how to sell templates online

Do you want to learn how to sell Canva templates?

Looking to know how to make money selling Canva templates?

You can start creating Canva templates to sell and make money all from your home – and never have to ship a thing. how to sell Canva templates

Creating Canva templates can be a great way to make extra money because you just need to create them once, and you can sell them an unlimited amount of times.

Today, I have a fun interview to share with you. I interviewed a reader of Making Sense of Cents, Maliha, on how to sell Canva templates.

Working just a few hours a week, Maliha is able to earn $2,000 each month from selling Canva templates online.

Are you wondering questions such as:

What exactly is a Canva template? What is Canva?
Can I sell Canva templates?
How do I sell my designs on Canva?
Who buys Canva templates?
How can I learn how to make templates to sell?
Can someone with no tech skills make a Canva template?

Today's interview will help you get started and perhaps even introduce you to a new way to make extra income.

You can learn even more by checking out Maliha's course – Side Income with Canva Templates.

Related content:

How To Start a Blog Free Course
How I Make Money Selling Printables On Etsy
12 Paid Survey Sites To Make $50+ Per Month
12 Passive Income Ideas That Will Let You Enjoy Life More

Here's how to sell Canva templates.

1. Please give us a little background on yourself and how you got started selling Canva templates.

Everything started with my blog. A few years ago things took a turn for the unknown. I was lost and stressed out and feeling like a failure. A lot of realizations hit at once. Realizations like…

A college degree isn't always enough to land the dream job.
Jobs aren't permanent.
Dream jobs don't always pay enough.
Dream jobs sometimes turn out to be not what you expected at all.
Etc.

I won't go into the gory details, but let's just say that I was in a dark place. I needed to make money, so I did whatever I could. I freelanced as a web developer — a skill I had taught myself back in college out of curiosity (who knew one day it'd pay my bills!). I also worked as a virtual assistant on and off. During that time, thanks to a lot of blogger clients, I was also learning about blogging, affiliate marketing, and passive income in general.

They got me thinking if I could start a blog of my own too! After all, I always loved reading, and what reader doesn't dream of becoming a writer at least once in their life? So, in June of 2018, my blog — The Side Blogger — was born.

At first, I spent an obscene amount of time trying to create fancy graphics for my blog and social channels with Photoshop and InDesign. It was a rather tedious business. My background is in engineering. And while I have always had a great appreciation for visual design, learning Photoshop or InDesign was a whole different ballgame. But then, thanks to some virtual assistant friends of mine, I found Canva — the online graphic design app.

At first, I fell in love with the app for its ease of use. But it was just so damn fun that soon I was designing graphics just for the heck of it. Really, I was treating it as a stress-relief mechanism. I must have been doing something right because one day, totally out of the blue, I got an email from Canva.

We love your work and would love to have you on board as a Canva Certified Creative and brand ambassador! — I paraphrased but that was essentially the message.

Needless to say that I was ecstatic.

As I kept designing more and more graphics with Canva for my blog, I started getting emails from random readers inquiring about my graphic design services.

That, along with the fact that one of my newsletter opt-in freebies — a media kit template for bloggers made with Canva — garnered a lot of attention, I knew I had an opportunity there. So, around January of 2019, I set up my first Canva template shop.

I started small. I set up a WooCommerce shop on my blog and listed my first five Canva templates. A couple of media kit templates, and some social media template bundles. A few months in I was designing templates for eBooks, workbooks, presentations, planners, and more.

I also set up shops on third-party marketplaces to generate more revenue.

A little over a year later, in 2020, I made my first $1,000 in profit! Oh, and by the way, I was doing all of this on the side!

Working no more than a few hours a week to design templates and promote my products.

2. How much do you earn monthly from selling Canva templates?

When I first set up my shop, I treated it as a hobby-hustle. I didn't promote my products hard enough and depended solely on the blog traffic. Mind you, my blog was less than a year old at that time, and I maybe got a hundred visitors a day, if it was a good day.

And I was happy with that. I remember the day I made my first hundred bucks from selling Canva templates, and I gave myself an imaginary pat in the back, thinking I could treat myself to a fancy dinner or something.

But as more and more sales started to come in, I realized I had stumbled upon something with great potential. That's when I decided to be serious about this business.

