Canva is restructuring about 1,271 roles, roughly 22% of its workforce, after CEO Melanie Perkins told staff the design company's growth had slowed for the first time in a decade. In a memo to more than 5,000 employees, Perkins said affected staff will be cut, have their roles changed or be relocated as part of a plan to "refound Canva." She called it "the hardest moment in our thirteen-year history."
The overhaul merges Canva's product, growth and platform teams into a single product organization, removes layers of management and folds specialized roles into broader positions. Sydney, where Canva was founded in 2013, becomes the company's key product center, and some staff will be asked to relocate to central hubs. From January, most hybrid employees are expected in the office two to three days a week. Canva has teams in 37 countries.
Perkins framed the decision around growth and organizational drag. "As we shared earlier this year, our growth has slowed for the first time in a decade," she wrote, adding that Canva needs to get "back to our roots of small, empowered teams with the freedom to make decisions." She described 2026 as "our hardest year yet."
“After exploring a wide range of alternatives, I've come to the difficult conclusion that small changes won't be enough.”— Melanie Perkins, Canva co-founder and CEO
Key facts
- 01Canva is cutting, changing or relocating about 1,271 roles, roughly 22% of its workforce.
- 02CEO Melanie Perkins said growth slowed for the first time in a decade; Canva cut its 2026 growth forecast from 30% to 20% in August.
- 03T. Rowe Price marked its Canva shares down 20%, an implied US$30.4 billion valuation, versus US$40 billion at the start of 2026.
- 04Canva says it cut the cost of serving an AI task by 90% by moving more inference onto its own models.
- 05Departing staff get at least six months' salary and 12 months of healthcare where Canva provides it.
AI sits at the center of that slowdown. Canva reorganized itself around AI this year under the Canva 2.0 banner, but delayed some products because of the cost of serving AI features to a user base that is mostly non-paying. In August, Canva cut its projected 2026 revenue growth from 30% to 20%, with Perkins saying the average cost of serving an AI task was too high and that the company had been relying too heavily on frontier models.
Canva's fix was to move more inference onto models it builds itself. The company said in August that it had cut the cost of serving an AI task by 90%, and that its in-house video model runs 17 times cheaper than a frontier model while its image model runs 30 times cheaper. Second-quarter revenue still rose 25.2% year on year to US$921.9 million, though that missed Canva's own guidance.
“New technology is transforming what people can create, how they create it, and what they expect from the products they use”— Melanie Perkins, Canva co-founder and CEO
Investors have already repriced Canva. T. Rowe Price marked its Canva shares down 20% to US$1,189 per share, an implied valuation of US$30.4 billion as of August 31, according to SEC filings. Canva began 2026 valued at US$40 billion and had been preparing for a Nasdaq listing. Early backer Blackbird Ventures cut its internal valuation of Canva by 17%, and Franklin Templeton also marked down its holding.
Canva's annualized revenue has reached US$3.69 billion, according to reports, short of an internal target of US$5.2 billion. The company has 31 million paid users.
Canva is also trying to turn its AI work into a new revenue line. Its Craft foundation model, unveiled last month, will be opened to third-party developers, giving Canva a product to sell beyond its own design app.
Departing employees will receive at least six months' salary including statutory entitlements regardless of location, 12 months of continued healthcare where Canva offers it, and the option to keep their company MacBooks. Canva is also removing the one-year vesting cliff for staff who joined in the past year and offering career coaching and a year of LinkedIn Premium. A Canva Collective Fund will give departing staff grants of US$10,000 for new businesses or community projects, with no equity taken. An all-hands meeting is scheduled for November 10.
Canva's cuts follow other large 2026 tech restructurings, including 1,600 roles at Atlassian in February and 4,000 at Block in April, while Microsoft offered voluntary exits to about 60,000 employees last week. "Canva continues to be one of the most widely used platforms on the internet," a Blackbird spokesperson said.
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