Canva Connect API vs Templated: Which One Makes Sense For Your Product?

Most teams looking at the Canva Connect API already know one thing. They want design automation without building a design tool from scratch.

Canva Connect looks like the obvious answer. It gives you templates, editing, and export, all inside a familiar editor. But once you start thinking about product workflows, backend automation, and how much control you actually need, the questions begin.

Do you want your users working inside Canva?

Or do you want design creation to live inside your own product?

Canva has great APIs, but the limitations of bringing its own platform along can become a barrier for you as a business.

If yes, this blog is specifically for you. Hi, I am Pedro, the founder of Templated, and of course, a white-label alternative to Canva's suite of APIs.

Over a decade of my experience in designing, I have been looking closely at businesses and came to know that some, whether big or small, do need automation and an in-built editor for their web apps, but do not need Canva to follow their users altogether.

And that's where Templated can be your pick. In this read, I will walk you through how it can fit into your setup.

Let's get started.

Canva Connect API vs Templated: Comparing the API Capabilities

Both Canva Connect API and Templated let you generate designs from templates and export them as images or PDFs. 

However, the way they expose these capabilities and how deeply they integrate into your product is very different. To determine which one makes sense for your use case, it is helpful to examine what each platform actually provides at the API level.

Here's a quick comparison table: -

Now, when you see this table, most of the confusion should be cleared. If your users need to work with templates inside Canva, or they prefer creating and managing everything from there, then going with the Canva Connect API is the better choice.

However, recently Templated introduced a feature where you can import Canva templates directly into Templated's editor. This means you can still start with designs created in Canva, but then move them into your own product setup for automation and scaling. Or if you already have a designs made in there, quickly export to Templated with a single click.

The editing experience will feel quite similar, since Templated's editor is designed to work in a way that is familiar to Canva users.

All the assets remain within your product setup, and this is where white-label control and pricing flexibility start to matter. 

And, this is usually the point where teams begin to consider switching from Canva Connect API to a fully embedded design solution like Templated.

Canva Automation API vs Templated: How Automation and Backend Workflows Differ

With the Canva Connect API, you are not working with just one endpoint for generating images. You get access to a broader set of APIs that cover different parts of the design lifecycle. 

This includes APIs to create new designs from templates, update text and images inside a design, manage user assets, and export finished designs in formats like PNG, JPG, PDF, or video.

There are also APIs focused on user authentication and workspace access, which allow your product to connect to a user's Canva account and operate inside their Canva projects.  This means your automation flows are usually tied to specific users, their templates, and their design libraries.

However, this setup can add extra steps when you want fully backend-driven workflows.  Since designs live inside Canva workspaces, automation often depends on user permissions, account connections, and template access inside Canva. 

For large-scale or batch generation, this can make workflows more complex to manage, especially when designs are generated without direct user involvement.

With Templated, the automation model is more backend-focused from the start. You work directly with the image automation API, where structured data is sent to a template and outputs are generated without requiring any user session or external design workspace. 

This makes it easier to plug design generation into systems like CRMs, form submissions, scheduled jobs, or bulk document generation pipelines. 

Also mind that these calls are synchronous, unlike asynchronous in Canva.

Below are the kinds of workflows teams usually try to automate when they connect design generation to forms, CRMs, or internal systems. The way each API handles these situations shows how backend-friendly the setup really is.

For most teams, the decision becomes clearer when you look at how these tools behave in real product workflows. Different products need design automation in very different ways, and that's where the practical fit of each approach starts to show.

Ideal Use Cases: Who Should Use Which API

Pricing and Cost Structure at Scale

Once automation runs in the background and designs are generated regularly, the cost structure becomes just as important as features.

What matters most is not just how much you pay, but what actually drives your bill as usage grows.

With the Canva Connect API, design generation is closely tied to Canva's platform model.  Since designs live in user workspaces, pricing is influenced by how users interact with Canva, how often designs are edited or exported, and how your integration fits within Canva's broader product plans. 

Again, this works well when design creation is mainly user-driven and happens inside Canva.

As automation increases, the cost model becomes less about people using the editor and more about systems triggering design creation. 

At that point, forecasting spend can be harder because usage is no longer tied to active design sessions, but to how frequently your product generates or updates designs through the API.

With Templated, pricing is usually aligned with how many designs or documents your system generates. Since design creation happens fully through APIs and does not depend on external user accounts, costs scale with backend activity rather than user behavior.  For products that rely on scheduled jobs, bulk processing, or event-based automation, this makes it easier to connect design cost directly to product usage. Here's a brief comparison to help you better understand.

Pricing Comparison: How Costs Scale in Practice

For the last point, billing structure, it is worth explaining this in a bit more detail. With the Canva Connect API, there is no simple public pricing tier for API usage. 

Access and costs are usually part of enterprise discussions and depend on how your integration works, how much design generation happens through the API, and whether your users are on paid Canva plans. I have discussed in detail here, too. 

In Templated, pricing is more straightforward and tied to how much design generation your system actually performs. Plans start at $79 per month when billed annually, and include access to the editor as well as the image generation API with a fixed number of render credits.

Conclusion

Beyond automation and cost, there is also the question of how design fits into your product identity. 

With the Canva Connect API, parts of the user journey still happen inside Canva. Users recognise the editor, the interface, and the platform they are working in.

For products where Canva is already part of the user's workflow, this can feel natural. But for SaaS teams trying to keep users fully inside their own product, this means design never fully becomes a native feature. 

The experience is shared between your platform and Canva's.

With Templated, design creation can be embedded directly into your application and styled to match your product. 

From the user's point of view, design feels like something your software provides, not something powered by another platform in the background.

I hope this has helped you clear your doubt as to which one should be more for your specific use case. 

Great, if you think Templated will be the right choice, and need help integrating, you can reach out to me on chat & I will be happy to help. 

You can always sign up from here, try the editor & automate images, we give 50 free credits to spin the API.

Additional Resources

Meanwhile, I have also compared Templated with other solutions out there in the market. You can read about them in these individual reads.

Canva Autofill API vs Templated Image Generation API: Things You Should Know Before Choosing b/w Them

Design Huddle vs Polotno vs Templated: Choosing the Best Image Editor

5 Renderform Alternatives To Test Out in 2026

4 Best Web To Print SDKs