How to Sell Canva Templates for Semi-Passive Income

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Last Updated on January 14, 2025 by Daniella

Learning how to sell Canva templates can be a rewarding way to add a new income stream.

Plenty of creatives do this as a remote side hustle to supplement their income or even earn a full-time wage from it, with some creators making $120,000 a year selling canva templates. Even though it seems easy to do, it’s an involved multi-step process that requires some planning and time to get a consistent profit rolling in.

Don’t sweat, that’s what this free guide is for — to help you understand the process of creating and selling digital products, and where to get started.

The best part is you can even build it up to be a semi-passive income stream, which means you make money with Canva passively using only a minimal amount of maintenance, updates, and admin work. This is exactly what I was able to do with a few Pinterest templates that I created in Canva, and sold on Etsy and my own Shopify store.

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Table of Contents

Canva Templates to Make and Sell

Canva templates are blueprints for digital products that people can use as shortcuts for a digital asset they are creating.

There are templates for tons of different documents, graphics, and more, such as:

Resumes
Travel guides
Slide decks
Cover letters
Social media images and posts
Business cards
eBooks
Infographics
Marketing flyers
Newsletters
Calendars
Posters and flyers
Party invitations
Gift tags
Printables
And more

If you want to specifically explore printable templates, check out this free course from my friend Julie who makes $1,000+ a month passively from selling printables on Etsy.

How to Sell Canva Templates in 7 Steps

Follow these steps to start your Canva side hustle. Keep in mind that these may seem overwhelming when thinking of doing them all at once. I suggest you take it day by day, allocating certain steps to certain days.

You will also spend a decent amount of time on research, but don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. As you continue to learn and become more confident in your abilities, jump in and start listing products. They may not be perfect but you can start running tests this way and slowly integrate changes and new templates based on customer feedback.

1. Sign Up For Canva

In order to sell Canva templates, you have to first sign up for Canva. You can play around with the free version but will need Canva Pro to be able to use all of their features and assets.

2. Research Products to Sell

Researching what to sell starts with what you are interested in. What are some ideas that you have for templates you want to sell?

Start looking up those types of templates on sites like Etsy and see which are the top-selling ones. Try to identify trends in terms of design styles, categories (social media, invitations, business,etc), and customer reviews. Use Etsy’s search function to examine keywords and filters, and check platforms like Pinterest and Instagram for popular design trends that align with what customers are looking for.

I personally love using the Pinterest Trends as an additional tool to tap into new template ideas.

3. Design Your Templates

Now that you have a better idea of what you want to create, it’s time to design your templates! If you are new to Canva, there will be a slight learning curve. However, this can easily be resolved by using Canva’s free step-by-step guides to help you create unique designs and get more familiar with the tool.

Pro tip: Use my Canva hacks reference guide for tons of shortcuts as you design your templates

4. Create a PDF With Your Canva Template Link (With Instructions).

Listing a Canva template for sale is a little different than other digital products sold online. Instead of a file of the template attached, the templates are delivered via the template link from Canva. This link isn’t something you can input into a selling platform, so you’ll need to create a PDF with the template link and instructions for how to use the templates.

Follow these steps to retrieve the template link in Canva:

Click the “Share” button at the top-right corner of the window.
Click the 3 dot icon to “See all”.
Click the “Template link” icon.
Click “Create template link”.
And – Wah lah!

5. Create Product Images, Description, and Price

Once you have your PDF with template link ready to go, it’s time to list your new digital product! Product images will need to be created with a written description of the product, how to use it, and it’s benefits.

A few ways you can do this are:

Use Canva to create “mockups” using the “mockup” design element.
Provide graphics with screenshots of the templates in action.
Graphics with examples of templates edited and used in different ways.
Write product descriptions with the help of ChatGPT and use prompts like “I’m an Etsy seller that is selling [name of the type of templates you’re selling] that include [include all of the details of what your templates can do, what they’re used for, and who are the likely people to use them]. Considering this and the attached product photos, create an etsy listing description for the product to appeal to potential buyers. Use these example listing descriptions from other top-selling templates that are my competition: [copy/paste the descriptions of top-selling listings similar to your product].”

You’ll also have to decide on a fair price to cover your costs and still make a profit.

For setting a price, first total up your monthly expenses for creating the product and maintaining your online store. Look at the current pricing of similar products online to get a good idea of competitive pricing

6. List Your Templates

It’s time to pick a selling platform and list your templates! It absolutely doesn’t matter when you list your products. You can list them all at once or slowly trickle them out over days or weeks — it’s up to you and you’re distinct marketing strategy.

As for where you’ll be selling them, pick a platform where you’re ideal customer would hang out the most at. That could be Etsy, Creative Market, TikTok Shop, Shopify, or other online selling app.

7. Promote Your Shop

Online sellers have a variety of options when it comes to promotion. They can post product images and videos of using the product on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. All are popular platforms for online shopping and can expand your shop’s reach tenfold when a video takes off.

