-making. This reduces the need for campaign prioritization meetings and processes because more campaigns can run in parallel.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
The composite allocates 8% of its revenue to marketing budget and 25% of its marketing budget to campaign spend.2
The composite previously had 125 marketers each produce assets at a rate of two per month.
With Canva, the rate of production for marketers increases by 150% in Year 1, 225% in Year 2, and 300% in Year 3.
Previously, marketers A/B tested 10% of assets to optimize performance.
With Canva, marketers A/B test 20% of assets in Year 1, 25% in Year 2, and 30% in Year 3.
The composite organization realizes 75% budget savings in Year 1, 50% in Year 2, and 25% in Year 3 because it increasingly reinvests the savings into new channels and markets.
Risks. The impact of this benefit will vary among organizations based on the following factors:
The organization’s available budget and its budget fluctuations.
The organization’s ability to pair rapid creative output with robust measurement and analytics.
The organization’s ability to improve creative on those metrics.
The organization’s culture and the level at which it prioritizes experimentation or adapts its established approval workflows.
The organization’s strategy for templates, governance controls, and brand identity through experimentation.
The organization’s focus on strategic planning or campaign integration of new assets.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $2.5 million.
Increased marketer productivity in Year 3
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Revenue | Composite | $1,750,000,000 | $1,750,000,000 | $1,750,000,000 | |
| A2 | Percentage of revenue allocated to marketing budget | Forrester research | 8% | 8% | 8% | |
| A3 | Percentage of marketing budget designated to campaign spend | Forrester research | 25% | 25% | 25% | |
| A4 | Marketing budget designated to campaign spend | A1*A2*A3 | $35,000,000 | $35,000,000 | $35,000,000 | |
| A5 | Marketers who produce creative assets | Composite | 125 | 125 | 125 | |
| A6 | Assets produced per marketer before Canva | Composite | 24 | 24 | 24 | |
| A7 | Assets marketing team produced before Canva | A5*A6 | 3,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 | |
| A8 | Percentage of marketing assets A/B tested before Canva | Interviews | 10% | 10% | 10% | |
| A9 | Shelved underperforming assets before Canva | A7*A8*50% of assets that underperform in A/B testing | 150 | 150 | 150 | |
| A10 | Subtotal: Marketing budget saved from avoided underperforming asset variants before Canva | A4/A7*A9 | $1,750,000 | $1,750,000 | $1,750,000 | |
| A11 | Increased marketer productivity toward asset creation with Canva | Interviews | 150% | 225% | 300% | |
| A12 | Assets marketers produce with Canva | A7*(1+A11) | 7,500 | 9,750 | 12,000 | |
| A13 | Percentage of assets A/B tested with Canva | Interviews | 20% | 25% | 30% | |
| A14 | Shelved underperforming assets with Canva | A12*A13*50% of assets that underperform in A/B testing | 750 | 1,219 | 1,800 | |
| A15 | Subtotal: Marketing budget saved from avoided underperforming asset variants with Canva | A4/A12*A14 | $3,500,000 | $4,375,897 | $5,250,000 | |
| A16 | Percentage saved (not reinvested into marketing) | Composite | 75% | 50% | 25% | |
| At | Optimized media strategy from marketer creative velocity | (A15-A10)*A16 | $1,312,500 | $1,312,949 | $875,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓15% | |||||
| Atr | Optimized media strategy from marketer creative velocity (risk-adjusted) | $1,115,625 | $1,116,007 | $743,750 | ||
| Three-year total: $2,975,382 | Three-year present value: $2,495,314 | |||||
Evidence and data. Interviewees described an increase in their teams’ abilities to reach new customer channels and geographic markets driven by rapid creation and localization of marketing assets, eliminating agency reliance on translations that previously limited international campaigns, and democratization of creative production across distributed teams for better collaboration and coordination. They said having the ability to quickly adapt content for different regions and launch campaigns in parallel enabled their organizations to engage new or broader audiences more effectively.
The head of global performance marketing in the financial services industry said: “As an example, Canva has unlocked the ability for us to spend on a new video channel, which we were not doing prior to Canva. Because if we were struggling to get enough basic static ads for some social channels, then we weren’t going to prioritize even more difficult-to-create video ads. You can’t do the hard thing until you’ve done the easy thing. Canva allowed us to expand into those new channels.”
