Canva

[Ash]

Hi All,

I am thrilled to announce that Affinity is joining the Canva family.

This is a moment of great excitement, anticipation, and profound gratitude for all of you who have been part of our story so far. 

We know that those of you who’ve put your faith in Affinity, some since we launched our very first Mac app, will have questions about what this means for the future of our products. Since the inception of Affinity, our mission has been to empower creatives with tools that unleash their full potential, fostering a community where innovation and artistry flourish. We've worked tirelessly to challenge the status quo, delivering professional-grade creative software that is both accessible and affordable. 

None of that changes today.

In Canva, we’ve found a kindred spirit who can help us take Affinity to new levels. Their extra resources will mean we can deliver much more, much faster. Beyond that, we can forge new horizons for Affinity products, opening up a world of possibilities which previously would never have been achievable. 

Canva’s revolutionary approach to design democratisation and commitment to empowering everyone to create aligns perfectly with our core values and vision. This union is a testament to what can be achieved when two companies that share a common goal of making design accessible and enjoyable for everyone come together. 

I want to express my deepest gratitude to our incredible Affinity team. Your passion, dedication, and relentless pursuit of excellence have been the driving force behind our success so far, and I can’t wait to continue this journey with you all. 

To our loyal users and the creative community, your support and feedback have been invaluable. You’ve inspired us to push boundaries and continuously improve, and we’re excited to embark on this new chapter together. 

The future is bright, and I am incredibly excited to continue our story together and create a world where design is within everyone's reach.

With heartfelt thanks,

Ash

For more information...

• We have included some FAQs at the bottom of the announcement article here.
• A video message from me with some more background is on YouTube here.

 

• Additionally we will be setting up a Q&A session about this acquisition in a few weeks time. More info on how to take part in this will be sent on email and posted on this forum in the coming days.

[Mithferion]

Wish you the best, thanks a lot for what you've done in the past 10 years.

I'll go back to sleep some more. 

Best regards!

[animositysomina]

The only question is whether Affinity will offer a subscription in the future? I have bought a lot of brushes for your software. Especially on the Ipad, I am not willing to pay any subscription fees. I have purchased your software twice (v1. & v2). You say there are no plans for subscriptions at this time. But just wait until the Canva bosses change their minds, because greed is a virus in upper management. RIP, Adobe Alternative. 

[Daniel Gibert]

I love you guys, and I have a big load of respect about you, being a big evangelist of Affinity, but I'm not having a good felling on this. Canva is not what I could name a "professional software" partner. They want to be Adobe, not an adobe alternative.

The first insinuation of subscription model will break any trust on Affinity, and for the love of the goddess, I hope Affinity apps don't become a dumpster of stupid and crappy AI and cheap design tools that Canva really is.

I've read the FAQs you published… they don't give me enough reassessment that nothing is gonna change. Your company and your project is not yours anymore.

I wish to be wrong.

[douglasrthomson]

Oh well. It was fun whilst it lasted. As soon as you become a £100 a year subscription service (which you will), I'll just go back to Adobe.

 

[Tommy Turtle]

We’ve all been around the block and saw what happened to PaintShopPro when Corel acquired it (and how it turned into a bloated horrible mess). I feel sad that the Affinity apps will head in the same direction. Really is a sad day. 

[BertD]

Yeah, I’ve not a good feeling about it. 
 

Quote

There are no changes to our current pricing model planned at this time, with all our apps still available as a one-off purchase. Existing Affinity users will be able to continue to use your apps in perpetuity as they were originally purchased – with plenty of free updates to V2 still to look forward to!

That reads to me as, from v3 it’ll be different. 
 

I really really hope we don’t get any Canva crap to deal with and subscription stays away. I’m not that loyal. 
 

 

[Sam Neil]

I must say this was a shock but not a good one - Canva also bought SMARTMOCKUPS.COM which was amazing and now they are shutting it down - I do hope this is not the case with Affinity.

Canva have the cash and resources and do make the final decision which is a shame. All this companies say at the beginning no no we will be independent but in reality that will not be the case.

[Herr Eckers]

A few days ago I bought V2 universal and now I wish I didn't. If you will get subscription I think your software will die. It is okay to pay for a new major Version. But if you force to pay with a subscription, you will loose your fans and customers.

[Kiarian]

Canva is a subscription model, as Serif inform us themselves. So much for the 'No Subscriptions' tagline. We'll be 'allowed' to keep our current version, then from the next 0.1 revision we'll be offered a discount. 

