Canva Gave Away Photoshop's Best Rival for Free. Here's Who's Really Paying.

In October 2025, Canva made Affinity, a full professional design suite that used to cost $169.99, completely free, forever. A million people signed up in six days. Three million downloaded it in a month. Meanwhile Adobe raised the price of Creative Cloud. This is the story of a small software company from Nottingham, a LinkedIn message that turned into a roughly $380 million deal, the October panic when Affinity vanished from every app store, and the business model that lets Canva give professional software away. And what it means for Adobe. Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:53 A Small Company in Nottingham 2:26 The Template Giant 3:51 Seven Weeks 5:42 The October Panic 6:35 Free, Forever 8:19 Who Pays for Free? 10:03 Adobe's Answer 11:47 Is Free Sustainable? All figures are from company filings, regulator documents and press reports listed below. Share prices and market values change daily; numbers are as reported at the time. Sources Canva — "Canva acquires Affinity" newsroom post (26 Mar 2024) Canva — "Canva x Affinity pledge" newsroom post (27 Mar 2024) Canva — "Introducing the all-new Affinity: Professional design, now free for everyone" press release (30 Oct 2025) Canva — "Craft, upgraded: introducing the Canva ProSuite" press release (16 Sep 2026) Canva — Leonardo.Ai acquisition newsroom post (30 Jul 2024) Canva — Flourish acquisition newsroom post (2 Feb 2022) Canva — "Canva welcomes Smartmockups and Kaleido to the family" (22 Feb 2021) Canva — About page (2026) Adobe — Q3 FY2026 results, SEC filing Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1 (10 Sep 2026) Adobe — "Shantanu Narayen Announces Decision to Transition as Adobe's CEO Once Successor is Named" press release (12 Mar 2026) Nasdaq — "Adobe Names Anil Chakravarthy Next CEO" (Sep 2026) TechCrunch — "With Affinity acquisition, Canva should be able to compete better with Adobe's creative tools" (26 Mar 2024) Fortune — "Canva acquires design software provider Affinity" Term Sheet (26 Mar 2024) 9to5Mac — "Canva acquires Affinity apps" (26 Mar 2024) CG Channel — "Canva acquires the Affinity tools" (27 Mar 2024) GameFromScratch — "Affinity and Canva Release Pledge" (27 Mar 2024) Forbes Australia — "Canva acquires software platform Affinity in $500 million deal" (Mar 2024) Companies House — Serif (Europe) Limited, company 02117968 LeftLion — "Serif Are the Local Tech Company Taking on the Big Guns with Their Editing Software" (11 Nov 2019) Printweek — "Best of British: Britain would be poorer sans Serif" MacTech — "Serif announces version 2 of its Affinity creative suite" (9 Nov 2022) 9to5Mac — "Affinity apps for iPad now free ahead of October 30 event" (2 Oct 2025) DPReview forums — "Affinity Photo Closing Forums for Discord" (Oct 2025) CG Channel — "Check out Canva's new, perpetually free Affinity software" (31 Oct 2025) Reworked — "Canva bets big on a Creative Operating System, makes Affinity free forever" (30 Oct 2025) CMOtech UK — "Canva unveils AI-driven Creative OS, offers free Affinity suite" (30 Oct 2025) PetaPixel — "Affinity Added 1 Million Users in Less Than a Week" (6 Nov 2025) PetaPixel — "Affinity Hits 3M Downloads of Its New Editing Software in Just 33 Days" (3 Dec 2025) TechRadar — "Affinity says its new Adobe-rivaling creative app is 'free forever'" (Oct 2025) CG Channel — "Canva releases Affinity 3.3 as part of the Canva ProSuite" (15 Sep 2026) TechCrunch — "Canva gets to $4B in revenue as LLM referral traffic rises" (18 Feb 2026) Fortune — "Canva's billionaire founders are minting overnight millionaires with employee share sale" (22 Aug 2025) Dealroom — "Canva Hits $32B Valuation" (Oct 2024) Storyboard18 — "Canva records $2.5 bn revenue as active users surpass 200 mn worldwide" (Oct 2024) Startup Daily — "Patient capital: Canva delays IPO to 2027 amid AI pivot" (17 Apr 2026) Startup Daily — "Canva wipes $10 billion from its valuation, putting IPO plans in doubt" (17 Aug 2026) Capital Brief — "Cliff Obrecht confirms Canva is now working towards an IPO next year in 2027" (Apr 2026) AlternativeTo — "Canva acquires Cavalry and Mango AI" (Feb 2026) The Register — "Adobe turns subscription screw again, telling users to pay up or downgrade" (20 May 2025) PetaPixel — "If You Have Adobe Creative Cloud, Your Price Could Increase Next Month" (20 May 2025) Invezz — "Why is Adobe stock falling despite a revenue and earnings beat?" (11 Sep 2026) Sentisense — "Adobe Stock Plunges to 52-Week Low Ahead of Q2 Earnings" (11 Jun 2026) #Canva #Affinity #Adobe