Canva restructure affects 1,271 staff as growth slows for the first time in a decade

Canva, the Australian company behind the popular online design tool, is restructuring. 1,271 people, or 22% of its staff, are affected. Co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins told staff on 3rd November 2026 that this is “the hardest moment in our thirteen-year history”.

That 1,271 isn’t a layoff count, though. Some of those people will see their roles change. Some will be asked to move to central hubs, and the rest will leave. Canva hasn’t said how many fall into each group, so the number of jobs lost is lower than 1,271 and we don’t know by how much. Going by the 22% figure, Canva had about 5,800 staff before this.

Perkins gave two reasons. One is that “our growth has slowed for the first time in a decade”. The other: “New technology is transforming what people can create, how they create it, and what they expect from the products they use.” The note never uses the word AI, but AI is behind the forecast cut Canva made in August.

I have a stake in this one. I’ve been a big proponent of paying for AI services like Claude and ChatGPT, and a few days ago I was telling people I’ve dropped subscriptions I used to swear by because I now pay for Claude. Canva is one of them. Back in 2017, I was using it for most of my designs. Today I don’t pay for it and I don’t need it. So my first question was whether people like me are why Canva’s growth has slowed. If you still pay for it, yours is probably whether Canva is in trouble.

Canva is growing, just more slowly

Canva’s revenue rose 25.2% to USD 921.9 million, or about KES 120 billion, in the June quarter, and it had USD 1.47 billion, or about KES 191 billion, in cash at the end of June. It describes itself as profitable for nine years, although accounts it filed in Australia showed about AUD 1 billion, or about KES 91 billion, in statutory losses over three years. What changed is the target. In August, Perkins cut Canva’s growth forecast for 2026 from 30% to 20%.

She put that down to cost. Every time someone asks an AI tool to make an image or rewrite a slide, somebody pays for the computing power behind it. Most of Canva’s users are on the free plan, and Canva was sending much of that work to frontier models, the most advanced systems built by labs like OpenAI. Perkins told shareholders the “average cost of serving an AI task was too high” and that Canva was “relying too heavily on frontier models”. So it slowed the rollout of its AI features while it rebuilt them, and that slowed growth.

Canva has since cut the cost of each AI task by about 90%, on its own figures. It has also released its own models, Craft for generating images and Brush for editing designs, and it says Brush is 46% cheaper per edit than its previous tool. Then, the same week as the restructure, it expanded its deal with OpenAI, with no costs disclosed. Funny, OpenAI also runs ChatGPT, and chatbots like it can now put together a poster or a presentation.

Anthropic, which makes Claude, launched Claude Design in April. You describe the slides or one-pager you want, Claude builds a first version, and you refine it by chatting or editing directly. Canva was part of that launch. Perkins is quoted in the announcement, because you can send a Claude Design draft into Canva, where it becomes an editable design. The way I read it, Canva’s bet is that the idea starts in a chatbot and gets finished in Canva. That only works if you still need the finishing step, and I’ve stopped needing it. Anthropic’s plan page now lists Claude Design on the free tier too.

Canva’s backers have lowered its value. It’s a private company with no share price, so that value is an estimate. Blackbird and Airtree, two of its earliest investors, marked it down to USD 34.9 billion, or about KES 4.5 trillion, from a peak of USD 42 billion, or about KES 5.5 trillion. On a podcast in August, software investor Jason Lemkin said AI agents “just routed us around Canva” and guessed it’s worth about USD 12 billion, or about KES 1.6 trillion. That’s one investor’s guess. In February, we wrote that Canva was not slowing down and gave its valuation as $65 billion. That figure was in Australian dollars, and it’s the same USD 42 billion peak. Our headline hasn’t aged well either.

Are people like me the reason?

I can’t show that. Canva hasn’t said how many people have cancelled, and the reason Perkins gave investors for the forecast cut was AI costs. She says demand for the new AI features “significantly exceeded” expectations. Canva says it has more than 265 million monthly active users. On OneLittleWeb’s traffic count, its website got 10.5 billion visits between May 2025 and April 2026, up 15.5%, against 3.4 billion for Claude. So my cancelled subscription proves nothing about the rest of them.

It also isn’t the cheaper option if Canva is all you’re replacing. Canva Pro in Kenya costs KES 6,800 a year, and in February we found daily and weekly passes starting at KES 130, payable through M-Pesa. Claude Pro is USD 200 a year, or about KES 26,000, before tax. That’s nearly four times as much, and it comes with usage limits. So paying for Claude only saves you money if it’s also replacing other things you pay for. It did for me. If you just make the odd flyer, Canva’s free plan or a KES 130 pass will do, and if your team shares brand kits and leans on Canva’s 3.6 million templates, I wouldn’t switch yet.

The note says nothing about prices, plans or features, so I wouldn’t expect your account to change. It’s about how Canva organises itself. Product, Growth and Platform teams merge into one, narrow specialist roles fold into broader ones, and Sydney becomes the main base for more product teams. From January, most hybrid staff are expected in the office two to three days a week. Canva has teams in 37 countries and hasn’t said whether anyone in Kenya is affected. Its African base is a team of nine in Rosebank, Johannesburg, as of last November.

Those leaving get at least six months’ salary, including statutory entitlements, wherever they are, plus 12 months of healthcare in countries where Canva already provides it. They keep their work MacBooks and can apply for a USD 10,000 grant, or about KES 1.3 million, to start something of their own, with Canva taking no equity. This isn’t the first cut this year either: 32 finance roles went in January. Canva holds a company-wide meeting on 10th November.

I’d bet Canva gets through this, with that much cash and an AI task that now costs a fraction of what it did. The harder question for it is what people will pay for once a chatbot can do the first draft. I’ve given my answer by cancelling. Canva’s growth over the next few quarters will show how many people agree.