The same interviewee said their organization previously only launched in English-speaking countries but that Canva changed this: “We had really painful trade-off and prioritization conversations all the time around whether we should localize a campaign into five languages and launch it elsewhere or move on to the next campaign in English instead. Most of our growth of being able to profitably spend budget has come from being now able to launch campaigns in international markets.”
The director of marketing operations in real estate said: “Our localization is now happening in Canva. That’s been a savings of literal days — sometimes a week to 10 minutes to complete a campaign from beginning to end. It’s been a game-changer, and I know it’s just continuing to improve. Our international company includes around 30 countries that are using Canva across the globe. Before that, we would need to engage the IT team to get users access to the correct template on our previous solution. We wouldn’t have even probably localized the content as much as we do now because Canva has allowed us to give ownership to the country leaders whereas, before, everything was going through a third-party, so county leaders weren’t doing localized content for us. There was no ownership.” The interviewee explained that empowering local marketing leaders with global collaboration across time zones meant localization projects moved to teams with a pulse on the audience rather than providing mere translations.
The senior director of brand and creative in the software industry said: “I would say we are probably [at least] 50% faster to market with localized assets than we were before. [Marketers in] each region are self-equipped with Canva to do what they need to do whenever they need to do it. That was never the case before.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
The composite organization reinvests an increasing portion of its freed marketing budget into new channels and localized markets.
The composite attributes 25% of the incremental returns on that reinvestment to Canva.
Risks. The impact of this benefit will vary among organizations based on the following factors:
The extent to which marketers and local teams are trained and empowered to use Canva features.
The rate of reinvestment into marketing, creative, and support resources to manage increasing asset production and campaign launches across channels and markets.
The organization’s ability to manage change, communicate new processes, and support international teams.
The organization’s ability to maximize the impact of expansion by linking it to strategic objectives.
Which channels and markets the organization prioritizes based on audience fit and business goals.
The organization’s level of tracking of campaign performance and asset utilization for data-driven optimization.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.1 million.
Incremental returns from expansion into new channels and markets attributable to Canva
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | Marketing budget freed for reallocation into new channels and localized markets with Canva | A15*(100%-A16) | $875,000 | $2,187,949 | $3,937,500 | |
| B2 | Incremental returns attributable to Canva | Interviews | 25% | 25% | 25% | |
| Bt | Expanded customer channel and market reach | B1*B2 | $218,750 | $546,987 | $984,375 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓20% | |||||
| Btr | Expanded customer channel and market reach (risk-adjusted) | $175,000 | $437,590 | $787,500 | ||
| Three-year total: $1,400,090 | Three-year present value: $1,112,396 | |||||
Evidence and data. Interviewees said Canva reduced agency spend across creative production and translation work because it gave their organizations the ability to produce more creative assets in-house, empower marketers to self-serve, and reserve agency resources for higher-value strategic work rather than routine production tasks.
The head of marketing in real estate said: “All the regional marketing teams are sharing quite a lot of marketing materials, assets, and templates with our agents and office owners. Not everyone knows how to use technical design tools, so the easiest solution was Canva. This year, [we’ve] saved at least €50,000 just on translation costs.” The interviewee also mentioned that Canva allowed their company to reduce its dependence on creative agencies for presentations: “We have now cut down costs by probably 25% in the first year because we are now doing more presentations in Canva. When we sent presentation work to agencies, it would take two days depending on the task. Now we have it done in two hours.”
The head of global performance marketing in financial services said: “At our peak, we were spending about $4 million per year through agencies — and that’s just for performance marketing; that’s not inclusive of brand marketing. In the first year [with] Canva, we were able to cut over $1 million, and then we’ve since been able to bring it down another million.” The organization reinvests some savings from agency spend and efficiency gains into higher-value activities (e.g., AI tooling, video production).
The brand and content digital team lead in financial services shared: “We were spending about $400 per social media post with the external agency. So, that alone has saved us over $50,000 a year. But we know that’s our bare minimum threshold of what we’ve saved. We know we’ve gone exponentially over that in terms of savings since — up to $1 million.”
