You probably already use Canva. The question is whether you can turn that familiarity into an actual income stream. The answer is yes, and there are four specific ways to do it, ranging from a simple Etsy side hustle earning $3 to $10 per sale all the way up to a Facebook ads operation with a $20 average cart value and a two-sale daily breakeven.
Alston Godbolt has personally tested these methods, and this breakdown walks through all four with the real numbers, the real targeting setup, and the real niche research process so you can pick the one that fits your situation and start executing.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- A keyword research method using Ahrefs and Etsy to find low-competition Canva template niches before you build anything
- The step-by-step approach for listing templates on Etsy without racing to the bottom on price
- The exact Facebook ads targeting setup Alston used to hit a $20 to $23 average cart value selling planners
- How the Canva affiliate program works and which YouTube content angles pull the most qualified traffic
- A fourth method for selling templates directly through your own YouTube channel with no minimum subscriber requirement
- Honest drawbacks for each method so you know what you are actually getting into
- Find the right income method for your specific skills and situation at finder.platformproof.com
Method 1: Sell Canva Templates on Etsy
Etsy is the most accessible starting point for selling Canva templates. The marketplace already has people actively searching for the types of designs you can build in Canva, and setting up a shop is free. Alston calls this the easiest and the least profitable of the four methods, which is an honest framing. It works, but it has a lower ceiling than the other three.
The mistake most people make is creating templates based on what they feel like making instead of what buyers are already searching for. Alston’s approach starts with data. He uses Ahrefs Site Explorer on etsy.com, then filters by keywords that include the word “template,” and sorts results to find niches with high search volume and low keyword difficulty. This tells you exactly which templates have real demand before you spend a single hour in Canva.
If you do not want to pay Ahrefs $99 per month, you can go to Fiverr and hire someone to run this specific keyword research for you. The gig exists, it costs a fraction of the subscription, and you get the same list of opportunities. Alston mentions this workaround specifically for people who are just getting started with limited capital.
In the video, Alston runs through a live example pulling real keywords from Etsy’s organic search rankings. Some of the specific niches that surfaced: bachelorette itinerary templates, obituary templates, resume templates, recipe book templates, 75 hard templates, and a niche called pendulum board templates that he had not even heard of. Each of those has buyers looking for it right now. The goal is to pick one, open Canva, find a base template that fits the category, and then make it yours.
One critical rule: you cannot download a Canva template unchanged and re-sell it on Etsy. You have to make meaningful modifications. Change the color scheme, adjust the typography, rearrange the layout, add your own design elements. Canva’s terms require this, and Etsy will flag listings that look like direct template copies.
On Etsy you can sell blank templates or customizable templates. Blank templates are faster to produce. Customizable listings, where you personalize the template for each buyer, tend to sell at a higher price point. Alston points to a Miami bachelorette weekend itinerary listing as an example of a customizable product that stands out from generic competition and commands a premium.
Etsy Revenue Math
At $3 to $10 per sale, hitting $100 per day requires 12 to 15 transactions. That is achievable with a large catalog in high-volume niches, but it takes time to build. This is why the Etsy method is good for learning the fundamentals of template selling without much upfront risk, but it is not the fastest path to meaningful monthly income. The other three methods have higher per-transaction values that change the math significantly.
Method 2: Sell Canva Templates With Facebook Ads
This is the method where Alston has the most personal data to share. He ran a real Facebook ads campaign for a product called Your Life and Planners, which was a set of Canva planner templates. The average cart value on that campaign came out to $20 to $23. That is two to four times what you would earn per sale on Etsy, and it opens up the possibility of profitable paid advertising.
The Three Ad Sets He Ran
Alston structured his campaign around three separate audiences:
- Time management audience: Women ages 25-50 with an interest in time management. Detailed targeting expansion was turned off. United States only.
- Planning interest audience: People who had expressed interest in planning across Facebook’s behavior data. United States only.