And now, two years after setting up my shop, I'm making $2,000+ per month on average.

Still working just a few hours a week!

Can you make money selling Canva templates?

Here are some of the Canva templates I sell.

3. What is a Canva template? What is Canva?

So, as I had mentioned above, Canva is an online graphic design app. It is free to use, but users can sign up for a pro account that unlocks some pretty fancy features, as well as access to millions of premium stock images and graphic elements.

A Canva template is basically designs made with Canva that can be shared with other Canva users, who can then edit and customize these designs to create something unique.

Users can change a template's colors, images, fonts, and texts, and make it their own.

It's a lot like Photoshop or InDesign or even Illustrator templates.

The difference is that while the Adobe products have a steep learning curve, Canva is easy to use, making it much more coveted by people who do not have the know-how of Adobe products or the time to learn how those hard-to-use programs work.

4. What do you like about creating Canva templates?

You see, I have always had a lot of love and appreciation for good design. In college, while I was getting my degree in electrical engineering (which I love, by the way), I would sometimes pour over articles on graphic design and typography. Part of the reason I had taught myself programs like Photoshop and InDesign was so I could create beautiful designs myself.

But I just never had enough time to master those platforms.

But Canva was different.

It's like when I started using Canva, it made me look like a proficient designer even though I wasn't. All because the platform is so easy to use. You can select different frames and shapes from their huge library of graphics resources and boom!

You can create something stunning in just minutes — tasks that would have otherwise taken HOURS if you tried doing them with Photoshop or InDesign. I'm not dissing the Adobe products here, I recognize Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign are software far more superior than Canva. But my point is that not everyone has the time to learn those platforms, or the resources to hire a professional designer.

Canva is perfect for these people. It is perfect for me!

5. How much money can you make selling Canva templates? Can you make money selling templates? Can you make money from Canva?

If I can make over $2,000 per month on average with just about 30 templates in my shop, then the answer is yes, there's money to be made with this business.

How much you make depends on a lot of factors such as your template quality, usability, relevancy, proper pricing, etc. It also depends on how much time you put into this business. I do this on the side and make about $2,000 per month.

If I were to spend more hours designing more products, I bet I'd make even more money!

One of the questions that I get from my new students is this — Canva already has a huge library of templates. Why would someone pay me for my templates?

The answer is yes, there's a very good reason why people would still want to buy your templates. That's because Canva's template library has a lot of generic templates, and often these are one-off designs.

While they're high-quality for sure, they're not always targeted.

For example, let's say that you want to serve an audience of middle school educators. You can then create specific templates aimed at middle school educators. Or, let's say your ideal audience is comprised of coaches. Then you can design templates that will help your audience specifically.

You have a unique opportunity here to serve a specific demographic and that is what makes your templates superior to those already in Canva's template library.

And people will pay you for these high-quality, targeted templates that will suit their interests better.

6. Who buys Canva templates? Will there be too many people selling these?

Typically people who buy Canva templates are those who do not have the skills to design their own graphics and digital products with Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator or InDesign. They love Canva because the platform is super easy to use.

Even someone who has never designed anything in their life can pick up Canva in just a couple of hours!

People also buy Canva templates because even though Canva is so easy to use, not everyone has the time to design something from scratch, or the design skills necessary to create something beautiful.

There may be too many people selling Canva templates, but there is also a much larger group of audiences needing templates. I wouldn't worry about the market saturating anytime soon.

Especially with a growing number of bloggers, online course creators, educators, and coaches, the demand for digital products is only growing, so is the popularity of Canva.

7. Do I need to already have a following to make money selling Canva templates?

Absolutely not!

I know some Canva template sellers who do not even have their own website or email list or anything! I know a couple of people who make more money than I do but they do not even have a big social media following.

You can always take advantage of third-party marketplaces like Etsy or Creative Market. These platforms do a decent job of driving traffic to your products.

In fact, a big part of my course — Side Income with Canva Templates , where I teach people how to do what I do — focuses on teaching sales tactics on these two marketplaces.

8. How do I come up with new ideas for Canva templates? How do I learn how to create Canva templates to sell?

I often tell my students to think about the audience they want to serve.

Ideas come from knowing the audience.

And if someone doesn't have an audience yet or if they do not know who they serve specifically, then the best thing to do is to go to the marketplaces and see the products that are trending.

