How to Sell Digital Downloads on Etsy Using Canva: Templates, Rules, and Delivery

When it comes to starting your own Etsy shop, there’s no doubt that you’ll need to create some great products. You may want to take a design class or learn the ins and outs of Photoshop and Illustrator. But if you’re looking for a simpler way, perhaps you can get away with just using free design tools.

You probably know of Canva as one of those tools. It’s an online graphic design tool that allows you to build up beautiful designs quickly. It’s also approachable — even powerful — in terms of what you can do with it.

If you are a new seller, then I recommend you begin your Etsy journey by creating designs with Canva. After all, it provides you with a practical starting point. If you want to sell digital downloads via Etsy, however, you’ll have to understand a few things first.

What Etsy Sellers Need to Know About Selling Digital Products

As of this writing, the biggest growth area within the Etsy marketplace is selling templates for businesses. For example, when we look at what clients would like, we see:

Client Service Agreements

Employee Onboarding Handbooks

Real Estate Listing Presentations

Coaching Course Slide Decks

Cleaning Business Price Lists

And so on. The key here is that these are either B2B templates or extremely specific niche templates.

Some categories have a lot of competition. Wedding invitations, for example, have been around forever. They are saturated with sellers. The most promising opportunities involve niche-specific products, which still carry enough demand to generate significant passive income.

So What Is Canva?

Canva is an online graphic design platform. While many people consider it a simple option, Canva actually has very powerful capabilities. And while Canva does allow for a high degree of customization (you can edit almost anything), Canva doesn’t offer a way to sell finished product files. However, there are two ways to sell something with Canva: sell Canva Pro Content and/or sell downloadable Canva templates.

Content License Agreement

If you’re selling any type of design created within Canva (either Free or Pro), there are conditions about what you can do with them.

For example, if you download an editable file from Canva, you can use it as-is to sell on Etsy. However, Canva gives you permission only to sell the template itself. It restricts how you use it.

That includes selling the template as part of another product. That means, for example, that you can’t sell a wedding invitation card along with a Canva-based design. In other words, you cannot sell a finished product using Canva as its basis.

There’s an extra condition for Canva Pro content. This applies not only to Canva Pro users but to anyone who uses a Pro content file. When using Pro content, you can only sell original designs made using that content. You also must choose from a list of products that include Canva Pro Content. There are also special conditions regarding how Canva Pro Content is used within a product for sale, too.

These apply to both Free and Pro users. As such, you don’t need to be a Pro user to use Pro Content, but if you do, you can.

Delivery Method

Now, here’s a critical detail: You can’t simply attach a static version of a template as a downloadable product. Customers will buy your design because they think they can customize it themselves, so customers expect the ability to edit it themselves.

Because of this, you can’t simply add an attachment with the finished file inside it. Instead, you need to provide a link to the editable Canva template that you’ve already created.

Pricing Your Products

Pricing can be tricky, especially if you’re new to running a small business. How much should you charge? Canva has a subscription cost, and Etsy charges fees to both buyers and sellers.

Both Canva and Etsy can be considered fixed business expenses. You need to calculate what you expect to sell, and divide the cost by the number of expected sales. Then, you can inform your minimum viable pricing.

Etsy digital products remain a viable channel for making money, though you will find that niche research determines whether you’ll profit or fail. According to a community seller, you’ve been using Canva over a year now, and are pursuing templates and planners on Etsy.