Canva Adjusts Revenue Forecast for 2026, Reducing Growth Expectations from 30% to 20%
In her update for Q2 of calendar year 2026, CEO Melanie Perkins informed shareholders of Canva’s strategic decision to revise its revenue forecast, lowering growth expectations by a significant one-third.
She emphasized that this adjustment was a “deliberate decision to get the economics right” in light of the escalating costs associated with artificial intelligence, primarily from firms like OpenAI.
Perkins further clarified that the “average cost of serving an AI task was too high,” echoing challenges faced by companies such as Atlassian, which recently imposed restrictions on employee expenditure related to AI, as they too navigate an “SAASpocalypse” landscape marked by diminishing share prices and falling valuations within the software industry.
However, the pursuit of advanced AI capabilities has come at a considerable financial toll. Perkins explained that the design platform was increasingly dependent on pioneering AI models, a strategy that proved unsustainable.
“Several of our first-party models were not yet ready for release, and our pricing, consumption model, and usage controls had not kept pace with the overwhelming demand we were encountering,” she noted.
Reduced AI Costs
Valued at approximately US$42 billion (A$60 billion) and contemplating a Nasdaq listing, Canva has developed proprietary AI solutions and accelerated its AI offerings with the debut of Canva AI 2.0 just four months ago, with version 2.1 already in the pipeline.
Encouragingly, the company’s revenue remains robust, exhibiting a growth of 25.2% compared to last year, culminating in US$921.9 million (A$1.32 billion) for the June quarter.
“While this indicates strong growth at our scale, it is essential to recognize that it falls short of the ambitious goal we set at the year’s inception,” Perkins conveyed to investors, explaining that the product rollout had to be tempered to stabilize the business’s underlying economics.
“We made the strategic decision to decelerate the rollout as we reconstructed the architecture, diminished unit costs, and fortified the business model,” she elaborated.
“This tactical pause impacted our immediate growth trajectory but also facilitated some of the most pivotal technical advancements in Canva’s history, positioning us more favorably to sustainably scale our AI efforts.”
Co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht discussed at Blackbird’s Sunrise event in April the company’s commitment to investing in internal models to mitigate its AI-related expenditures, particularly for “freemium” users, while still directing tasks to advanced models when appropriate.
The acquisition of Leonardo.AI, a generative AI startup based in Sydney, has also significantly contributed to the development of an alternative platform.
This strategy has borne fruit, achieving a remarkable 90% reduction in the cost of executing AI tasks. The product offers premium quality akin to Whole Foods Market, but at a pricing structure comparable to Aldi, with Canva’s video model costs being 17 times lower than those of a frontier model and its image model an extraordinary 30 times cheaper.
Canva has maintained profitability for nine consecutive years and concluded the June quarter with a substantial cash reserve of US$1.47 billion—capital which Obrecht may leverage for enhancing the company’s product capabilities.
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