This is such a shame IMO. The Serif suite was great, and I used to try to get every designer I could to dump adobe and switch to serif.
Now that it has switched to a freemium model trying to get you to subscribe to AI, I wont be using this or telling other people about it any more. Their priorities have changed. No longer are they trying to to beat adobe at their own game, they are just chasing AI money like everyone else.
I think it's really cool they can get AI money from the people who want to pay that, to give away the core for free. I can empathize with feeling their focus will be elsewhere (whatever increases revenue) but I figure AI isn't magic, they need to have the rest of the creative suite work well to, yaknow, synergize
Edit: I'll add that I much prefer purchasing perpetual licenses for software that can work without a cloud component. Opus, Sublime, Mathematica, totally agree that paying for software aligns incentives. But if it is online, it's a SaaS, and they can't very well offer you cloud services forever at a one time cost. (Rsync.net has a deal to prepay ~4 years worth upfront and they'll let you use it for life but it's capped at 1TB)
I've been using ByteDance's CapCut video editor that has this business model and I've been blown away by the top quality tool you get for free. It really doesn't feel scammy when they ask for money for fancy features that cost them extra GPU cycles to run the AI models.
I think it's simpler than that. Canva's primary competitor is Adobe, and Adobe's remaining advantage is with creative professionals. That's Adobe's core market and their core revenue stream.
It's a classic "commoditize your complements" play. Canva remains profitable without charging for Affinity, but Adobe can't stay profitable if they stop charging for Photoshop/Illustrator.
The business justification works without imputing any more sinister motives than that.
I mean, 9/10ths of the dark-pattern distrustworthy bullshit businesses pull is not required to attain or maintain "profitability," it's just squeezing every dime of revenue from their customers.
I would frankly rather pay for software then be left wondering if I can trust free commercial software.
Would be really nice if we had more of the "just pay" options. As it is the "just pay" options mostly also can't be trusted any more than the free(-mium) options, and both will try their best to "squeeze every dime of revenue".
I think they're giving it away to take mindshare away from Adobe among younger creators. The rise of Capcut and similar mobile first software eventually leads to Adobe, Final Cut for video, and Davinci Resolve. This provides a ladder from Canva to Affinity under one banner at low to no cost.
>No, your content in Affinity is not used to train AI-powered features, or to help AI features learn and improve in other ways, such as model evaluation or quality assurance. In Affinity, your content is stored locally on your device and we don’t have access to it. If you choose to upload or export content to Canva, you remain in control of whether it can be used to train AI features — you can review and update your privacy preferences any time in your Canva settings.
"... Rsync.net has a deal to prepay ~4 years worth upfront and they'll let you use it for life but it's capped at 1TB ..."
To clarify ... it is not capped. You may scale the lifetime payment option to any size you like in 100 GB increments.
You may also upgrade it later in life, most likely for less money/TB ...
This means that our (the provider) and your (the user) interests are perfectly aligned: we want you to use more storage and we will make it easy for you to do so. Your needs, and usage, will grow and you will make further payments to us over time - just on a longer, more drawn out schedule.
Given that it’s the only thing keeping the US economy afloat right now? Then many of us are loosing our jobs, and no longer having access to drawing tools will matter little.
I think it depends on how it's used or integrated. Image generation and editing seems to be the of the more useful things. "Take outt the power lines from this photo." Etc.
Directory Opus, replacement for File Explorer. It's got a whole bag of tricks but I just appreciate the built in "convert to x" and FTP, oh and the bulk file renaming. Oh and built in support for various archive formats (no more winrar). Oh and (etc etc)
See also Garmin GPS lifetime map data updates, where you update your venerable well functioning gps device, after which it no longer works, sorry no longer supported
On the other hand, Adobe Photoshop has been amazing for years and I'd argue Affinity has already beaten them at their game. Now Adobe is pivoting to integrating AI tooling into their programs which I don't want and so if Affinity wants to try taking on Adobe on AI too but needs to charge for it, I'm all game.