- Parent organizer audience: Parents of young children interested in personal organization tools. United States only.
The underlying logic is that you are matching the template’s use case to an audience that already cares about that use case. If you are selling a bachelorette party itinerary template, you target people interested in weddings or wedding planning, not just a generic “templates” interest. People who have shown buying signals around a topic are more likely to convert on a product that serves that topic.
The Order Bump and Upsell Stack
Alston ran his ads at $24 per day. At $20 to $23 average cart value, he needed one to two sales daily to cover his ad spend and turn a profit. The reason the cart value was that high despite a low front-end price was the three-step offer structure he built:
- Front-end product: Planner templates priced at $5 to $10
- Order bump: Planner stickers (a natural add-on for people who buy planners)
- Post-purchase upsell: Budget planner templates delivered as downloadable Excel spreadsheets
The front-end is priced low enough to convert cold traffic. The order bump captures impulse buyers who are already in purchase mode. The upsell adds a second, higher-value product to the transaction after the initial sale. That stack is what turned a $7 planner purchase into a $22 average cart. Without the bump and upsell the math would not work at $24 per day in ad spend.
To run this model you need a checkout flow that supports order bumps and upsells, not just an Etsy listing. Tools like ThriveCart, SamCart, or a basic Gumroad setup can handle this without heavy technical work.
Method 3: Canva Affiliate Program
This method does not require creating or selling a single template. Canva has an affiliate program that pays you a commission when someone you refer upgrades to Canva Pro. Your job is to create content that attracts people who need a design tool and then link them to Canva through your affiliate link.
The best-performing content angle Alston found: Photoshop alternatives. There are millions of people who want professional design capability but either cannot afford Adobe’s subscription or find Photoshop too complicated. A YouTube video covering the five or six best Photoshop alternatives with Canva included is a direct path to those buyers. Alston found one video on this topic with 898,000 views from a channel that had only 17,000 subscribers. The high view count relative to subscriber count is the signal that tells you organic search traffic is driving those numbers, not channel loyalty.
A second strong angle: “how to create a digital planner.” If you walk a viewer through building a planner from scratch in Canva, and they want the premium Canva features to do it properly, your affiliate link captures that upgrade. One video on this exact keyword had 323,000 views with only 4,000 subscribers on the channel. That ratio confirms search intent is doing the heavy lifting.
You can also use the Ahrefs keyword data from Method 1 to find YouTube content ideas. If a keyword like “bachelorette itinerary” gets thousands of monthly searches, there are probably people on YouTube looking for tutorials on how to create one. You make the tutorial, show them how to do it in Canva, and link your affiliate offer in the description. This turns your template research into content strategy at the same time.
Not sure which of these four methods fits your actual situation?
Answer a few quick questions and get a clear recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.
Method 4: Sell Templates Directly Through YouTube
Alston added this one partway through the video because it came up naturally from the affiliate discussion. If you are already creating YouTube content showing people how to build a template, you can sell your finished version directly to viewers who do not want to do it themselves.
The pitch is simple: walk viewers through the full process of building a template, then at the end say something like “If you do not want to spend the time doing this yourself, click the link below and I will sell you mine for $15.” A segment of every audience will buy that instead of building from scratch. This is especially true for time-sensitive templates like event itineraries, business planning tools, or seasonal content calendars.
The traffic numbers Alston found for this approach are encouraging. A travel itinerary tutorial had 33,000 views with only 203 subscribers on the channel. That means nearly every view came from search, not from subscribers watching a creator they already follow. If you can rank for “how to create a travel itinerary in Canva,” your template link in the description gets in front of people who just spent 10 minutes deciding they want a travel itinerary and are now looking for an easy solution.
This method stacks well with Method 3. You are already making the tutorial content for the affiliate angle. Adding a $15 template link in the same description costs you nothing extra and captures buyers who prefer done-for-them over DIY.
