Canva will cut 1,271 jobs — 22 percent of its staff — co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins told employees, describing the change as a "refound" of the company rather than a trim.
"For some people, this will mean changes to their roles or being asked to relocate to centralised hubs," Perkins wrote. "Sadly, it will also mean saying goodbye to teammates and friends who have helped build Canva into what it is today." After exploring a range of alternatives, she said, she had concluded that "small changes won't be enough": "To set ourselves up for the next decade, we need to refound Canva, getting back to our roots of small, empowered teams with the freedom to make decisions, take ownership and focus on what matters most for our community."
Structurally, the company is folding its Product, Growth and Platform teams into a single product organisation, "simplifying layers" and "consolidating overlapping responsibilities". Sydney becomes "the primary home for more of our product teams", along with roles in other specialties where shared context and close collaboration matter. From January, Canva will expect most hybrid employees in an office two to three days a week, "depending on what makes sense in your area".
Departing staff get at least six months' salary, twelve months of healthcare coverage and career support resources.
The number matters because of who Canva is: one of the few design-software companies to build a mass consumer franchise — and, in recent years, a heavy AI push — without belonging to a hyperscaler. A 22 percent reduction is not a reorganisation at the margins; it is a company resizing itself in public.
It also lands in a pattern. Squarespace announced layoffs affecting 19 percent of staff the day before. Two profitable, subscription-based creative tools cutting roughly a fifth of their people within 48 hours looks less like company-specific trouble and more like a category readjustment.
What Canva has not disclosed: the state of its revenue growth, its margins, or whether its AI features are cannibalising paid seats. Perkins' framing — fewer layers, smaller teams, more autonomy — is the language of a company that believes its problem is coordination cost rather than demand. The severance terms, unusually generous for the sector, suggest a company that can still afford to be deliberate.
The test comes in the next two quarters: whether smaller teams ship faster, and whether the AI features Canva has been building convert into paid seats rather than free usage.