I am unclear on the problem: are the apps, previously free, significantly more limited than their prior free versions unless/until you also purchase a subscription for the CanvaAI portions?
That aside, this isn’t a new thing for Canva, they aren’t chasing AI here, in this space GenAI is chasing the use case that Canva has been filling for a while, and incorporating genai as part of that is just, you know, “hey lots of people use this ai tool for design work now so maybe we add one because like it or not it’s how thing are”. Design is the Canva space, it’s not like they did a pivot to crypto.
> are the apps, previously free, significantly more limited than their prior free versions unless/until you also purchase a subscription for the CanvaAI portions?
I was curious too. The FAQ says this:
> Yes, Affinity really is free. That doesn’t mean you’re getting a watered-down version of the app though. You can use every tool in the Pixel, Vector, and Layout studios, plus all of the customization and export features, as much as you want, with no restrictions or payment needed. The app will also receive free updates with new features and improvements added.
Not sure I see the problem then. Canva has a long enough track record that I don’t suspect they’re going to pull a bait and switch on the freemium and start gate keeping new features any time soon.
I've been using it and so far yeah, a lot of the existing functionality and new functionality is effectively free and it generally only nags you when you use the clearly separate "Canva AI" panel.
Checking the settings also tells me that Segmentation (used in Object Selection) is provided but Depth Estimation (used in Portrait Blur and Select Sampled Depth tools), Colorization (used in Colorize filter, apparently intended to colorize B&W photos) and Super Resolution (used in Super Resolve filter) are all paywalled.
Honestly, I think that's fine. While I'd wish these are all available (and they could be if you looked hard enough for models that can do this) for a flat price (for parts that are not handled server-side), this is still imho mostly fair.
To push back against this sentiment: “chasing AI money” isn’t necessarily their thought process here; i.e. it’s not the only reason they would “switch to a freemium model trying to get you to subscribe to AI.”
Keeping in mind that:
1. “AI” (i.e. large ML model) -driven features are in demand (if not by existing users, then by not-yet-users, serving as a TAM-expansion strategy)
2. Large ML models require a lot of resources to run. Not just GPU power (which, if you have less of it, just translates to slower runs) but VRAM (which, if you have not-enough of it, multiplies runtime of these models by 10-100x; and if you also don't have enough main memory, you can't run the model at all); and also plain-old storage space, which can add up if there are a lot of different models involved. (Remember that the Affinity apps have mobile versions!)
3. Many users will be sold on the feature-set of the app, and want to use it / pay for it, but won't have local hardware powerful enough to run the ML models — and if you just let them install the app but then reveal that they can't actually run the models, they'll feel ripped off. And those users either won't find the offering compelling enough to buy better hardware; or they'll be stuck with the hardware they have for whatever reason (e.g. because it's their company-assigned workstation and they're not allowed to use anything else for work.)
Together, these factors mean that the "obvious" way to design these features in a product intended for mass-market appeal (rather than a product designed only "for professionals" with corporate backing, like VFX or CAD software) is to put the ML models on a backend cluster, and have the apps act as network clients for said cluster.
Which means that, rather than just shipping an app, you're now operating a software service, which has monthly costs for you, scaled to aggregate usage, for the lifetime of that cluster.
Which in turn means that you now need to recoup those OpEx costs to stay profitable.
You could do this by pricing the predicted per-user average lifetime OpEx cost into the purchase price of the product… but because you expect to add more ML-driven features as your apps evolve, which might drive increases usage, calculating an actual price here is hard. (Your best chance is probably to break each AI feature into its own “plugin” and cost + sell each plugin separately.)
Much easier to avoid trying to set a one-time price based on lifetime OpEx, by just passing on OpEx as OpEx (i.e. a subscription); and much friendlier to customers to avoid pricing in things customers don’t actually want, by only charging that subscription to people who actually want the features that require the backend cluster to work.