The senior director of brand and creative in software said: “Agencies are now focused on strategy and big ideas, not the repetitive stuff. That’s a huge shift for us. We’re not using agencies for production work anymore. We still use them for high-concept campaigns. But the day-to-day — the volume — is all in-house now. Agency spend went from $500,000 to $300,000 over 18 months, and we ended our contract with one production vendor.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
Previously, the composite allocated 2% of its marketing budget to external agency spend.
With Canva, the composite reduces its agency spend by 25% in Year 1, 38% in Year 2, and 50% in Year 3.
Risks. The impact of this benefit will vary among organizations based on the following factors:
The organization’s scope of retained versus outsourced work.
The portion of production work that moves in‑house versus kept with agencies, which may be influenced by the percentage of marketers trained to use Canva and the complexity of the organization’s media strategies.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $2.2 million.
Reduced agency spend in Year 3
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Marketing budget | A1*A2 | $140,000,000 | $140,000,000 | $140,000,000 | |
| C2 | Percentage of budget used for agency spend before Canva | Interviews | 2% | 2% | 2% | |
| C3 | Agency spend before Canva | C1*C2 | $2,800,000 | $2,800,000 | $2,800,000 | |
| C4 | Reduction in agency spend with Canva | Interviews | 25% | 38% | 50% | |
| Ct | Reduced agency spend | C3*C4 | $700,000 | $1,064,000 | $1,400,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓15% | |||||
| Ctr | Reduced agency spend (risk-adjusted) | $595,000 | $904,400 | $1,190,000 | ||
| Three-year total: $2,689,400 | Three-year present value: $2,182,412 | |||||
Evidence and data. Interviewees said that with Canva, designers spend far less time on repetitive production tasks and more on strategic, creative, and brand governance work because they gained the ability to create scalable brand kits for teams to leverage and reuse. Business users too were able to learn and self-serve, which dramatically reduced the need for support and enabled faster, more consistent internal asset creation.
The director of marketing operations in real estate said using Canva reduced backlogs for designers, freeing their bandwidth, “We saw a 54% decrease in creative [design] requests year-over-year from around 1,200 to around 600 per year.” The interviewee said their organization attributed this reduction to marketers and agents producing their own assets in Canva.
The brand and content digital team lead in financial services described how designers working in more technical design tools can now easily replicate those templates in Canva for marketers to use, preserving designer time: “Once [designers] spend time thinking a design through and they launch this new strategy for a bigger campaign, they use complex design tools. They then take that output, standardize it, and hand it over to a marketer in a Canva template. So, yes, they’ll translate it into the Canva template for us so that we can change out the copy as we want. The campaigns that are going to have a longer shelf live and really run for a couple of months — that’s where designers will save the most time creating templates for marketers to take the reins.” The interviewee added that before using Canva, their organization’s designers spent about 35% of their time on production work but that percentage is now “probably only about 5%” with most of that time spent creating templates.
The head of global performance marketing in financial services said designers are now able to apply their expertise where it has the highest strategic impact: “We’re actually having designers work on projects that designers can uniquely add value in. And then, if we want to test some basic messaging with an ad template, we can do that without burdening the design team with their support. … If I had to guess, it would probably be 10 to 20 hours per week we saved per designer that they can now use to focus on higher-value work.”
Interviewees also explained that aside from marketers and designers, business users experienced productivity efficiencies with Canva. The director of marketing operations in real estate said: “We provide the brand kits, all the correct logos, the colors, and the templates. And then, from there, users can go and create within the confines that we give them. So, it’s definitely taken the weight off the shoulders of the team.”
Interviewees said business uses in various departments widely adopted Canva. The head of global performance marketing in financial services mentioned that recruiters at their organization use Canva for recruitment materials to enhance quality and production time. And the director of brand and creative in the software industry explained that production for sales team battle cards once took seven days but said they’re now produced in 1.5 days: “There are some real use cases of our sales people building out case studies for a large client. They’ll use Canva and some templates we built there to really tell the story.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
Previously, 40 designers dedicated 30% of their time to production work.
With Canva, the designers experience a 35% reduction in design requests in Year 1, a 55% reduction in Year 2, and a 75% reduction in Year 3.
Corporate users spend 5% of their time creating content in Canva in Year 1, 7.5% in Year 2, and 10% in Year 3.
Corporate users gain 30% productivity efficiencies in Years 1, 2, and 3.
The average annual burdened annual rate for a designer is $135,000.
The average annual burdened annual rate for a corporate user is $75,000.
