It doesn’t really matter whether we run a blog, YouTube channel or an Instagram account.

We all need graphics to make our content look nice and professional on these platforms.

But should we hire designers to create some stuff for us?

Well, we could but is it really necessary?

What if I told you that there are some great tools with lots of features that can bring your inner designer into life?

You won’t believe how easy and intuitive they are.

Want me to name some of them?

Fine, I’ll start with one – the one I consider the best – Canva.

I’ll show you how it works, how to use it and what designs can you create with it.

If for some reason you find that you’re not a huge fan of this tool then I’ll show you the top 10 Canva Alternatives.

Happy with that?

Fine, let’s go!

What Is Canva? Is It FREE To Use?

Canva is a very simple-to-use design tool that was founded in 2012. It uses a drag-and-drop format and provides access to photos, images, graphics, and fonts.

It can be used both by the professionals but also by complete beginners. The mission of Canva is to allow everyone to design anything and publish it anywhere.

Canva is FREE to use. What you’ll have to pay for is some premium images or other kinds of elements if you decide to use them.

How to know if a particular element is going to cost you? It’s actually quite simple. If you hover it and a crown icon appears it means it’s a premium image and you might be charged.

Just take a look below what it looks like.

Make sure you avoid these and you’ll be able to use Canva completely FREE.

However, if you’re a professional and need more from the tool you can check their entire offer here.

Is Canva Easy To Use?

To use Canva you have to create an account. To do that go to their main website here and choose how would you like to sign up.

Once you have your account you need to choose what you want to create. You can either choose the ‚Create a design’ button in the top left corner and pick your preferred type.

Or you can go for ‚Templates’ (it’s in the top left corner as well) and you’ll see exactly how they all look and what can you expect once you choose any of them.

The difference between the first method and the second is that in the first method you’ll start with a blank page (the dimensions, however, will be adjusted to the template type) and in the second method, you’ll already have a project ready to modify.

Let’s say you’ve chosen a logo template because you want to create one for your brand.

Just click on it and when another window shows up choose ‚Use this template’ in the top right corner.

Great, we’ve chosen the template. Let’s now check what we can do with it.

Canva Features

There are lots of options that allow you to edit your projects. You can change both the fonts and the design.

There are two menus that you can use to do it.

The first menu which is the one on the left allows you to choose elements you want to add to your project.

Take a look at what you can find there.

You can either search it by going through the topic groups or by using the search engine.

The next menu is the one above the project itself. In this menu you’ll be able to change the color, font, crop a picture, change position and many other things.

It looks just like this when you edit graphics.

And like this when you edit the text.

One more thing I’d like to show you here is what to do when you finish your Canva project.

When you want to save it so you could edit it later choose ‚File’ in the top left corner and press ‚Save’. Your project will be saved on your Canva account and you’ll be able to get back to it later.

On the other hand, if you want to download it or publish directly to Facebook, Twitter, etc., go to the top right corner and you’ll be able to do it there.

That’s it when it comes to the basics of the Canva features (to check more features go here). Let’s move on to more advanced design-related stuff.

Canva Design School

Well, I’m not going to teach you all about the design and go into the details of Canva features because there’s already lots of content about it.

Canva themselves created a subdomain with lots of FREE stuff that will help you to learn about their great tool.

It’s called Canva Design School and you can check it here.

It’s really awesome!

Let’s just show what are the designs that you can create with Canva.

What Can You Design With Canva?

Does designing with Canva have any limits?

Of course, it has but there are still hundreds of different things you can create with its help.

Let me show you how powerful it is and how can it support lots of different areas of marketing, business, and education.

Let’s check what can you create with Canva:

• blog posts graphics
• Pinterest pins
• Facebook covers
• magazine covers
• trifold brochures
• desktop wallpapers
• Twitter headers,
• Etsy shop covers
• business cards
• labels
• YouTube channel art
• book covers
• presentations
• letterheads
• certificates
• photo collages
• restaurant menu
• CD covers
• yearbook
• resume
• infographics

Well, to be honest, that’s not everything. That’s probably not even half of it.

That says something about how powerful Canva is and how many different projects can it be used for.

However, if for some reason you won’t find Canva helpful I have some decent alternatives for you.

Let’s check the top sites that are very similar to Canva.

Top 7 Websites Like Canva

Stencil

The first one is Stencil and it’s a cloud-based graphics creation tool that enables digital marketers to quickly and easily create better social media posts, blog images, emails, and other similar stuff.