> 1. “AI” (i.e. large ML model) -driven features are in demand
No, there’re not. People with influence or who have invested in the space say that these features are in demand/the next big thing. In reality, I haven’t seen a single user interview where the person actively wanted or was even excited about AI.
Photoshop now has a bunch of features that get used in professional environments. And in the end user space, facial recognition or magic eraser are features in apps like Google Photos that people actively use and like. People probably don't care that it's AI under the hood, in fact they probably don't even realize.
There is a lot of unchecked hype, but that doesn't mean there is no substance.
When people say AI, they refer to LLMs. Your examples are models in general which have been around for a lot longer before the OpenAI and techbros had the AGI wet dream.
I didn't make any assertion about AI, only about "AI" (note the quotes in my GP comment) — i.e. the same old machine-learning-based features like super-resolution upscaling, patch-match, etc, that people have been adding to image-editing software for more than a decade now, but which now get branded as "AI" because people recognize them by this highly-saturated marketing term.
Few artists want generative-AI diffusion models in their paint program; but most artists appreciate "classical" ML-based tools and effects — many of which they might not even think of as being ML-based. Because, until recently, "classical ML" tools and effects have been things run client-side on the system, and so necessarily small and lightweight, only being shipped if they'll work on the lowest-common-denominator GPU (esp. "amount of VRAM") that artists might be using.
The interesting thing is that, due to the genAI craze, GPU training and inference clusters have been highly commoditized / brought into reach for the developers of these "classical ML" models. You don't need to invest in your own hyperscale on-prem GPU cluster to train models bigger than fit on a gaming PC any more. And this has led to increased interest in, and development of, larger "classical ML" models, because now they're not so tightly-bounded by running client-side on lowest-common-denominator hardware. They can instead throw (time on) a cloud GPU cluster to train their model; and then expect the downstream consumer of that model (= a company like Canva) to solve the problem of running the resulting model not by pushing back for something size-optimized to be run locally on user machines, but rather by standing up an model-inference-API backend running it on the same kind of GPU IaaS infra that was used to train it.
Is the same algorithm that allows AI/LLM-enabled apps to remove things from photos? Example: Remove the person who accidentally appeared on the left side of the photo.
My friend, my writing isn't AI slop. It's Adderall slop. AI slop is far more structured.
(Also, because I assume this is your issue: em-dash is option-shift-hyphen on US-English Mac keyboard. I've been using them in my writing for 25 years now, and I won't stop just because LLMs got ahold of them.)
The image generation models have been super useful for anyone wanting to deliver any sort of production content for years. Ofc nobody _promotes_ that. Using ai images is like taking photos as reference for collages. Anyone with a subscription to an image bank is likely happy enough to minibanana some generic references.
I'd buy some of these explinations, except the depth estimation, colorization, and super-resolution ML models they use in the app DO run locally and are still subscription-gated.
Apple has been doing on-device machine learning for portrait blurs and depth estimation for years now, though based on the UI, this might use cloud inference as well.
Granted, these aren't the super heavy ones like generative fill / editing, and I understand that cloud inference isn't cheap. A subscription for cloud-based ML features is something I'd find acceptable, and today that's what has launched... The real question is what they plan to do with this in 2-5 years. Will more non-"AI" features make their way into the pro tier? Only time will tell!
> and if you just let them install the app but then reveal that they can't actually run the models, they'll feel ripped off.
Just release some simple free "test application" that checks whether the computer satisfies the system requirements and does something "simple" (but relevant for the user) so that the users want to try out this simple free test application and want to update their hardware so that it can run.
Now, after the users have been incentivized to update their hardware so that they can run the cool test application, you can upsell your users to the "full software experience". :-)
That being said, my line of argument here would be a bit more compelling if Canva were still charging for the app.
The fact that the apps are now free, suggests that they expect the subscriptions to pay not just for the backend-cluster OpEx, but also for all the developers’ salaries and so forth.
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Honestly, I think Canva here are copying Adobe's playbook, but with a more honest approach than Adobe ever had; one reflecting a much more aware/cynical take on how the software market works in 2025.