Risks. The impact of this benefit will vary among organizations based on the following factors:
The number of assets needed and the frequency of requests from business users before using Canva.
The breadth, depth, and brand governance of the organization’s templates for routine tasks.
The organization’s integration of Canva with existing tools.
The portion of work that is routine/templated versus bespoke, high-concept, or regulated.
The organization’s ability to drive adoption, communicate new processes, and support business users through workflow changes.
The quality, frequency, and accessibility of onboarding, training sessions, and ongoing support provided by the organization.
Differences in productivity impact between power users and occasional users.
The region in which designers and business users operate.
The average burdened salaries for designers and business users.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.7 million.
Reduction in design requests in Year 3
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | Designers who respond to marketing and corporate user asset requests for creation, review, and redesign before Canva | Composite | 40 | 40 | 40 | |
| D2 | Percentage of time dedicated to requests before Canva | Composite | 30% | 30% | 30% | |
| D3 | Reduction in requests with Canva | Interviews | 35% | 55% | 75% | |
| D4 | Average burdened rate for a designer | Composite | $135,000 | $135,000 | $135,000 | |
| D5 | Productivity recapture for designers | Composite | 50% | 50% | 50% | |
| D6 | Subtotal: Designer productivity efficiency | D1*D2*D3*D4*D5 | $283,500 | $445,500 | $607,500 | |
| D7 | Business users outside of creative who leverage Canva | Composite | 535 | 710 | 885 | |
| D8 | Percentage of time spent creating content with Canva | Composite | 5.0% | 7.5% | 10.0% | |
| D9 | Efficiencies with Canva | Interviews | 30% | 30% | 30% | |
| D10 | Average burdened salary for a business user | Composite | $75,000 | $75,000 | $75,000 | |
| D11 | Productivity recapture for business users | TEI methodology | 25% | 25% | 25% | |
| D12 | Subtotal: Business user productivity efficiency | D7*D8*D9*D10*D11 | $150,469 | $299,531 | $497,813 | |
| Dt | Designer and corporate user productivity | D6+D12 | $433,969 | $745,031 | $1,105,313 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓10% | |||||
| Dtr | Designer and corporate user productivity (risk-adjusted) | $390,572 | $670,528 | $994,782 | ||
| Three-year total: $2,055,882 | Three-year present value: $1,656,615 | |||||
Evidence and data. Some interviewees said their organization reduced its legacy creative technology stacks as part of its Canva adoption by either decommissioning prior platforms or opting for partial license reductions or maintained coexistence with specialized legacy tools. Organizations that retained core design environments for professional designers primarily leveraged Canva to democratize asset creation for marketers and business users. The transition resulted in measurable licensing cost savings, streamlined IT enablement, and reduced risk from shadow IT by consolidating disparate user accounts under enterprise administration.
The vice president of brand in cloud communications mentioned that since Canva provides AI features, their organization discontinued its use of a separate AI image generation tool.
The senior director of brand and creative in the software industry described savings approximately $60,000 per year from decommissioning a legacy tool.
The director of marketing operations in real estate said their organization decommissioned two industry-specific solutions in favor of Canva. They explained this reduced platform fragmentation and heavy IT provisioning because single sign-on (SSO) enablement for the legacy environment was an IT project each time the tool was used in new markets. With Canva, they said this takes a few minutes.
The head of marketing in real estate said their organization reduced the number of licenses for a suite of technical design tools.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
Previously, the composite had 125 marketers leverage design tools at $200 per license.
The composite reduces its licensing by 50% in Year 1, 70% in Year 2, and 90% in Year 3.
Risks. The impact of this benefit will vary among organizations based on the following factors:
The organization’s costs for legacy design, creative, or asset management tools for creation and distribution.
IT support time required for onboarding, troubleshooting, and maintaining legacy systems and costs associated with provisioning, SSO integration, and user management in legacy environments.
The extent of the Canva adoption.
The organization’s strategy for which users leverage Canva licenses and what percent of the use is retained for legacy tools.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $38,000.
