With all the economic instability, now it’s the best time to diversify your finances with passive income.
Selling templates is a great passive income option because it’s ‘make once, sell forever’ type of product. Once you created a design, you can sell the same design unlimited times without doing much extra.
One of the best ways to do that is by selling Canva templates on Etsy. Etsy is full of opportunities and many shops are making thousands of dollars extra per month.
But I understand starting your own business comes with its challenges. In this guide, I’ll walk you through every step of opening your own Etsy shop selling Canva templates:
Can I Still Make Money On Etsy Selling Canva Templates In 2026?
Short answer: Yes, but the strategy has changed.
According to recent stats, Etsy has over 96 million active buyers. However, the days of throwing up a generic "Social Media Template" and making thousands are over. The marketplace is competitive.
In 2026, success isn't about selling general templates; it's about selling solutions to specific problems.
For example, instead of "Yoga Studio Instagram Templates," successful sellers are creating "Somatic Healing Client Intake Forms" or "Airbnb Host Welcome Books for Beach Properties".
Because of this shift toward hyper-specific niches, sellers who do their research are still making a significant passive income on Etsy.
Why Use Canva To Make Templates To Sell On Etsy
Canva is an online graphic design tool that’s easy to use and has lots of powerful (yet approachable) features. Compared to other tools like Photoshop and Illustrator, Canva is more beginner-friendly and fun to use. You’ll get access to over a million graphic elements even with the free plan of Canva, allowing you to make basically everything that you can think of.
Canva also allows you to create editable templates that customers can edit after they purchase. I’ll go through how to deliver your template design to your customers later in this guide.
Canva Templates That Sell Best On Etsy
While wedding invitations are beautiful, they are highly competitive. The biggest growth area right now is "B2B" (Business to Business) templates. Think about boring, functional documents that business owners hate making from scratch:
- Client Service Agreements / Contracts
- Employee Onboarding Handbooks
- Real Estate Listing Presentations
- Coaching Course Slide Decks
- Cleaning Business Price Lists
For more inspirations, click here to see these most popular digital product ideas to sell on Etsy.
How Much Can You Make Selling Canva Templates On Etsy
Successful Canva templates shops can make about $1-2k/month. And top selling template shops can earn $20-30k+ per month!
In my template shop, some of the listings that I made in an afternoon that have made me over $1,000 each:
There are a few factors that can greatly increase your chance of having a successful template shop:
- High quality designs
- Niche with high demand and relatively low competition
- Good SEO and listing optimisations
- Releasing new designs regularly
Do I Need A Canva Pro Account To Sell Templates
Contrary to many Canva template guides online, you don’t need a Canva Pro account to sell templates on Etsy. You are able to get the ‘template links’ even with a free account.
As mentioned above, you can make beautiful and sellable templates with just free graphics and free fonts.
That being said, there are some benefits for Canva Pro if you decide to have a template shop:
- Resize template with one click so you can quickly create new designs using similar fonts and elements
- Set up brand colour and fonts so that you can create a consistent look to your templates
- More cloud storage so you can scale your shop with more designs (5gb in the free plan vs 1tb/1,000gb in Pro plan)
- Schedule and plan social media posts ahead of time which is great for your shop’s marketing in the future
- Access to more fonts and graphic elements
Leveraging Canva’s AI Tools
One massive advantage sellers have in 2026 is AI. Canva’s "Magic Studio" can cut your creation time in half.
- Magic Switch: Once you create an Instagram Post template, use Magic Switch to instantly resize it into a Pinterest Pin or Instagram Story. This lets you sell "Bundles" (which have a higher order value) without doing three times the work.
- Magic Write: Stuck on the "lorem ipsum" filler text? Use Magic Write to generate realistic placeholder text for your templates. It makes your listing photos look much more professional and realistic to buyers.
Step-By-Step Of Creating Canva Templates To Sell On Etsy
Open Canva Account
After signing up, you will be taken to the dashboard where you can access everything you need. Before we design any templates, let’s head back to Etsy and do some market research of what we should create.
Market Research & Product Validation
This is an important step that a lot of Etsy shops don't pay enough attention to. It’s dangerous to skip this step because you’d possibly waste your time creating templates that not enough people want.
To determine the demand of a template, we’ll open Etsy and use the search bar. When you start typing in the search bar, there will be autocomplete suggestions of different keywords. Those come from the data of real Etsy shoppers. That means if the keywords appear in the autocomplete suggestion, there are quite a lot of Etsy shoppers searching for that product, which indicates good demand:
Another way is using Etsy market research tools like Alura. It gives you sale number estimates which reveals the best selling items/ideas under a product category. It also helps you analyse whether the level of competition is high or low.
For more tips of finding your perfect niche on Etsy, this free guide is for you.
Create Templates From Scratch Or Start With One Of Our Designs
Now let’s head back to Canva and design our first template! You can start by clicking the ‘Create a design’ button at the top right of your dashboard. Search the template that you want to create. In this example, we will start with a square product label.
