As of March 2024, Canva had purchased Affinity.

Canva is known as a non-professional design platform that enables creative users across a spectrum to create (usually) template-based graphics. Now, with the Affinity release, Canva is extending that effort into a more competitive, professional sector of the design market—one that a brand predominantly monopolises, that many, many designers do not like: Adobe. To add context for those who may not be aware, Affinity’s products were sold as a one-time purchase for roughly $50 per product. No recurring fees. After Canva has purchased the company, the branding was combined into just “Affinity”, with all tools being combined into 1 single piece of software, which was transformed into a freemium model. This means that all the tools in their entirety had become free *besides any AI-powered tools.

Hit em’ where it hurts

Canvas’s decision to make this impactful change will forever effect how people view, purchase and perceive Adobe, their community involvement and treatment and how they go about conducting business.

Ask yourself this. When was the last time you had to pay money to cancel a subscription—a subscription that isn’t a large sum or government-based? If you pulled an answer, I don’t know what you’re up to, and maybe look for alternatives, but if you said yes based on Adobe, that’s exactly why Affinity will have more impact in the design world than Adobe ever will.

A friend who wished to cancel his subscription, but was faced with an almost $300AUD fee. (Almost $200USD)

Adobe may of created software that was set as the standard across workspaces, but even beyond, we’ve seen freemium software like Figma overtake Adobe in many use cases within a lot of companies. Photoshop, Illustrator, they’re bulky, energy-costly software which takes a pretty decent time to learn. Figma is none of these, which makes it the perfect tool to be used in a growing ecosystem of business and design tools. Now, Affinity will be stepping in as a newer replacement for software that is so disgustingly paywalled.

The Adobe products won’t go anywhere, they’re still deemed industry leading, but with tools such as Affinity becoming free, younger generations and newer designers will turn to the software and community that exists to help support and enable their creativity—not one that wants every single cent out of them. Adobe products are good, I never would disagree, but for some software that costs an arm and a leg each month (or year), just for them to impose a cancellation fee? That’s truly insane, and that’s exactly why Affinity will go beyond. Canva originally made an impact from it’s ease-of-use and it’s affordability, being used (and sometimes taught) in classrooms and other workplaces around the world. Affinity becoming increasingly accessible now allows workplaces and institutions of education to share the software, putting the power of what Adobe products are capable of doing, right in their hands… for free.

Do you support us or not?

No matter who you ask, people use Adobe’s software based on the fact of what it’s capable of, paired with the industry-standard status it holds. If you’re a designer, when was the last time you heard someone compliment Adobe’s business practices? And no, don’t count ads. For company who has the responsibility of supporting the community they’re actively upholding, they are truly, truly, the worst. Weaponising your status to charge people an extreme amount of money is genuinely insane. Personally, i’d rather you admit you need the money and not be on my side than pretend you don’t need it and pretend to be on my side—nothing else screams “we support designers” quite like ripping them off, don’t you think?

I understand, they’re a company, they need to make money, that’s the goal at the end of the day, and you’d be right. They mustn’t be doing very well if they need all this money, right?

Okay.. we'll let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say their expenses must be massive, maybe they aren't as profitable!