App Adoption Awards
App Adoption Awards are designed to recognize developers of particularly delightful, free-to-use apps that empower our community. App Adoption Awards help you earn cash rewards as your app usage grows.
As per our authentication guidelines, minimizing authentication and paywall friction is essential. Developing an app that's free-to-use (or at least includes a significant free component) and doesn't require authentication can be critical to the success of your app. The App Adoption Awards are designed to facilitate this. You might be eligible to receive one-time payments when your app reaches each of the app adoption milestones for the first time.
Eligibility criteria
Your app must:
- Be publicly listed on the Apps Marketplace(opens in a new tab or window).
- Be built using the Apps SDK.
- Adhere to our App Developer Terms(opens in a new tab or window).
- Provide the majority of its functionality before requiring the user to manually sign in to an account.
- For more information on how this can be set up, or for an alternative to paid authentication, see how user tokens can help achieve frictionless authentication.
- Include a significant free component. This could mean:
- A large number of free credits for generative apps.
- The majority of features are offered for free, and only a small portion are behind a paywall.
- Have launched before June 1st, 2026.
- Have been released in the last 12 months. Apps are only eligible for adoption awards in the first 12 months after they are first released.
- Not currently or never previously have been enrolled in our Premium Apps Program(opens in a new tab or window).
- Not be built by Canva or Canva employees.
- Not be financed, built, or otherwise contributed to by developers in:
- Belarus
- North Korea
- Russia
Canva may, at its sole discretion, withhold payment of the App Adoption Awards program at any time for any reason, including but not limited to:
- The payment, app, or other details provided are incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading.
- The app does not comply with the eligibility criteria above.
We strongly encourage you to consider launching a completely free-to-use app. Paywalls increase user friction and will likely reduce usage of your app, which makes it hard to hit the usage milestones, and therefore receive award payments.
User adoption calculation
An app's user adoption tier is based on Canva's calculation of the number of monthly active app users.
A user is counted as active when they have performed at least one of the following actions within an app:
- Added something to a Canva design (for example, images, audio, video, text) using the
addAudioTrack,addElementAtPoint, oraddElementAtCursorAPIs. - Uploaded assets to Canva using the
uploadAPI. - Exported a Canva design using the
requestExportAPI.
Monthly active app use is calculated and determined by Canva, the calculation is done in two steps:
- The number of unique users is determined on a rolling 30-day period.
- This figure is then averaged for the last 7 days to obtain a smoothed value that removes day-of-week variations.
Usage tiers, award amounts, and payments
Tier | User adoption (App monthly active users) | Award amount (USD) |
|---|---|---|
1 | 10,000 | $2,000 |
2 | 50,000 | $8,000 |
3 | 500,000 | $20,000 |
4 | 1,000,000 | $50,000 |
Payments for the App Adoption Awards program begin in December 2023. If you become eligible for an App Adoption Awards payment, Canva will contact you via email and in the Developer Portal that the award is live. Your payment details must be available in order to enroll in the program and receive the one-time award payment. The payment will be made the next payment period after receiving these details. You are responsible for all taxes related to the award payment.