The writing is on the wall. Serif have sold out.

[Ducky3961]

I just got the email and it's a bomb. Great news for you guys but incredibly bad news for me. I just started migrating off Corel, now i might have to stop and get back to that...

[Tickedon]

Not the news I wanted to read in The Times this morning:

“Australian billionaire has global designs with Affinity deal”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f6540177-9337-4782-91dd-4b0a84ffb83d?shareToken=7013a846cca64688ba3515ce5ef702ab

Congratulations to those who’ve had a successful exit. But like others, the FAQa aren’t reassuring and given Canva’s model is subscriptions I fear it’s only a matter of time the pricing model for Affinity changes.

[pgraficzny]

I'm sorry, but I don't have a good feeling either. May my doubts be allayed.

[Greengestalt]

I like the "Current" weasel word snuck in - NOT.

Whatever you do don't slime in some kind of "Subscription".  Serious, I've been promoting Affinity/Serif for years for that;  One time purchase, then occasional upgrade but dirt cheap compared to Photoshop and does 99% of what most people would do in the big 3 from Adobe. As a bonus I reff'd you to technophobe luddites screaming about AiArt since by luck of never getting to it Serif never got into it, too busy trying the toe in Adobe's door.

 

For a very simple statement - Look into Zbrush (Pixologic) and Unity game engine.

Both got bought out/into by some 3rd party.

Zbrush went subscription leading to a massive exodus to other software.  Also more piracy since it's pretty easily hacked - I see full working copies while in India for US $30 but had bought mine at full professional price.  Nice having the license randomly go out or get lost with a computer crash/reinstall and wait...  Come Maxon they moved to other software including Blender (FREE) where once you climb the learning curve it's most of the critical.

Unity (Game engine) got bought into by someone too greedy for Microsoft.  So they were forcing in a license that make everyone have to spam with ads or face potentially unthinkable fees they'd have to pay.  (Installation fee?)  The backlash permanently lost them a chunk of the market and are still recovering from it.

 

This isn't 1990s - computers are in Gigahertz and Gigabytes and there are tons of full professional programmers.  There's tons of competition now for graphics programs of all sorts, game DIY engines, 3D software.

 

Serif/Affinity had a good thing - keep it up.

IF you offer any subscription let it be for niche things like an "AiARt" engine like Adobe.  Make it absolutely clear it's OPT-IN and there will be NO data-scraping by contract EULA from users.  IF the latter 100% opt in with warnings.  That's a strong "Edge" you now have over Adobe that was just given to you.  Got a lot of business from luddites worried their sub-highschool "Furry" art would be taken... So I mentioned Affinity when Photoshop's data scraping thing came out.

[000]

Considering how many “funds” Canva has “raised” in the past few years and how many venture capital campanies are involved, I have a VERY bad feeling about this.

The forced marketing speech (“joining the family”, yeah, sure) in the announcement doesn’t halp.

I guess that it’s probably a good way for all Serif employees to get a nice retirement in 3 to 5 years, but it’s a buckshot in the face for me as a happy user and supporter of an independent company that makes professional software I use every day.

[Alfred]

4 minutes ago, Kiarian said:

We'll be 'allowed' to keep our current version, then from the next 0.1 revision we'll be offered a discount.

We were sold version 2 on the understanding that all point releases would be free. If 2.5 turns out to be a paid upgrade, huge swathes of users will abandon ship.

[AshTeriyaki]

I can’t see much good coming from this.

Personally, I’ve never really cared about the lack of subscription, and I’ve always thought Affinity products were priced too cheap. I moved some of my illustrator work to Affinity in the early days for performance reasons and before I knew it, I had moved over entirely. Not saying I like Adobe, I don’t like their business practices* but it was not my motivation for investing in Affinity and being an early advocate. Selling to a company with a similar lack of financial scruples isn’t much different, enshittification comes to all of their services eventually. Capitalism comes for all of us and something like this was kind of inevitable. Still a bit sad though.
 

*Adobe are a dream compared to Autodesk.

[GRH]

First red flag I saw was 'To our amazing Affinity community,'

The second was 'I am thrilled to announce that ... ".

Which usually means 'We have been made an offer we can't refuse.'

A quick google brings "Canva has made its largest acquisition to date, likely spending more than $1 billion to buy professional design software company Serif to compete directly with Adobe as its prepares a long run at going public."
https://www.afr.com/technology/canva-s-billion-dollar-bet-on-a-37-year-old-nottingham-company-20240321-p5fea0

I'd certainly be thrilled to announce that (jingle jingle).