Reduction in legacy licensing in Year 3
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E1 | Marketers who leverage design tools before Canva | Composite | 125 | 125 | 125 | |
| E2 | Licensing per user | Composite | $200 | $200 | $200 | |
| E3 | Reduction in licensing | Interviews | 50% | 70% | 90% | |
| Et | Tools and licensing consolidation | E1*E2*E3 | $12,500 | $17,500 | $22,500 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓10% | |||||
| Etr | Decommissioned legacy licensing (risk-adjusted) | $11,250 | $15,750 | $20,250 | ||
| Three-year total: $47,250 | Three-year present value: $38,458 | |||||
Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:
Enhanced brand consistency for increased brand recognition and consumer trust. Interviewees said Canva elevated brand consistency across distributed teams and geographies and explained that Canva’s template-driven approach enables their organizations to lock down brand elements and ensure that even non-designers produce assets that adhere to corporate standards. The senior director of brand and creative in the software industry noted, “Our brand has never been more consistent across the world” due to consistent use of the right logos, colors, and fonts embedded in every template. This consistency reduced the risk of off-brand communications and strengthened the organization’s market presence and reputation, especially in industries where brand trust is paramount.
The head of marketing in real estate said, “For us as a [European-based organization], Canva has highly supported the implementation of brand assets across Europe to create consistent usage of the brand. In the past, barely any of our templates were used by agents. Now we can see usage of our templates across all our Canva licenses.”
Localized marketing to support new customer engagement. Interviewees said Canva expanded market and channel reach due to enablement of rapid localization, parallel campaign launches, and democratized creative production led to more customer experiences. They explained that by empowering local teams to adapt messaging and creative assets for regional audiences — often in a matter of minutes rather than days or weeks — their organizations gained the ability to engage customers with content that resonates culturally and contextually.
They also said shifting from generic, centrally produced assets to locally tailored campaigns fostered deeper connections with new customer segments and improved the effectiveness of market entry strategies. Interviewees noted that the previous costs and complexity of localization often meant new markets received limited or delayed campaigns if they received any at all. With Canva, local leaders gained ownership of creative execution, resulting in more authentic and timely customer interactions.
Support for improved employee satisfaction and engagement. Several interviewees reported anecdotal improvements to employee morale and job satisfaction. Designers who were freed from repetitive production tasks could focus on strategic, higher-impact projects while marketers and business users experienced the gratification of independently completing tasks and exercising creative expression. The vice president of brand in cloud communications described reduced internal friction: “[Designers and marketers are] happy on both sides, and we don’t have fights and arguments with all the teams because of SLAs and timelines and slowdown.”
Enhanced collaboration and communication. Interviewees said the Canva platform’s collaborative features (e.g., commenting, versioning, shared templates) facilitate smoother communication between marketers, designers, and other stakeholders. They noted reduced friction in briefing and feedback cycles, with visual mockups replacing lengthy email threads and ambiguous requests. This clarity accelerated project delivery and strengthened cross-functional relationships.
The brand and content digital team lead in financial services described how communication is more fluid between marketing and design because marketers can now create mockups in Canva to convey the vision: “I’ve heard designers say to marketers: ‘We love seeing what your vision is because sometimes verbally, we can’t see it as well. We think we’re on the same page until we come back to you.’ So, Canva made it easier to communicate and more comfortable to collaborate.”
IT labor savings. The director of marketing operations in real estate described reducing IT resource requirements for both implementation and ongoing management. They described how, compared to an industry-specific legacy platform, Canva’s cloud-based architecture and enterprise features (e.g., SSO integration) simplified user onboarding and system administration and reduced the process of provisioning new users to a matter of minutes due to SSO and centralized access controls with Canva. The interviewee also described ongoing IT involvement as new agents are added in new regions as very minimal with administrators spending perhaps an hour per month on maintenance tasks. This ease of setup and low-touch management freed IT staff for more strategic initiatives and accelerated the organization’s ability to scale Canva use across regions and business units.
The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Canva and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:
Empowerment and democratization of creativity. Interviewees said Canva’s interface and self-service templates democratized creative production and empowered marketers, business users, and sales teams to participate in asset creation. Interviewees described this as a culture shift in which creative bottlenecks were replaced by a sense of agency and ownership, and they explained hat giving non-designers the ability to quickly mock up ideas added a new dimension to project discussions that narrowed a visual language gap between non-designer creatives and designers. Having the ability to iterate on messaging and contribute to campaigns fostered more collaborative and innovative environments and broke down silos between departments.