Or if you want to speed up the process, simply copy templates from our GYC Canva Template Library to customise colour, fonts, and other elements. You’ll be able to have a collection of Canva templates ready in an afternoon.
Editing Your Canva Templates
Once you're in the Canva designer, rename your template design at the top of the designer. It’s good practice to keep your designs organised.
Add text by clicking the ‘Text’ on the left and ‘Add a text box’:
You can then change the font by clicking here:
You can change the background colour of your template by click the white area of your template, then the rainbow colour box at the top left above your design.
After changing the background colour and adding some extra text, here's what the template looks like:
Now let’s add some graphics to your template to make it stand out even more. On the left hand side menu, click ‘Element’ and search the graphic elements that you want to add to your design. Here I added abstract waves to put behind the text:
Repeat the process to create more templates on Canva. Once you’ve made a few beautiful designs, we can move on to open your Etsy account and shop.
Create Your Etsy Account & Open Your Etsy Shop
Click here to open your Etsy account and get your first 40 listings for free. Follow the steps on Etsy to set up your shop.
How Do I Share My Canva Designs On Etsy
Because customers need to edit the Canva templates themselves, we can’t just attach the finished file to the Etsy listing.
Instead, we need to give them a link so they can access and edit the design in their own Canva account.
Get Shareable Canva Template Link
Canva allows you to share a ‘template link’, which allows customers to click the link to make a copy of the design to their own Canva account.
To get the link, click ‘Share’ on the top right and then ’Template link’ to copy the link:
Create A "Customer Experience" PDF
Don't just paste the link on a blank page. Your delivery PDF is the first interaction the customer has with your brand after paying. To secure those 5-star reviews, your PDF should include:
- The Access Link: Clearly labeled (e.g., "Click Here to Edit Your Template").
- Mini-Tutorials: A link to a short 2-minute video showing them how to drag-and-drop photos into your specific template.
- Upsell/Coupon: A discount code for their next purchase.
Pro Tip: If you sell to beginners, include a "Canva Basics" guide in your PDF to reduce the number of customer support questions you receive.
Attach PDF To Etsy Listing
At the bottom of your Etsy listing, you can add your attach your PDF file in this section:
Fill Your Etsy Shop With Amazing Templates
I’d recommend having at least 20 listings to start. More listings mean that you can reach more Etsy shoppers by having a greater variety of target keywords.
The 20 listings don’t have to be 20 completely different products in different categories. Instead, they can be 5 products with 4 designs each, with each design changing the layout, colour, and font.
What's Next
Congratulations on finishing this Canva guide! Thank you for investing your time and energy. I hope you've gained some valuable tips and strategies from this guide.
While I've covered a lot of topics, there are still a lot to learn if you'd like to open your own digital product shop selling Canva templates.
Here is how I can help:
If you want to go more in-depth in setting up your shop for success, consider joining GYC Etsy Academy 2.0 where digital product is a big focus. You'll find resources specifically for building a digital product Etsy shop including:
- A full digital product course - "Etsy Passive Income Playbook"
- 41 PLR Canva templates that you can edit and sell straight away
- 158 Profitable Digital Product Ideas
- Listing photo template that helps you create clickable listings quickly
- Digital product product description formula
- Design delivery PDF, shop banner, listing description formula and more
When you are ready, click here to join and start building your digital product Etsy shop today.
FAQ
Are There Alternatives To Canva?
Other than Canva, there are some popular alternatives for selling templates and digital products on Etsy. They are Corjl, Templett and JetTemplate. I have design experience with all 4 tools, and I've put my thoughts and comparison in this guide.
Can I Sell Canva Templates For Commercial Use?
Yes, but you must be clear on the terms.
- Selling to End Users: You can sell a template to a business owner who uses it for their business (e.g., selling an Instagram template to a yoga teacher).
- Selling as PLR (Resell Rights): You cannot simply take Canva elements, put them on a page, and sell the "rights" for someone else to resell that template. The value must come from your design composition.
Note on "Free" vs "Pro" elements: Always filter for "Free" elements when designing for Etsy. If you use "Pro" elements, your customer will be hit with a watermark or a paywall when they try to save the design, leading to angry messages and bad reviews.
Can You Include Canva Pro Elements In Your Design?
You can include Canva Pro elements as long as the template you sell bring customers back to Canva. However, if your customers don’t have a Canva Pro account, they will need to pay $1 to unlock each of the Pro elements. This unexpected fee may cause dissatisfaction in customers. That’s why I recommend using only free Canva elements in most cases.
Can You Use Graphics & Elements In Your Design As-Is?
To sell a product using Canva Content, you must create an original design by combining the content with other design elements. You cannot sell Canva Content on a standalone basis, such as using a single element from the Canva library with minimal changes. And that applies to stock content like clipart where the graphic is taken directly from Canva.
Can I Use Canva Graphics For Print-On-Demand Designs?
Yes, you can use Canva graphics for print-on-demand (POD) designs as long as you have the right to use them. While you don't own the copyrights to the graphics and fonts used in Canva, print-on-demand services like Printify and Printful allow you to upload Canva designs as you have the right to use it (you designed and made meaningful changes to it).
