Canva and Penpot end up in the same comparison because both put a design canvas in a browser, but the pricing pages describe two different businesses. Canva's US pricing page lists Free at US$0 per year for one person with a drag-and-drop editor, 1,000+ design types, 1.6M+ templates and 4.7M+ photos, videos and graphics; Pro at US$144 a year for one person, adding AI tools for resize, translate and background removal, 3.6M+ templates, 141M+ premium assets, 100GB of cloud storage and ten times the AI allowance of Free; and Business at US$250 a year per person with team admin, 500GB of storage, 20x the Free AI allowance, Flourish access and a 10% discount on print orders. Enterprise sits above that on custom pricing with 1TB of storage and a dedicated success manager.
TL;DR
Canva sells speed: a free tier with 1.6M templates, Pro at US$144 a year for one person and Business at US$250 a year per person, with 141M premium assets and AI tools on the paid plans. Penpot sells ownership: an open-source design tool whose cloud Professional plan is $0 per user per month, with Unlimited at $7 per editor per month capped at $175 a month, Enterprise at $25 per member and a self-hosted option you run yourself. Choose Canva for marketing and social output at volume, choose Penpot for interface design work you want to host, export and govern yourself.
Penpot's pricing page is a different shape entirely, and the second line is the whole pitch: Professional is $0 per user per month and described as free and fully featured, the same core features as the paid plans, with no file limits, unlimited teams and open source underneath. Unlimited is $7 per editor per month with an explicit cap of $175 per month no matter how large the team gets, and it includes a 14-day trial. Enterprise is $25 per member per month for organizations that need SSO, IP whitelisting, choice of hosting region and centralized administration, also with a 14-day trial, and there is a Private Server tier at $50k a year for dedicated infrastructure. All figures are in USD, and discounts exist for non-profits, education and open-source projects.
The structural difference is where the files live and who can change the product. Penpot ships a self-host tab on the same pricing page — you run the server, you hold the designs, and the vendor's own page frames the trade as no vendor lock-in. Canva's equivalent is its cloud: templates, brand kits and AI tools are the product, the assets are licensed to you, and the tier you pay decides how many of them you can use. That also explains the audience split: Penpot's own site links a Canva comparison page because it meets design teams moving out of template libraries, while Canva's page leads with education and non-profit pricing because its volume comes from people producing content daily rather than designing systems.
| Feature | Canva | Penpot |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | US$0 a year for one person: 1.6M+ templates, 4.7M+ assets, 1,000+ design types | Cloud Professional at $0 per user per month: free and fully featured, no file limits, unlimited teams |
| Entry paid plan | Pro at US$144 a year for one person (US$12 a month equivalent) | Unlimited at $7 per editor per month, capped at $175 per month for the whole team |
| Team plan | Business at US$250 a year per person: team admin, 500GB storage, 20x the Free AI allowance | Enterprise at $25 per member per month: SSO, IP whitelisting, hosting region, central admin |
| Top plan | Enterprise on custom pricing: 1TB storage, dedicated success manager | Private Server at $50k a year for dedicated infrastructure and enterprise support |
| Assets | 141M+ premium photos, videos, graphics and audio; 3.6M+ templates on Pro | No bundled stock library; you bring assets and design systems, with plugins and libraries supported |
| AI | AI tools for resize, translate and background removal on Pro; AI Pass sold as an add-on | AI features are not the headline of the pricing page; the product leads with design and code export |
| Hosting | Cloud only, with annual and monthly billing toggles (page advertises savings from 16%) | Cloud, self-hosted, or a $50k/year private server; hosting region selectable on Enterprise |
| Ownership | Assets licensed through Canva's terms; export to standard formats | Open source, no vendor lock-in, designs and code owned by you |
| Discounts | Education and non-profit organisations get most premium features free | Non-profit, education and open-source discounts available on application |
| Who it suits | Marketing, social, print and everyday business design | Product and UI design teams that need prototypes, design systems and code export |
Pick Canva if
US$144 a year buys one person 141M premium assets, 3.6M templates, background removal and resizing that turn an hour of layout work into minutes, and Business at US$250 a year per person adds the admin controls a marketing team needs. It is the faster route from blank page to published asset, and the licence is a subscription you keep paying to keep the library.
Pick Penpot if
Free at $0 per user for the tool itself, $7 per editor for Unlimited with a $175 monthly ceiling, and a self-host option that keeps the design files and the server in your hands. You give up Canva's template volume and stock library, and you get an open-source interface design tool whose pricing does not scale with how many people touch the file.
Figures were read from canva.com/en_us/pricing and penpot.app/pricing in October 2026. We did not collect or verify independent user reviews, ratings or community sentiment for either tool, so none is quoted on this page.
For the tool, yes: Penpot's cloud Professional plan lists $0 per user per month and is described as free and fully featured, with no file limits and unlimited teams. Canva's free tier is also genuinely free at US$0 a year, but the premium asset library, AI tools and larger storage arrive with Pro at US$144 a year per person.
Penpot. Ten editors on Unlimited at $7 per editor come to $70 a month, under the plan's $175 monthly cap. Ten people on Canva Business cost US$250 a year each, or US$2,500 a year, because Canva prices business seats per person and Penpot prices per editor with a ceiling.
Yes. The pricing page has a self-host tab alongside the cloud plans, and Penpot is open source, so you can run the server on your own infrastructure. Canva has no self-hosted option; it is a cloud product with annual or monthly billing.
No, and that is the main trade-off. Canva lists 1.6M+ templates on Free and 3.6M+ on Pro with 141M premium assets. Penpot ships the design tool, libraries, plugins and code export, and expects your own components and design system to be the starting point.
Canva prices Enterprise on custom pricing with 1TB of storage and a dedicated success manager. Penpot lists Enterprise at $25 per member per month with SSO, IP whitelisting and hosting region choice, and a Private Server tier at $50k a year for dedicated infrastructure.
Penpot: it is built for UI work, with design tokens, CSS grid and flex layouts and a code export path on the product page. Canva exports images and documents for publishing; it does not position itself as a handoff tool for engineers.
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