Agility in responding to market opportunities. Interviewees said Canva’s speed and flexibility enable their organizations to respond rapidly to emerging opportunities, market shifts, or urgent communications needs. Interviewees highlighted having the ability to launch campaigns, adapt assets for new markets, and localize content without waiting weeks or months.
Scalability and continued global enablement. Interviewees explained that Canva’s cloud-based, template-driven model supports rapid scaling across regions and business units and described onboarding new countries or divisions in minutes rather than requiring complex IT projects with SSO and centralized asset libraries streamlining expansion. This scalability could be particularly impactful for global enterprises seeking to maintain brand integrity while empowering local teams.
Strategic reallocation of resources. Beyond direct cost savings, interviewees said Canva enabled their organizations to reallocate budget and creative energy toward higher-value initiatives. Because teams were freed from the constraints of legacy tools and agency dependencies, they can now invest in brand campaigns, research, and innovation, which can open the door to more ambitious projects in the future.
Budget advocacy. Effective budget advocacy for marketing is closely tied to a team’s ability to demonstrate operational readiness and creative velocity. The head of global performance marketing in the financial services industry explained that, prior to using Canva, creative production bottlenecks at their organization limited campaign volume and market reach, constraining the case for increased paid media investment. But they said with Canva, the marketing team could rapidly generate and localize a high volume of creative assets, enabling more robust A/B testing and expansion into new channels and international markets.
With marketing budgets being the first to see cuts during recessions, this capacity may improve the confidence of teams advocating for larger paid media budgets because leadership’s willingness to approve additional spend is often contingent on demonstrated ability to execute at scale and deliver measurable results to retain returns. The impact of Canva on creative velocity could be a cornerstone of budget advocacy and provide tangible evidence that additional investment could be effectively deployed and drive growth.
| Ref. | Cost | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ftr | Canva subscription | $5,513 | $220,500 | $275,625 | $330,750 | $832,388 | $682,254 |
| Gtr | Implementation and ongoing management | $118,360 | $14,850 | $14,850 | $14,850 | $162,910 | $155,290 |
| Htr | Training and change management | $8,316 | $241,164 | $228,690 | $270,270 | $748,440 | $619,614 |
| Total costs (risk-adjusted) | $132,189 | $476,514 | $519,165 | $615,870 | $1,743,738 | $1,457,158 |
Evidence and data. Interviewees’ organizations pay Canva Enterprise subscription costs based on the number of users. Pricing may vary. Contact Canva for additional details.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the composite organization pays subscriptions costs of $5,513 during the initial onboarding period, $220,500 in Year 1, $275,625 in Year 2, and $330,750 in Year 3.
Risks. The impact of this cost will vary among organizations based on the following:
The number of users added or migrated under the enterprise licensing.
Canva’s pricing model.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $682,000.
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Canva subscription | Composite | $5,250 | $210,000 | $262,500 | $315,000 |
| Ft | Canva subscription | F1 | $5,250 | $210,000 | $262,500 | $315,000 |
| Risk adjustment | ↑5% | |||||
| Ftr | Canva subscription (risk-adjusted) | $5,513 | $220,500 | $275,625 | $330,750 | |
| Three-year total: $832,388 | Three-year present value: $682,254 | |||||
Evidence and data. Interviewees said the main cost of implementing Canva was the time the internal design team time spent building a brand kit, locked-down templates, and a controlled sandbox for marketers. Across interviewees’ organizations, this setup took between one and three months before onboarding additional users, and some used IT management and support for integrations.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
During the initial period, two designers and two marketers spend 20% of their time on pilot and setup.
Implementation requires a week of effort from an IT resource.
Ongoing management requires 10% of the time of one designer FTE.
Risks. The impact of this cost will vary among organizations based on the following factors:
The organization’s selected pilot team and the number of resources dedicated to the organizationwide Canva deployment.
The number and complexity of brand guides and toolkit assets to be migrated to Canva.
The organization’s number of Canva users.
The organization’s frequency of updating or adding to branded assets
The organiation’s operating regions.
The average annual burdened salaries for marketing, design, and IT roles.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $155,000.