Stencil Features and Pricing

The most important features are:

• more than 2 million royalty-free photos
• instant image resizing tool (lots of common presets available)
• integrated with automation tools like Buffer (it allows to schedule social media posts directly from Stencil)
• 100,000+ quotes available
• 2,700+ Google fonts available

When it comes to Pricing there are three plans available. Take a look below to see how do they compare.

So, this is the first tool on the list – it’s not necessarily the best as the order of these is random.

Let’s take a look at another one.

Snappa

The next tool is called Snappa and it offers similar features to Stencil but there are fewer photos and icons available to choose from. Still, you’ll be able to create most of the designs you need for digital marketing.

Snappa Features and Pricing

The most important features are:

• thousands of templates
• pretty decent library of photos, icons, and fonts (not as massive as Stencil’s)
• easy-to-use graphic editor
• integrated with schedulers like Buffer

When it comes to pricing it looks like this.

Fine, let’s check the next tool.

Design Bold

Another tool is DesignBold. It’s a freemium online design platform that allows everyone to create professional-looking visual content. So, whatever you’re up to and whatever design you need you can do it with this tool. It’s easy and you don’t need any experience to create something awesome.

Design Bold Features and Pricing

The most important features are:

• drag-and-drop interface with lots of keyboard shortcuts that lets you complete your projects in the minimum time possible
• just like other tools before it has a decent library of royalty-free images and pre-made templates
• you’re able to download your designs in high-resolution

When it comes to pricing it looks like this.

So it’s pretty much just like the ones we’ve shown before. The main difference is probably the library and the number of images and templates.

What’s next?

Crello

Crello is another tool like Canva created for marketing professionals, bloggers and entrepreneurs who need to create a lot of great-looking visual content. The interface is quite easy to use, too. Pretty much anyone can become good at this without additional training.

Crello Features and Pricing

The most important features:

• 20,000 pre-loaded templates
• very-easy to use

Check the pricing below.

Well, I won’t be writing about all of the features for each of those tools because they’re very similar. I’m trying to highlight what each tool is really good at.

The next one is Fotor, let’s take a look at it.

Fotor

This one is actually a photo editor. It does allow you to create some designs but it doesn’t have as many features as the ones we previously mentioned. It’s obviously cheaper, too. If you don’t need a more robust tool perhaps this one will work just fine for you.

Fotor Features and Pricing

The most important features:

• lots of photo-editing features
• pretty advanced collage maker
• a bunch of how-to guides

The pricing table looks like this.

So, this tool is not that advanced but can be quite helpful, too.

Let’s check another one.

PikToChart

The next tool is called PikToChart. It’s design software that allows their users to create infographics, presentations, posters and a few more things. It’s cloud-based, easy-to-use and doesn’t require any experience to create professional designs.

PikToChart Features and Pricing

The most important features:

• high-resolution downloads
• impressive templates
• really good when you’re creating infographics

Check the pricing below.

As you can see, PikToChart specializes only in a few areas of design. Focusing only on those helps the company to stand out from the rest.

PicMonkey

The last one – PicMonkey is a highly-rated photo editing software that is regarded as a Photoshop alternative. The difference is that it is way easier to use than Adobe’s tool. Recommended for bloggers and Instagram users because it allows to easily create lots of great graphics quickly.

PicMonkey Features and Pricing

The most important features are:

• great at editing photos and portraits
• tutorials to learn from

PicMonkey is also good at one thing in particular – editing photos. Even though it can do lots of other things it’s the main reason why people use it.

So, that’s it when it comes to the best sites like Canva. Let’s sum it all up now.

Should You Use Canva or An Alternative Design Tool?

Well, there aren’t many differences in features between the tools we’ve just talked about.

It’s other things that should stand out when choosing the tool we’d like to design with.

We should definitely look at the price, the number of features available in the FREE plan (so we could check the tool before purchasing it), the ease of use, the number of FREE photos, icons and graphics available for you to use and how many pre-made templates are there.

Well, Canva wins in most of these categories but it’s not the easiest tool to use. If you find it difficult that’s when you should consider using something else.

Just try some of them and decide for yourself.

The other thing is when you need a tool that specializes in a particular area like photo editing. Then perhaps you shouldn’t use these all-around tools and try to find something that is more focused.

To sum up, Canva has got some great alternatives that are full of fantastic features and very easy-to-use. My recommendation is to test them and decide which one fits you because the differences are very small.

Thanks for reading, hope it was helpful!

See you the next time!

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