Canva Restructure Hits 22% of Staff as Growth Slows

Canva is restructuring in a way that affects 1,271 people, 22% of its staff.

CEO Melanie Perkins told employees on November 3 that some of them will change roles, some will be asked to move to central hubs, and some will lose their jobs.

So should you worry about your designs in Canva?

Nobody has announced a change to your plan, your price or your account. But the reasons behind the cuts tell you where it’s heading.

What Canva announced

Perkins says in the memo, reported by The Verge, that small changes won’t be enough and she wants to “refound Canva” around small teams that make their own decisions, back to its roots.

Inside the company, three things change:

• Product, Growth and Platform merge into one product organisation, with fewer management layers.
• Sydney becomes the main home for more product teams, so some staff will be asked to move there.
• From January, most hybrid staff are expected in an office 2 to 3 days a week.

How many of the 1,271 people will actually leave? None of the three reports gives a number.

Those who go get at least six months of salary, a year of healthcare cover and career support.

ABC News adds one more detail you won’t see often: a new fund with US$10,000 grants for departing staff who want to start a business or a community project.

Why now: growth and AI costs

Perkins put it plainly: growth has slowed for the first time in a decade. It’s been Canva’s hardest year yet, she wrote.

ABC News points out the announcement talks about “new technology” changing how people create, with AI left unnamed.

Forbes Australia fills in the money side. Canva rebuilt its product around AI as Canva 2.0.

Then it delayed several launches because AI was costly to serve to users who mostly don’t pay. It also cut its revenue growth forecast from 30% to 20%.

Investors marked it down too. Hard.

• Canva started 2026 valued at US$40 billion.
• T. Rowe Price’s filing puts it at about US$30 billion as of August 31.

Meanwhile, Canva is betting on Craft, the foundation model it revealed last month, which it says serves AI more efficiently than relying on models from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google.

And the timing? It came a day after Squarespace laid off 19% of its staff.

Why it matters

Canva is where a lot of you make your Instagram carousels, YouTube thumbnails, blog headers and that logo you built in an afternoon.

None of the reports mention any change to your plan, your price or your features. Good.

Still, one line in the Forbes report is the part I’d watch: AI that was costly to serve to users who mostly don’t pay.

A company usually fixes that with limits or higher prices, and Canva now has fewer staff, slower growth and investors who’ve already marked down what it’s worth.

My read: expect tighter limits on the free AI tools before the free plan itself shrinks. That’s my guess; Canva hasn’t said it.

What can you do this week? Very little, and that’s fine:

• Download the brand files you’d hate to rebuild: logos, fonts, colour codes.
• Export your most-used templates as PDF or PNG.
• If you use the free AI tools in Canva for client work, note which ones you’d miss.

Then carry on.

A leaner team doesn’t break the editor you open every morning, and nothing in the memo or the reports suggests your designs in Canva are going anywhere.

Though I think the bigger signal is the pair. Squarespace and Canva both sell to people like you, and both are restructuring in the same week.

I’d bet AI sits behind both. Is your own workflow ready for that?

Common Questions

How many people are affected by the Canva restructure in November 2026?

About 1,271 people, or 22% of Canva’s staff. CEO Melanie Perkins said on November 3, 2026 that some will change roles or relocate and others will lose their jobs; the reports don’t say how many roles are being cut.

Will the Canva layoffs change my Canva account, plan or price?

No change has been announced. The reports on the Canva restructure don’t mention any change to plans, prices or features, so existing designs and subscriptions carry on as before.

Why is Canva restructuring?

Melanie Perkins said Canva’s growth slowed for the first time in a decade. Forbes Australia reports Canva also delayed AI products because serving AI to mostly free users was costly, and cut its revenue growth forecast from 30% to 20%.