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | Marketers and designers involved in onboarding | Composite | 4 | |||
| G2 | Percentage of time spent building brand kit, locked-down templates, and sandbox environment | Interviews | 20% | |||
| G3 | Averaged burdened salary for a marketer or designer | Composite | $130,000 | |||
| G4 | IT time for integrations (hours) | Composite | $3,600 | |||
| G5 | Subtotal: Implementation effort | (G1*G2*G3)+G4 | $107,600 | |||
| G6 | Designer FTEs | Composite | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| G7 | Designer effort for updating, managing, and creating templates and brand kits | Interviews | 10% | 10% | 10% | |
| G8 | Average burdened salary for a designer | Composite | $135,000 | $135,000 | $135,000 | |
| G9 | Subtotal: Ongoing management | G6*G7*G8 | $13,500 | $13,500 | $13,500 | |
| Gt | Implementation and ongoing management | G5+G9 | $107,600 | $13,500 | $13,500 | $13,500 |
| Risk adjustment | ↑10% | |||||
| Gtr | Implementation and ongoing management (risk-adjusted) | $118,360 | $14,850 | $14,850 | $14,850 | |
| Three-year total: $162,910 | Three-year present value: $155,290 | |||||
Evidence and data. Training varied across the interviewees’ organizations depending on the culture. Some used cohort-based onboarding, office hours, weekly team sessions, and quarterly trainings to communicate brand updates or new templates. Each organization tailored its training approach to meet specific needs and contexts.
The head of global performance marketing in financial services described their organization’s training on Canva as cohort-based, starting with marketers who were creating ads. The actual training time for marketers was several weeks, and the process included recorded sessions and internal documentation and guidance on using templates and brand kits.
The brand and content digital team lead in financial services said their organization used weekly sessions for the team during the first month, followed by office hours.
The vice president of brand in cloud communications described ongoing trainings twice a year — sometimes quarterly — coinciding with the release of new templates or major updates. The department offers live sessions when new templates are released or when a new team joins, and recorded training videos are available on the company intranet for new users to access on demand. The interviewee remarked that most users become proficient with Canva quickly —often in a single day. The organization also sometimes provides special walkthroughs for teams new to Canva
The senior director of brand and creative in the software industry echoed the sentiment that Canva training was minimal because most users were already familiar with it.
The director of marketing operations in real state described how teams created a toolkit that links to existing Canva training resources. It also hosted several live training sessions during the first week of rollout, and these were recorded and made available for later viewing. The organization encouraged discovery and self-learning, and users spend an average of 30 minutes per week exploring Canva features.
The head of marketing in real estate described how agents at their organization received direct training from Canva, which was delivered in different languages for the European network at no additional cost to the company.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
The composite organization has 70 users in the initial period, 700 users in Year 1, 875 users in Year 2, and 1,050 users in Year 3.
Each user undergoes 2 hours of onboarding followed by ongoing 1-hour trainings per quarter to review updates and new templates releases.
The average hourly burdened rate for a user is $54.
Risks. The impact of this cost will vary among organizations based on the following factors:
The number of Canva users at the organization.
The organization’s approach to training and the frequency with which it updates templates and offers new design releases.
The region in which the organization operates.
The average salaries of employees in the organization’s region.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $620,000.
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H1 | Total Canva users | Composite | 70 | 700 | 875 | 1,050 |
| H2 | New Canva users onboarded | H1-H1PY | 70 | 630 | 175 | 175 |
| H3 | Onboarding training time (hours) | Interviews | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| H4 | Ongoing upskilling time (hours) | Interviews | 0 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| H5 | Average burdened hourly rate for a Canva user | Composite | $54 | $54 | $54 | $54 |
| Ht | Training and change management | (H2*H3*H5)+(H1*H4*H5) | $7,560 | $219,240 | $207,900 | $245,700 |
| Risk adjustment | ↑10% | |||||
| Htr | Training and change management (risk-adjusted) | $8,316 | $241,164 | $228,690 | $270,270 | |
| Three-year total: $748,440 | Three-year present value: $619,614 | |||||
| Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total costs | ($132,189) | ($476,514) | ($519,165) | ($615,870) | ($1,743,738) | ($1,457,158) |
| Total benefits | $0 | $2,287,447 | $3,144,274 | $3,736,282 | $9,168,003 | $7,485,195 |
| Net benefits | ($132,189) | $1,810,933 | $2,625,109 | $3,120,412 | $7,424,265 | $6,028,037 |
| ROI | 414% | |||||
| Payback | <6 months |
The financial results calculated in the Benefits and Costs sections can be used to determine the ROI, NPV, and payback period for the composite organization’s investment. Forrester assumes a yearly discount rate of 10% for this analysis.