Adobe essentially charges a continuing fee just to continue to run the software they coded and shipped to you, on your own computer — regardless of whether you even care about any further software updates. (Sure, the subscription pays for other things, like Adobe Bridge cloud storage and so forth, but if you don't pay the subscription, you don't even get to just run the apps.)
But this also means that people quite often crack Adobe's apps — because there's something there of value to run on your own computer, if you just strip off the DRM.
Canva here are taking a much more pragmatic approach:
• Anything that is given to the user to run is free, because ultimately, if you charged for it, people would just crack it. They aren't bothering with DRM or even trying to treat the app itself as a revenue stream. The juice just isn't worth the squeeze. Especially if you're not in a market position where you think you can win the big enterprise customers over from Adobe.
• Anything that is run on your backend is charged for. Because users can't force your cloud services to do anything without a subscription. There's no "cracking" a cloud service.
• But also, crucially — if a feature is a "fake cloud" feature, where it could be "pulled down from the cloud" back into the client by writing a compatible implementation of the server backend that does some simple thing, and patching the software to speak to that server (either over the Internet, or to a local-on-the-machine background service that ships with the patch) — then users will do that. So you can only really charge for features that can't be "pulled down" in this way. Like, for example, features relying on some kind of secret-sauce ML model that you never expose to the client.
(And that last bit actually makes me less wary of their approach here: it suggests that they likely won't be charging for anything other than inherently "cloudy" features: these large-ML-model-driven features, cloud storage/collaboration features, etc. Which might mean that non-"cloudy" features get ignored... but likely not. For the same reason that Apple doesn't ignore macOS/iOS features in favor of iCloud features: new users won't be interested switching to the platform [and then potentially subscribing] if the base platform itself isn't competitive / doesn't serve their needs.)
Pricing in most businesses has little relation to the cost of developing and making the product. Most businesses price relative to the value that their product delivers to the customer. If there is robust competition, then the price is often driven down towards the cost, but it's not driven by the cost. In Adobe's case, they see that there is an entire industry of creative people using their products as their primary tool(s). Those employees are often paid well, with salaries from 50k-100k per year as common. Is it not reasonable (from Adobe's perspective) that employers pay 1/50th of the employee's salary for their primary and most useful tool? No one complains when the plumber requires a work truck and thousands of dollars worth of tools.
The price ceiling has little relation to cost, sure. But COGS sets an effective price floor — you'll be revenue-negative unless you do the math to ensure you're charging customers (especially your largest customers) at least COGS. COGS is the most critical number your enterprise salespeople will ask you for in order to backstop their negotiations.
For some companies, COGS and customer LTV are numbers with such different orders of magnitude that they don't even have to think about the COGS side.
But "software you charge a one-time fee for" generally produces a very low customer LTV; and "renting compute on someone else's GPU IaaS" generally produces a very high (customer-lifetime-integrated) COGS; so if they were sticking to the "just charge for the software" model, "COGS rising faster than CLTV" would be a direct threat to their business model. Which is... why they don't want to do that.
It's been a long time since I looked into it, but is pirating Adobe's products viable these days? I thought it was pretty much impossible, and the last piratable release is quite old.
It simply depends on what your needs are IMO - You can do great magazine design in Affinity, brochures, flyers, logos all that stuff. The only thing I'd miss in InDesign is image expand probably.
Also if you're making video games, and you don't need to export multi-res textures and work on the edge of file formats for advanced texturing etc, if your budget and needs are served by Affinity why spend on Adobe?
You have reduced it down to the wrong components.
Its not about the price, its about care and effort in development.
If something free gets put behind a paywall because theres genuinely a push for growth in the software thats fair enough. Taking 3 seperately paid products and turning them into 1 freemium app which requires registering an account for is completely different IMO.
Now that it has switched to a freemium model trying to get you to subscribe to AI, I wont be using this or telling other people about it any more. Their priorities have changed. No longer are they trying to to beat adobe at their own game, they are just chasing AI money like everyone else.