Honest Drawbacks for Each Method
Every income method has real limitations and this one is no different. Here is what Alston’s experience reveals about where each approach can slow you down:
- Etsy: High competition means price pressure. You are competing with hundreds of sellers on the same keywords. Building enough catalog volume to hit $100 per day takes months of consistent output. The $3 to $10 per sale ceiling is real.
- Facebook Ads: You need working capital to start. At $24 per day in ad spend, you are putting out $700+ per month before a single sale. If your checkout flow is not optimized or your targeting is off, you burn that money learning. This method has the highest upside but also the steepest learning curve.
- Canva Affiliate: You are dependent on YouTube’s search algorithm for organic growth. Building a channel that consistently ranks for design tutorials takes time and patience. The commission per conversion is also relatively small, so you need volume to make meaningful income.
- YouTube Direct Sales: Very low barrier to entry but also very low volume per video. You need a library of ranked videos to generate consistent template sales. One video with 33,000 views and a $15 template link might earn a few hundred dollars total over its lifetime.
Real Numbers Breakdown: Which Method Gets You to $3K/Month
The title of the original video promises four ways to make $3,000 per month. Here is what the math actually looks like for each:
- Etsy at $7 average sale: You need 429 sales per month, roughly 14 per day. That requires a deep catalog in multiple niches and strong SEO on every listing.
- Facebook Ads at $21 average cart: You need 143 sales per month or about 5 per day. At $24/day in ad spend that means roughly $720/month in costs. Your net after ad spend would be around $2,280. Scale the budget as profitability proves out.
- Canva Affiliate (Pro upgrade commission varies): Commission rates depend on your affiliate agreement, but the model is volume-driven. The more tutorial content you rank, the more conversions you generate passively.
- YouTube Direct Sales at $15: You need 200 sales per month. With organic search traffic, this is achievable with 10 to 15 well-ranked tutorials each pulling consistent views and conversions.
The Facebook ads model is the most direct path to $3K per month if you have starting capital and are willing to learn paid traffic. The YouTube methods are slower but build a compounding asset. Etsy is the lowest-risk entry point for someone with zero budget and zero audience.
Find Your X
Four methods, four different risk profiles, four different time-to-income windows. The right one depends on what you have right now: budget, time, existing skills, and risk tolerance. If you are not sure which of these fits your situation, finder.platformproof.com asks you a few targeted questions and tells you exactly which income path matches where you are today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need Canva Pro to sell templates?
You can build and sell templates using Canva’s free plan. Some premium design elements are locked behind Canva Pro, but many high-quality template niches are fully accessible on the free tier. If your templates start generating consistent sales, upgrading to Pro gives you access to a broader design library that can improve quality and expand niche options.
Can I legally sell templates made in Canva?
Yes, with conditions. You cannot sell unchanged Canva stock templates. You must modify them meaningfully before selling. Canva’s content license allows you to sell designs you have created using their platform as long as you have made original contributions. Always review Canva’s current content license terms before listing, as these can be updated.
What types of templates sell best on Etsy?
Based on Alston’s Ahrefs research, high-demand categories include resume templates, wedding-related templates (invitations, itineraries, programs), planner templates, obituary templates, bachelorette itinerary templates, recipe book templates, and seasonal event templates. The key is verifying search demand with keyword data before building, not after.
How much should I charge for Canva templates on Etsy?
Blank templates typically sell for $3 to $10. Customizable templates, where you personalize the design for the buyer’s specific event or use case, can command $15 to $40 depending on the niche and complexity. Pricing too low trains buyers to expect bottom-dollar rates. Look at what established sellers in your niche charge and position within that range, not below it.
How much does it cost to start selling with Facebook ads?
Alston ran his campaign at $24 per day. At that spend level you need one to two sales daily to break even. A realistic starting budget is $300 to $500 per month to test and optimize a campaign before scaling. You also need a checkout flow with order bump and upsell capability to reach the $20+ average cart value that makes the math work.