These risk-adjusted ROI, NPV, and payback period values are determined by applying risk-adjustment factors to the unadjusted results in each Benefit and Cost section.
The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur.
From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a Total Economic Impact™ framework for those organizations considering an investment in Canva Enterprise.
The objective of the framework is to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision. Forrester took a multistep approach to evaluate the impact that Canva Enterprise can have on an organization.
Interviewed Canva stakeholders and Forrester analysts to gather data relative to Canva Enterprise.
Interviewed six decision-makers at organizations using Canva Enterprise to obtain data about costs, benefits, and risks.
Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ organizations.
Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees.
Employed four fundamental elements of TEI in modeling the investment impact: benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the increasing sophistication of ROI analyses related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology provides a complete picture of the total economic impact of purchase decisions. Please see Appendix A for additional information on the TEI methodology.
Benefits represent the value the solution delivers to the business. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of benefits and costs, allowing for a full examination of the solution’s effect on the entire organization.
Costs comprise all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value, or benefits, of the solution. The methodology captures implementation and ongoing costs associated with the solution.
Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. The ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated.
Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.”
The present or current value of (discounted) cost and benefit estimates given at an interest rate (the discount rate). The PV of costs and benefits feed into the total NPV of cash flows.
The present or current value of (discounted) future net cash flows given an interest rate (the discount rate). A positive project NPV normally indicates that the investment should be made unless other projects have higher NPVs.
A project’s expected return in percentage terms. ROI is calculated by dividing net benefits (benefits less costs) by costs.
The interest rate used in cash flow analysis to take into account the time value of money. Organizations typically use discount rates between 8% and 16%.
The breakeven point for an investment. This is the point in time at which net benefits (benefits minus costs) equal initial investment or cost.
Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists solution providers in communicating their value proposition to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of business and technology initiatives to both senior management and other key stakeholders.
The composite organization’s campaign budget efficiency is summarized in the table below. The composite’s marketers create asset variants in the Canva platform at no additional cost per asset (compared to agency pricing) and without designer reliance.
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| X1 | Marketing budget designated to media campaign spend | A4 | $35,000,000 | $35,000,000 | $35,000,000 | |
| X2 | Average assets per campaign | Composite | 50 | 50 | 50 | |
| X3 | Marketing assets before Canva | A7 | 3,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 | |
| X4 | Average cost of a campaign before Canva | X1/(X3/X2) | $583,333 | $583,333 | $583,333 | |
| X5 | Campaigns before Canva | X1/X4 | 60 | 60 | 60 | |
| X6 | Percentage decrease in average cost of a campaign with Canva | Absolute value ((AX8-AX4)/AX4)*100 | 60% | 69% | 75% | |
| X7 | Marketing assets with Canva | A12 | 7,500 | 9,750 | 12,000 | |
| X8 | Average cost of a campaign with Canva | X1/(X7/X2) | $233,333 | $179,487 | $145,833 | |
| X9 | Campaigns with Canva | X1/X8 | 150 | 195 | 240 | |
| X10 | Percentage increase in campaigns with Canva within original budget | ((X9-X5)/X5)*100 | 150% | 225% | 300% | |
| Xt | Campaign budget optimization | X4-X8 | $350,000 | $403,846 | $437,500 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓20% | |||||
| Xtr | Campaign budget optimization (risk-adjusted) | $280,000 | $323,077 | $350,000 | ||
| Three-year total: $953,077 | Three-year present value: $784,511 | |||||
1 Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists solution providers in communicating their value proposition to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of business and technology initiatives to both senior management and other key stakeholders.
2 Source: Marketing Budgets Survey, 2024, Forrester Research, Inc., April 2024.
Readers should be aware of the following:
This study is commissioned by Canva and delivered by Forrester Consulting. It is not meant to be used as a competitive analysis.
Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that other organizations will receive. Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own estimates within the framework provided in the study to determine the appropriateness of an investment in Canva.
Canva reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains editorial control over the study and its findings and does not accept changes to the study that contradict Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of the study.
Canva provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate in the interviews.
Anahita Sultana
January 2026
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