Why We Made Canoa 100% Free—For Everyone
A new chapter for designers, brands, and product discovery
If you're reading this, chances are you've felt it too: getting good product data into a design workflow still feels harder than it should be.
Some platforms charge you to access it. Some charge you to publish it. Some trap the data behind broken formats, outdated exports, or a maze of sales reps and PDFs. And most of them weren’t designed for how architects and interior designers actually work.
So today, we’re doing what we believe the design industry has needed for a long time.
We’re making the entire Canoa platform free—for everyone.
No tiers. No upgrades. No feature gates.
Just full access to the tools and data that designers need, and the visibility that brands deserve.
A clearer path between designers and products
When we launched Canoa, we were focused on one stubborn moment in the design process: the gap between discovery and specification.
Too often, finding the right product for a project meant juggling between inspiration platforms, sales PDFs, and file formats that didn’t talk to each other. Designers were wasting hours chasing down dimensions, reps, or CAD symbols. Brands were spending millions trying to earn attention—but had no visibility into what happened after that attention was won.
We believed there had to be a better way. So we started with the basics:
- Build tools that let designers work visually—with context, not spreadsheets
- Connect product data to real workflows, not dead-end exports
- Give brands more control, not less, over how their products appear and perform
- Let the best ideas earn attention through utility, not marketing spend
That mission hasn’t changed. But today, it’s accelerating.
Why we're removing all pricing tiers
We’ve seen firsthand how Canoa improves as more people use it.
- More designers using the platform means better feedback, smarter recommendations, and richer product context.
- More product data means fewer gaps in the design process—and less time spent outside the tool hunting for assets.
- And the more we reduce friction on both sides, the more powerful Canoa becomes for everyone.
So instead of charging designers or restricting access to features, we’ve decided to double down on what makes the flywheel turn: value creation over value capture.
We’ll continue to support the platform through custom enterprise solutions, marketing insights, and optional paid analytics for brands.
But the foundation—discovery, specification, and publishing—is staying free.
What’s new (and what’s unlocked)
We’ve made three big updates alongside this announcement:
1. One tier. All access. Zero cost.
All users now have access to every feature—without limits.
- If you were on Free, you now have everything that used to be part of Studio.
- If you were on Pro, your account has been upgraded—at no cost.
- If you were on Studio… well, now it’s just free.
You can now:
- Create and share private catalogs
- Use advanced exports (including SIF)
- Manage projects with full visual tools
- Collaborate with your team without hitting usage caps
2. Direct product backlinks (new)
Brands have long asked for better visibility into how their products perform on Canoa. Now every product in your public catalog includes a direct link back to your site.
You choose the destination: a PDP, rep contact form, or a landing page. You can track clicks with Google Analytics, Amplitude, HubSpot, or whatever you use—no integration required.
Just add your UTM parameters, publish your products, and start seeing qualified traffic from real designer workflows.
3. Catalog capacity raised 100x
You can now publish up to 100,000 SKUs per catalog.
That’s up from 1,000.
No extra cost. No volume pricing. Just a platform that scales with your product line—whether you’re managing a dozen lighting fixtures or a global furniture catalog.
How we’ll sustain this
You might be wondering: what’s the catch?
There isn’t one. We’re simply shifting our business model to better reflect how value is actually created in the design ecosystem.
We believe platforms like ours should remove friction, not create it. So instead of charging for access, we’ll continue growing Canoa by offering value-added services where it makes sense:
- Custom enterprise integrations for large-scale deployment
- Marketing insights and analytics for brands who want to measure impact
- Dedicated support and onboarding for teams that need help getting set up
If you don’t need those things? Great. You still get the full platform, for free.
Ready to get started?
If you’re a designer, your existing account has already been upgraded.
If you’re a brand, you can now publish your full catalog—including backlinks—at no cost.
→ Sign up now
→ Visit the brand dashboard
→ Explore the help docs
A final ask
If Canoa has helped your practice—or if this update opens new doors for your team—tell someone. Share your catalog. Invite a collaborator. Publish a product.
Because the more we put better tools in designers’ hands, the faster we shape a built environment that’s responsive, inclusive, and beautifully made.
Thanks for being part of it.
—Team Canoa
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