Canva Changes Hit 22% of Staff in Refound

Canva is "refounding" itself the hard way. CEO Melanie Perkins told staff that changes will hit 1,271 people — 22% of the company — through role shifts, moves to centralized hubs, and layoffs. It is the biggest reset in Canva's thirteen-year history, and it lands days after the company made Affinity free for individuals.

What happened

In a note Canva published on its newsroom as "An important update on our team", Perkins says growth slowed this year for the first time in a decade and that small tweaks will not cut it. The plan is to get back to small, empowered teams. The Verge relayed the same numbers on November 3; @verge flagged the story on X.

Three structural moves sit under the headline. Product, Growth, and Platform merge into one Product Org so fewer handovers sit between idea and ship. Narrower subspecialties collapse into broader roles, with overlapping layers cut. Sydney becomes the primary home for more product teams and other specialties that need shared context, while hybrid staff are expected to spend about 2 to 3 days a week in an office from January, depending on location.

People leaving get a package Perkins spells out in the memo: at least six months of salary (including statutory entitlements), twelve months of healthcare where Canva already offers it, twelve months of Canva Care EAP for them and family, career coaching plus a year of LinkedIn Premium, an opt-in alumni talent directory shared with investors and partners, and they keep their Canva MacBook. There is also a Canva Collective Fund with US$10,000 (~₹9.5 lakh) grants for leavers who want to start something of their own, with interest due by December 14. Vesting cliffs are waived for people who joined in the past year.

The Verge notes Squarespace announced cuts affecting about 19% of its staff the day before. Treat that as a same-week industry data point, not a Canva claim.

Why it matters

Canva just poured energy into Affinity — free on desktop and iPad for individuals — and is simultaneously shrinking and recentralizing the org that has to ship that stack. If you live in Affinity or Canva for work, expect product ownership to reshuffle as those three orgs become one. I walked through the free Affinity rollout in Get Affinity Free on Windows, Mac and iPad and the shorter iPad launch note; this restructure is the corporate backdrop those launches sit against.

What to do

• If you work at Canva or a partner agency, read Perkins' full newsroom note — local labor rules mean timelines differ across 37 countries.
• Affinity and Canva subscribers: keep exporting critical files locally; org charts moving does not usually break apps overnight, but support queues get noisy after big cuts.
• Job seekers watching design-tool roles: Canva says it is dedicating Talent Acquisition capacity to help leavers, and the alumni directory may surface openings elsewhere in the industry network.