6 Profitable Canva Digital Products to Sell Online in 2021
A great idea + minimal graphic design skills = money in your pocket
Disclaimer: I’m not a Canva affiliate and there are no affiliate links within this article. I’m just a Photoshop-inept writer that has used Canva for over 3 years and swears by it.
Whether you’re a blogger, programmer, or public speaker, you can transform your expertise into hard-earned cash by selling digital products. If you have an awesome idea but lack the design skills, I’d recommend checking out Canva.
As a writer, it’s helped me create profitable digital products like wall art designs — even though I don’t know the first thing about Photoshop.
Canva is an online graphic design platform. It has gained massive popularity in recent years due to its free plan and easy-to-use interface.
Canva also has a pro plan that costs $12.95 a month. I used the free plan for over a year before I chose to invest in the professional plan. I’d recommend investing in Canva Pro due to its extra resources (custom templates, the ability to upload your own fonts, etc.) It makes creating digital products a lot easier.
Decide what works best by compare and contrasting the plans. See what features you need for your specific product idea — it all depends.
I hope the digital products to sell online below inspire you to repurpose your expertise and bring home the turkey bacon.
1. Wall art designs
Gone are the days of flipping through boring “chase your dreams” or “live, laugh, love” posters at Walmart or Target. Today, customers download unique wall art designs online to print at home, pick up from a local store, or get sent straight to their door.
With Canva, you can make wall art designs that print crisp, wall-length posters. You also don’t need Basquiat-level artistic skills to create wall art that sells. Research your preferred market, come up with snappy quotes, and make wall art with personality — that makes a house feel like a home.
2. Planners
Help the world get a little more organized by creating a digital planner. The beauty of creating a planner is that there are many different themes to choose from (financial, daily to-do lists, event planning, family, etc.)
What you include will depend on the theme. For example, if you created a Medium blog planner, you may include a monthly calendar to schedule posts, space for brainstorming ideas, and daily to-do lists for items like researching, writing, and editing.
3. Social media graphics
By creating social media graphics you can help influencers and businesses captivate audiences and get more eyes on their work. Canva provides size templates for every social media platform imaginable.
Consider creating packs of graphics for a specific platform (i.e. a pack for Instagram posts and stories). With your graphics, your customer can have a ready-made professional social media plan ready to post.
4. eBooks
After you’ve written your eBook, Canva can help you perfect its design and make it ready-to-sell. You can create everything from your cover to table of contents to its pages within the online platform.
To keep your book’s look consistent, you can create a brand kit within Canva that keeps your book’s primary colors and fonts in one place.
5. Media kits
In the influencer age, a media kit is a hot ticket item. Consider it a resume, portfolio, and business card all in one. A media kit puts all the essential information that influencers and bloggers need to pitch to brands in one place. This includes social reach, demographics, biography, and contact information.
The media kit also includes jobs they’re willing to do, including creating sponsored content or participating in an event.
6. Canva templates
As Canva is a widely used design platform, I’ve seen many creators sell Canva templates. Here are a few ideas I’ve seen on e-commerce platforms:
- Social media post templates
- Resume templates
- Email signature templates
- E-course templates
Creating a template makes an opportunity for passive income — as you’re able to create the templates once, post them, and forget them.
Trademarks and copyright
Triple-check that you’re allowed to legally use every element in your design commercially.
Templates: Selling Canva’s templates isn’t allowed — and neither is selling a graphic that you created using their templates. Start from scratch and create a design that is 100% yours.
Photos, font, music: Check the license of each element you use to ensure you can use it for commercial use. For example, if you’re using a photo from Pexels read through Pexels’ licensing information first.
Free media: Free media is labeled “free” in Canva; unlike elements labeled with a price or with a crown and the word “pro.”
Canva states that “All free media on Canva can be used for free for commercial and noncommercial use” but also that “We can’t guarantee that any free media have the appropriate releases for commercial use.” Exercise due diligence before selling the product.
Also — triple-check the trademarks of the phrases that you’re using on your products. You would be surprised to learn what phrases are trademarked. It’s way more than the names of businesses, popular TV shows/movies, and names of celebrities.
To learn more about trademarks, check out the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website. To perform a search, use the TESS (otherwise known as the Trademark Electronic Search System.)
I’ve run into copyright issues in the past and trust me, you don’t want that smoke. Respect the integrity of artists — I know you would want them to do the same for you.
Takeaways
With creativity as your sidekick, you can create a wealth of digital products to sell online with Canva.
Here’s a quick rundown of the products mentioned:
- Printable wall art
- Planners
- Social media graphics
- eBooks
- Media kits
- Canva templates
When choosing the right digital product for your business, it differs from person to person. I’d recommend finding a product that merges your interests with what your audience is looking for. There you’ll find a product you’ll be happy to invest your time into.
