Canva is cutting 1,271 positions, about 22% of its global workforce, marking the first mass layoff in its 13-year history.
Co-founder and chief executive Melanie Perkins announced the changes in a note to staff, covering job cuts, role changes, and relocations to centralised hubs. She didn't say how many will lose their jobs outright.
The trigger is growth. Canva's revenue climbed 45% in 2024 and 38% in 2025, then the company cut its 2026 forecast from 30% to roughly 20%. Annualized revenue reached $3.69B, short of an internal goal of $5.2B.
Canva Revenue Fell Short of Its Internal Goal
Annualized run-rate revenue vs internal target, USD billions, as of Nov. 2026
Bar chart. USD Billions. Annualized Revenue: USD Billions $3.7. Internal Target: USD Billions $5.2.
Source: NewzToday, TechCrunch
AI is both the cost and the competition
Canva has been shipping its own AI models to cut costs and reduce reliance on third-party systems, yet ballooning AI costs still forced the guidance cut.
Perkins told Fortune that demand for new AI features ran far past what the company expected, so Canva slowed the rollout while it rebuilt the architecture and lowered unit costs.
At the same time, general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini now let anyone generate a poster or a presentation from a text prompt, hitting Canva's core pitch of design for people without design skills. The design software shakeout has its own winners and losers.
The company bought Leonardo.ai and built its own Magic Studio, so the competition runs on the same technology Canva adopted early.
Investors have already repriced it. Blackbird marked Canva down 17%, from $42B to $34.9B, and US fund managers T. Rowe Price and Franklin Templeton cut their holdings' value too.
What employees get and what changes
Departing staff receive at least six months of salary, 12 months of healthcare coverage, and career support, plus a $10K grant for anyone starting their own venture.
Those who stay face a flatter structure. Product, Growth, and Platform merge into one organization, narrow specialist roles widen, and Sydney becomes the primary home for more product teams.
From January, most hybrid employees are expected in an office two to three days a week, across a workforce spread over 37 countries.
Perkins framed the decision as a reset rather than a trim.
The cuts land in a brutal stretch for software. Atlassian ($TEAM) eliminated 1.6K jobs in March, WiseTech Global announced 2K, and Squarespace disclosed layoffs affecting 19% of staff a day before Canva's news. The wave has also reached Disney and Microsoft, both of which trimmed staff in recent weeks. Layoffs.fyi counts 344 tech companies cutting 139K employees so far in 2026.
Perkins called it the hardest moment in the company's history. She was 19 when she left university to start her first venture, and she launched Canva in 2013. She addresses staff at an all-hands on Nov. 10. Whether a leaner setup revives growth could decide how soon Canva tries to go public, and no IPO date has been set.
