Can You Use Canva Fonts for Commercial Use?

Creativity has no limits with Canva, and anyone who uses Canva for commercial purposes knows that creating commercial material requires licensing some fonts for commercial use. So using Canva fonts for commercial use is quite common.

In short, you can use some, but not all, Canva fonts for commercial use. Some fonts on Canva “Free and Pro editions” are free to use with commercial rights, and some are not. It is up to the creator to check all font licenses. 

Since the font creator owns fonts, Canva is limited to issuing commercial use rights only for fonts that Canva has created. However, all fonts have different licensing requirements governed by their end-user agreements. Therefore, although Canva provides access to these fonts, they do not have control over the licensing use of the fonts. 

Free Stock Media Might Not Be Free For Commercial Use

Canva’s terms of use state directly that the user is responsible for obtaining commercial licenses. In addition, Canva discloses that Canva does not cover the use of any of the free material outside of its software. 

Some Free Well Known Commercial Fonts on Canva Include:

  • Arrow
  • Bona Nova
  • Old Standard TT
  • Modern Sans
  • Merge
  • Teen Regular
  • Kong Quest
  • Don Graffiti
  • Oldies Cartoon
  • Allura

Canva also states in its free user licensing agreement that if you receive a legal notice, you must stop using said materials (including fonts) immediately and report it to Canva! 

Canva Cannot Issue Legal Rights to Use any Media Commercially.

Canva is a creating platform, and although it does create designs for commercial use, it may own the rights; however, only the creator of the work can re-issue a commercial use license. As long as Canva created the font, they can set the use rights for the font. 

Check The Fonts License Through A Search Engine

Typing in the font name into the search bar on your search engine will bring up references to the licensing information on the font. For instance, if you search Neue Machina Ultra Bold, you will see that it is not commercially licensed without paying a one hundred and eighty dollar fee for the use license, although the font is part of the Canva free use agreement. 

Google has A Ton of Free Fonts Available on Canva!

Canva uses fonts from many sources, and Google Fonts just happens to be one of them. Any font that is part of google’s open use font software license is free to use commercially. However, you should still read the licensing information to understand precisely what commercial activities are allowed and not allowed with the font. 

A License is Needed To Use Any Font, Free or Not

U.S Copyright law has a gray area for typefaces and what is allowed for commercial use. Technically, Typefaces are not covered under U.S. Copyright law, but the artistic creations of an artist or the software the typeface uses are protected. Thus, you need a license to use the font if it is not in the public domain or available commercially. 

Creating Your Own Font Will Save You Money

The main benefit to creating a unique font for a brand is that no one else is using the font, nor can they. Netflix Sans is a font only Netflix can use because they created it and own the rights to the typeface. 

These applications can help with creating a new font:

  • Adobe illustrator
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Fontlab
  • Birdfont

Copyright content claims are a thing of the past after creating your font for commercial use. 

Royalty-Free and Commercial use Are Very Different

A Royalty-free license means that you can use the digital asset without paying any royalties to the original creator. Canva has several of these designs and elements available for any unique design. Most Royalty-free designs are perfect for social media or reproduced images or fonts. A commercial use license is usually called a re-sale extended license or can be industry-specific depending on the font used for the commercial project. 

Commercial use licenses cover many different aspects of commercial use. But, almost always, the trademarking of another’s work is prohibited without permission. For example, although trademarking the logo in its entirety may still be legal, trademarking the font would not be permitted. In most cases, Canva fonts are okay to put on sold products (so long as you create the design in Canva’s software) but cannot be used for developing or trademarking logos. 

Using Canva Pro Element Fonts are Okay for Commercial Use

There has been speculation about Canva’s Pro element features (including fonts) being available for commercial use. Fonts are in their category as far as design creation is concerned. 

Technically using the elements that have been used through Canva Pro should not yield copyright infringement claims unless the font’s license is specified as not available for commercial use. Avoid significant issues, and check the font licensing requirements before using the design commercially. 

Where To Get 100% Commercially Usable Fonts

Canva is such a large graphic design library that some of their fonts are not commercially usable. However, there are some graphic design library’s that only include commercially usable fonts and graphics.

Placeit.net is one of the library’s that includes all commercially usable fonts. This way you don’t have to worry about accidentally using a font that doesn’t have commercial usage rights. Using Placeit for your fonts and graphics will give you peace of mind knowing everything is 100% commercially usable.

Canva Fonts are Okay for Use in Some Commercial Areas

In conclusion, Canva fonts, free or premium, are okay to use in most social media productions or print on demand products. The gray area comes in mass-producing (over 250,000 units of a single design) or when attempting to trademark a logo. As long as the font is licensed for commercial use, you can use the font in Canva for these purposes.