Ending 2025 with strong momentum, canva growth accelerated as the design platform leaned on artificial intelligence, enterprise demand, and expansion into new markets.
Surging user base and recurring revenue in 2025
Canva closed 2025 with a 20% increase in monthly active users, a jump largely driven by rising use of its AI features. According to the company, the platform surpassed 265 million monthly active users and more than 31 million paid users during the year.
This expanding user base pushed Canva’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) to $4 billion by the end of 2025. Co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht shared the figures with TechCrunch during Web Summit Qatar. Moreover, he noted that the company’s B2B segment, which covers customers with over 25 seats, grew 100% to reach $500 million in ARR.
While the majority of revenue still comes from North America, Canva continues to see steady international adoption. However, management is clearly prioritizing both individual creators and enterprise teams as it scales, using subscriptions as the main monetization engine.
International expansion and pricing strategy
The company is also targeting price-sensitive regions to convert more free users to paying subscribers. To that end, Canva has introduced lower-priced subscriptions in markets such as Pakistan, Uruguay, Morocco, and Jamaica. These offers aim to make its design and collaboration suite more accessible while preserving long-term revenue potential.
That said, this international approach is not only about discounts. It also supports broader Canva adoption among small businesses, schools, and creators in emerging economies. As those segments mature, the company expects higher conversion to premium plans and more consistent ARR.
AI at the center of the product vision
Obrecht said the company’s AI bets are already paying off. Last year, Canva launched a tool that lets users create mini apps and websites using AI, extending the platform beyond traditional graphic design. The tool has already attracted more than 10 million monthly active users, underlining growing demand for automated creation workflows.
The feature has been so successful that Canva is now reimagining its core identity. In Obrecht’s words, the company is moving toward being an AI-first platform, acting as a kind of “design agency in your pocket.” Moreover, this reframing underscores how central machine learning has become to its competitive positioning.
According to Obrecht, the company started with a design platform augmented by AI features. However, he said the roadmap is shifting so that the business increasingly resembles an AI platform with design tools layered on top. In this new model, he compared the experience to a “cursor for design,” where intelligent assistance guides every step of the creative process and supports sustainable canva growth across segments.
Competitive landscape and bundled creator suites
This evolution comes as competition intensifies from major players including Adobe, Freepik, and Apple. Apple, for instance, has been pushing a full creator stack by bundling Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage inside a $12.99 per month Creator Studio offer.
However, Canva’s focus on browser-based simplicity, templates, and AI-led workflows differentiates it from traditional desktop-heavy suites. The company is betting that always-available, cloud-first design tools combined with smart automation will attract both casual users and large organizations under long-term subscriptions.
Deeper chatbot integrations and discovery channels
Canva is also expanding distribution through integrations with leading chatbots such as ChatGPT and Claude. By October 2025, users had conducted more than 26 million conversations with the Canva app on ChatGPT, according to the company. Moreover, Canva said it ranked among the top 10 referred domains from ChatGPT, highlighting how conversational AI is becoming a powerful discovery and engagement channel.
These chatbot touchpoints let users generate designs, presentations, and other assets directly from natural-language prompts, without opening Canva’s main interface first. That said, the integrations also create a loop that can drive users back into the core product, boosting both engagement and monetization opportunities.
Overall, Canva closed 2025 with rapid user expansion, rising ARR, and a clear pivot toward AI-centric experiences. If it can sustain innovation in automation, enterprise features, and global pricing, the company appears well-positioned to defend its lead in online design against a growing field of heavyweight rivals.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2026/02/18/canva-growth-2025-ai-enterprise/