From the FAQ's ' Canva’s business model is subscription, are there any plans to change how Affinity is sold?'

Answer: 'There are no changes to our current pricing model planned at this time, ... ', which likely means, after 'this time', uhmmm (whispers) 'yes.'

Affinity marks Canva’s latest Europe-based acquisition, joining Flourish (2022), Kaleido (2021), Smartmockups (2021), Pexels (2019) and Pixabay (2019). Canva opened their first European HQ in 2023, based in London.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240325965656/en/Canva-Acquires-Design-Platform-Affinity-to-Bring-Professional-Design-Tools-to-Every-Organization

Oh well, good bye and thanks for all the fish, it was great while it lasted.

[Harry21]

I have been using Capture One Pro professionally for 20+ years. Once their moneymen got their hands on it and changed it to a silly price subscription I stopped updating it at v22. There probably will be no way to continue to use v22 once Windows 12 comes out.

I stopped Adobe Photoshop after CS6 because of subscription, and moved to Affinity Photo for any work that Capture One could not do such as complex batch processing, adding borders, and at that time healing and cloning tools. I also moved from Dreamweaver to Squarespace though that was for different reasons as Squarespace has quite pricey annual fees.

This announcement is worrisome. Seems that subscription only will be taking over the World in all software. what happens if you no longer want to subscribe but you do want to re-edit old files - you are caught just like with Adobe in which you have to restart and then stop again.

Canva looks horrible to me. My main interest would be in video editing but Davinci Studio works great and is a one off cost of just $300; I moved from Vegas a couple of years ago as their update costs got silly.

[Jon S]

🙁 I hope nothing changes as you say but have a bad feeling about this too. So far my experience with these takeovers has not been good.  I really hope you don't introduce subscriptions at any point because at that time I will have to cease my relationship with Affinity.  I will keep my fingers crossed.

[Ash]

There are genuinely no plans for us to remove the availability of our apps to purchase as a perpetual licence. I will say it is possible in the future there may be an optional way to have them via a Canva subscription plan (which could also include other integrations with Canva / cloud services which you would not get with the perpetual version). But it’s very early days and there isn't a firm plan on that.

I honestly think you'll all be pleased with the outcome of this. With the additional financial backing we have no pressure at all to release a V3 anytime soon, so can be 100% focused on ploughing all our efforts into free V2 updates for the foreseeable future - and we've got some great updates in the works. 

Realise this announcement has come as a surprise and I understand the feeling of uncertainty which is brings, but I do think it's all very positive for the company and our customers. 

[Terry Brooks]

That's a shame, I was looking forward to the day that Affinity introduced AI selection methods for sky, people etc (not interested in AI creation of parts of a scene) but I'd guess if that ever happens now it will be after Canva have introduced a subscription pricing and that's when I'll go back to Adobe.

[PhatMonkey]

Does this mean Affinity going forward will be SUBSCRIPTION ONLY the very thing that separated Affinity from Adobe that attracted MOST of your customer base to invest in Affinity products? I had a look at CANVA and the first thing that jumps out of the screen is that they are SUBSCRIPTION ONLY....  *sigh*

[Corgi]

I'm happy for the Serif staff, but far less happy for us users.

There's always the potential for some beneficial synergy, but history and common sense suggest that this is the beginning of the end of the Affinity suite as we know it.

Of course I agree with others that moving to a subscription model will shed me as a customer forever. But, even more problematic would be to turn the Affinity suite into web apps, or even applications that require frequent network access -- that would be simply awful.

It's already problem enough that I need to connect to the Internet to register v2, even once at initial install. 

[Mithferion]

Hi, Ash.

9 minutes ago, Ash said:

I honestly think you'll all be pleased with the outcome of this

That's yet to be seen.

 

9 minutes ago, Ash said:

Realise this announcement has come as a surprise

The only surprises that I like are for birthday parties.

 

10 minutes ago, Ash said:

I understand the feeling of uncertainty

And that's because we've seen this story time and time again.

 

11 minutes ago, Ash said:

I do think it's all very positive for the company and our customers.

I'm truly thankful for all you've done since the first Beta of Affinity Designer up until yesterday, but I'm afraid we'll come back to this conversation down the road and talk about the new surprises we'll see.

Bes regards!