It also helps to take note of special months and holidays. For example, March is Women's history month, and a designer could create template packs that focus on inspirational women. February is all about Valentine's day templates. Trust me, once you start going down this rabbit hole, you'll find that the problem isn't finding new ideas, it is to keep up with all the ideas you have!

9. Does Canva own my designs? Or, do I as the creator?

Nope! You own your designs! Canva is simply a tool that gives your creative vision life.

The one unique thing about Canva is the graphics elements. As a Canva user and template designer, you may use these elements which you do not own but have permission to use them as a Canva user.

But that's OK because when a buyer purchases your template, they'll need to have a Canva account themselves in order to customize the template. And as a Canva user, they'll have the same license to use these graphic elements as you – the template designer.

10. Can someone with no tech skills make a Canva template?

One of the perks of Canva is its ease of use.

Of course, different people have different skillsets. If someone sits down with Canva and after playing with it for a few days they still have not figured out how to use the platform, then perhaps selling Canva templates isn't the best idea for them.

What I can tell you, however, is that one requires a lot less technical prowess to use and create with Canva than say, with Photoshop or InDesign.

11. Can you list the steps needed to get started creating and selling Canva templates?

The most important thing for selling Canva templates is to make sure one knows how to use Canva of course.

To do that, you'll have to create an account with Canva first and play with the platform until you know how to create a design.

Once that's taken care of, here's ideally what one should do to get started selling their templates.

Decide what kind of templates to sell. Create a product line. If you're a complete beginner and have no clue where to start, a good first five products can be — Instagram template bundle, eBook or magazine, planner or some kind of worksheet, presentation/slide deck, social media banners.
Set up shop(s). Your shop can be on your own website, or on Etsy, or on Creative Market, or, preferably, on all three of these platforms! There are other platforms for selling Canva templates too. But these three are my favorites so far.
Design your templates and prepare deliverables for your buyers.
Design amazeballs product images that'll make your ideal customers fall in love with your templates.
List your products on your shops.
Market/promote your products.
Sell templates and make $$$

12. Are there any other tips that you have for someone who wants to try this side hustle?

Selling Canva templates is like any other business, but with less to lose.

For example, you can start creating and selling Canva templates with just a free Canva account. Setting up shops on Etsy or Creative Market does not cost you any money. So, it's not as much of a risky business venture as some others.

That said, you must love Canva and creating with Canva. I mean, someone who hates writing cannot be a writer, can they? It's the same with Canva templates.

Ask yourself — do you enjoy creating graphics and digital products? Do you have the patience to spend hours creating beautiful things and make a concerted effort to create better products each time you sit down to design? If your answer is yes, then you have what it takes to start this Canva template business.

Also, just like any other business, a Canva template business is not a get-rich-overnight scheme. You have to do the work for a few months at least before you see results. You have to have patience, perseverance, and you must put in the work!

13. Can you tell me more about the training that you offer?

Great! Now let's talk about what I teach in my course — Side Income with Canva Templates .

You see, I have been selling Canva templates for a little over two years now, and I have had immense success with this business. No, I haven't made a million bucks, but a business that only takes a few hours of work per week and makes over two grands per month is a success in my books!

And if you love Canva and are willing to put in the work (not a lot, but at least a few hours a week), then I believe my course can teach you the best way to go about this business in a way that'll help you get started the right way.

And if you start with a strong foot forward, the rest of the journey will be that much easier.

That said, here's what I teach in my course.

The initial preparations for starting this business
Setting up your shops on your website, on Etsy, and on Creative Market
Preparing your products for selling (setting up license terms, creating product images, creating product deliverables, etc.)
Selling tips and techniques for when you're selling on your website
Etsy specific selling tips
Creative Market specific selling tips
Tips to improve your template designs
Tips to improve your templates' usability (because if you want repeat buyers and rave reviews, you want happy customers who'd love using your templates!)

In addition, I also offer bonuses!

Base Canva templates for inspiration and content ideas.
Monthly group coaching calls for a whole year! For completely free!
Access to all future updates and additions to the course, for totally free.
Plus, I hold periodic webinars and workshops related to Canva and selling Canva templates to which you are welcome, free of charge!

You can learn more at Side Income with Canva Templates.

Are you interested in learning how to make Canva templates to sell?