Creating an email list for your shop for promotional emails can help keep a list of your shoppers and provide a way to advertise sales and other offers. Something like this may especially may come in handy if one of the platforms you sell on ends up going down or penalizing your store for whatever reason. In an event like that, you would at least have a list of potential buyers to bring with you when you set up a new store.

Where to Sell Canva Templates

Sell your Canva templates on handmade and digital platforms and websites like:

Etsy
Shopify
TikTok Shop
Teachable
ConvertKit
Gumroad
Stan Store

Etsy is an awesome option for listing your templates for sale for passive income. When a sale happens, Etsy will digitally deliver the templates to your customer and you make money!

Etsy has modest listing fees and they take a 6.5% of each sale. Be mindful of this when getting your store set up.

Shopify is what I use for my own online store and a great ecommerce platform to sell Canva templates on.

TikTok Shop is a perfect platform to use if short-form video is a part of your marketing strategy to sell your templates. It makes the most sense to have a shop attached to your TikTok to allow easy access and checkout to your ideal customers.

Teachable and Convertkit are great options to sell any digital product — Canva templates included. Teachable is a platform where you can sell both courses, digital products, and coaching services, while ConvertKit is an email marketing software with the ability to sell digital products to your email list.

Gumroad is a marketplace to sell digital products. Attract an audience and drive traffic to your Gumroad store where you sell your templates.

Gumroad handles the fulfillment and pays you when you make a sale.

There’s no fee to join Gumroad and no listing fees and they take 10% of each sale.

Stan Store is an awesome option to have a linktree-style one-page storefront that you can promote on places like social media, forums, and other places where you hang out online.

Become a Canva Creator and Get Paid For Your Canva Templates

Another option to selling Canva templates is becoming a Canva Creator and publishing your templates directly on the platform. As a Canva creator, you’ll be able to sell Canva templates in their marketplace.

Becoming a Canva creator is for:

Illustrators
Graphic designers
Web designers
Desktop publishers
Art directors
Layout artists
Typographers
Videographers
Artists
Photographers

You can publish templates for graphics, elements, and photos.

Once you apply and are accepted to the program, you’ll be able to start creating your templates and publish to Canva. Once accepted, they will be publicly listed on Canva for anyone to use.

Important note: You don’t actually sell your templates to Canva and you don’t sell to Canva customers. The way it works is you earn royalties based on the number of times people use your designs.

Why do people need Canva templates?

There are many reasons people turn to Canva templates, like convenience, flexibility, and as a cheap solution.

For example, if you need a professional resume for your job search, instead of paying a pro resume writer $500 to create your resume, you can use a professionally-designed Canva template to create a high-quality resume yourself.

It saves time. You’ll get professional-quality content. It’s easy to use, flexible, and offers a lot of variety.

Who buys Canva templates?

Anybody and everybody, literally.

Entrepreneurs and startups
Teachers
Parents
Event planners
Nonprofits and community organizations
College students
Marketers and social media managers
Freelancers
Bloggers and content creators
E-commerce store sellers

There’s a Canva template for just about any need you have, whether you’re trying to create and print out a checklist for your upcoming vacation or want to create a Pinterest pin design for your business.

How much does it cost to sell Canva templates?

It’s free to become a Canva creator. There’s no cost to join this creator program.

If you’re trying to sell your Canva templates as your own business, outside this creator program, there will be startup costs:

Business registration, licenses and permits
Tools, software, and resources (Canva yearly subscription, shop fees or monthly subscriptions to selling platforms, etc)
Marketing costs (email marketing software subscription, social media scheduling software, buying ads, etc)
Operations costs

Starting an online business doesn’t have to be as expensive as launching a brick-and-mortar business. You save a lot of money if you work from home. There’s also no warehouse or storage costs, no need to lease a space since you’re selling digital products, and additional savings, which is great. But, with any business, you will have startup costs to consider.

If you keep your costs lean, starting a Canva business for under $100 is totally possible to start your own side hustleor business.

How much do Canva template sellers make?

It depends. The more Canva templates you create and sell, the more you can earn — as a Canva creator or in your own online store or storefront.

This seller, Maliha from The Side Blogger makes $2,000/month from Canva templates. This Reddit thread shared earnings from Redditors ranging from $8,200 to $35,000, over the course of time they’ve been selling.

Kickstart Your Canva Side Hustle

Before you sit there feeling super overwhelmed with all of this information, take a deep breath. By no means are you meant to do this all at once. It’s a process.

I suggest you start with signing up for Canva and playing around with the tool as much as you can to get a good feel for it and the different ways you can use it. You’ll naturally get more ideas as your knowledge increases and then take each step day-by-day.

Once you’re ready to launch, don’t forget to legally cover your side hustle and keep track of your income, expenses, and taxes! I personally love apps like Quickbooks and Lunafi for this.

Alright, now run off into the sunset and get to creating!

What kind of Canva templates will you be designing and selling? Let me know in the comments!

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Daniella

Daniella is the creator and author of iliketodabble.com. When their wife Alexandra and them aren’t globetrotting or playing with their 7+ animals, they are dabbling and working towards a future of financial freedom.