Visme vs Canva: A graphic design tools comparison

Businesses looking for an easily accessible graphic design tool are likely familiar with two popular solutions: Visme and Canva. Amateurs and professionals alike use these design suites due to their ease of use and flexibility. But which is the better solution for you and your team?

The solution you choose depends on what you’re looking to create (e.g., presentations, infographics, or social media posts) or the features you need most (like templates or powerful integrations). That’s why we broke down some of the key differences between these two solutions; with this Visme vs Canva comparison guide, you can find the right design tool for you.

Introducing Visme and Canva

Visme and Canva are digital design software created to make graphic design more accessible. Both solutions are cloud-based (meaning you’ll need an internet connection to access them) and offer a browser or app version.

While these two design platforms share many similarities, they each have their own unique strengths and target audience. Visme, for example, is much more complex than Canva. Features like data visualization and professional presentation tools make Visme an ideal choice for more experienced users or business professionals.

Canva, on the other hand, is simpler to use, featuring drag-and-drop tools and a vast template library, as well as tools for designing within popular formats like social media posts. This makes it an ideal solution for users new to design or small businesses looking for a straightforward tool.

Comparing features of Visme vs Canva

These two solutions may share many of the same core design software features — like collaboration tools, sharing capabilities, and design features — but their interfaces and exact capabilities vary in ways that may be essential to your decision. Let’s take a look at some of the key features of Visme vs Canva.

Visme

Visme is a solution designed for data-driven professionals looking for advanced tools like

• Advanced data visualization: Users can access the benefits of data visualization through Visme’s dedicated tools, which help facilitate data visualization best practices. Whether you’re working with charts, graphs, maps, or tables, Visme makes visualization simple.
• Powerful presentation features: Visme offers helpful presentation tools that make it popular among users, including more than 1,000 presentation templates to speed up the design process.
• AI-driven design: Visme places a heavy emphasis on its AI capabilities, including generative design and text tools, to streamline the design process and increase efficiency.
• Interactive content: One of Visme’s advanced capabilities is its interactive content creator. With Visme, users can create interactive content like maps, charts, infographics, and more to increase user engagement.

Canva

• User-friendly design suite: One of the primary reasons users love Canva is its drag-and-drop design interface. Canva’s simple design tools make graphic design accessible to users of all experience levels.
• Social media tools: Marketers, specifically social media marketers, appreciate Canva’s wide range of social media design options. From TikTok videos to Facebook posts, Canva streamlines content creation for social media with premade templates and a content planner that allows users to schedule posts and post directly to various social platforms.
• Template library: Canva offers users millions of free templates covering everything from docs to business cards. This wide range of pre-designed sets Canva apart from Visme in usability.
• Integration options: Another differentiating feature of Canva is its integration options. Canva connects with hundreds of popular integrations — enhancing its utility and compatibility with existing tech stacks.

One of Canva’s top integrations is the Jotform integration, which allows you to seamlessly create and add a form to Canva designs. These forms can provide powerful solutions with advanced features like

• E-signature collection through Jotform Sign
• Payment processing through popular payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, Square, and more
• Automated workflows through Jotform Workflows
• Conditional logic

With Jotform for Canva, you can easily design visually appealing forms that are consistent with Canva designs using its drag-and-drop form builder or one of 10,000-plus free pre-built form templates.

Usability and learning curve

User-friendliness is another key difference between Visme and Canva. Although their interfaces are relatively similar overall, Canva is generally considered easier to use, particularly for beginners. 

While useful, Visme’s advanced suite of features can be overwhelming for new users with little to no design experience. However, Visme does offer helpful educational tools to reduce user frustration, including video tutorials, e-books, webinars, and even online courses.

When it comes to accessibility, both tools have similar levels of functionality, with both offering an Android and iOS app for mobile devices and limited offline capabilities.

Pricing and plans

Each of these solutions offers multiple pricing options designed for teams with varying budgets and needs. Both Visme and Canva have a free version providing basic features. However, Canva’s free version is known to be much more robust than Visme’s. Here are a few notable features of each solution’s most basic plan:

• Visme: Unlimited projects; limited templates and designs; regular support
• Canva: More than 2 million templates; drag-and-drop editor; over 1,000 design types; access to 4.5-plus million stock images; limited AI tools; printing and delivery; 5 GB of cloud storage

From there, the two solutions each split into similar paid pricing tier structures: one solution for individuals, one for teams, and another for enterprise organizations. However, Visme also offers a starter version of their program with fewer advanced features.

In a direct pricing comparison, Canva is more affordable — especially for teams. It’s also worth noting that Visme’s team plans are limited to teams of three or five, while Canva offers team pricing for teams of up to 100 users.

Here’s a breakdown of Visme vs Canva’s remaining pricing structures and the key features of each plan (prices shown are for annual billing):

Visme

• Starter: $12.25/month. Includes all premium assets, full access to templates, downloads in multiple image formats, and more.
• Pro: $24.75/month. Includes PowerPoint, HTML, video and GIF file downloads, analytics, most integrations, brand kit, privacy controls, and more.
• Pro Team: Either $72/month for a team of three or $120/month for a team of five. Includes all the same features as the Pro tier.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing. Includes project management tools, a custom-subdomain, increased security, a dedicated customer success manager, and all other features.

Canva

• Canva Pro: $120/year ($10/month). Includes unlimited access to premium templates, more than 140 million visual assets, 1,000 brand kits, translation, 1 TB of cloud storage, and more.
• Canva Teams: $100/year (around $8 per month) per user. Includes real-time collaboration tools, team reports and insights, data import, and more.
• Canva Enterprise: Custom pricing. Includes advanced security, admin controls, single sign-on, custom apps, a dedicated customer success manager, and all other features.

Overall, in terms of value for your money, Canva is likely the better choice. It offers more design features in each plan and costs less to maintain, especially as your team grows. However, if Visme offers features your team needs, the extra cost maybe be worthwhile if they align with your priorities.

Limitations of Visme vs Canva

Although both solutions can offer your team a wide range of benefits, they each have shortcomings as well. For example, Visme users have encountered issues due to general limitations on lower-tier plans, including limited access to features like

• Templates
• Brand kits
• Integrations
• Storage

This, coupled with its high prices, can make Visme a less appealing option for teams on a budget. Alternatively, Canva has the advantage of budget-conscious accessibility. But the Canva interface is still somewhat simplistic when it comes to advanced features and can be limited in other areas, such as

• Offline use
• Collaboration
• Customization

Each of these solutions still offers strong core design software features, but depending on your needs, you may find one tool’s shortcomings easier to swallow than the other’s.

G2 ratings and key considerations

Sometimes the best way to assess a platform’s pros and cons is to hear it directly from other users. According to G2, a popular software review site, users rated Visme and Canva 4.5 and 4.7 out of 5 overall, respectively.

Users have also made note of three key categories in Canva and Visme reviews:

1. Customer support: In this arena, Visme is considered to have better customer support options, even featuring a live chat option (which Canva doesn’t).
2. Ease of use: Canva’s simple interface makes it the clear winner here.
3. Value: Canva’s prices are considerably lower while offering a similar level of functionality to Visme. Except in the case of users seeking more advanced features, Canva is often considered to provide better value overall.

Choosing between Visme vs Canva

Overall, the difference between these two solutions comes down to three factors: budget, functionality, and ease of use. For experienced users who don’t mind paying a little extra, Visme offers more advanced features that can drive specific results. For novice users or smaller businesses on a more limited budget, Canva offers powerful functionality at a fraction of the cost and hassle (plus helpful integrations).

Ultimately, your choice will depend on your distinct needs and limitations, so be sure to keep value in mind as you explore your options.

Photo by Theme Photos on Unsplash