Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover design & graphics. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Canva | CleanShot X | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $14.99 | From $29 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | One-time purchase |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | One-time purchase |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Not stated | macOS |
| Covers | Design & Graphics, Short-Form & Clipping | Screen Recording, Design & Graphics |
| Works with | YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Thumbnails, covers and posts without a designer
Canva covers thumbnails, channel art, carousels and short video with templates that look fine and are quick to change. Brand kits keep a team consistent. Anyone with real design skill will outgrow it, and that is fine.
Our note
Nearly everyone should be on the free plan until a brand kit is the thing they keep wanting. Pro earns its money for teams and for anybody publishing daily; for one person making a thumbnail a week it does not.
Only on this side
Mac screen capture that replaces the built-in
CleanShot X is the tool Mac users buy once and then cannot work without: scrolling captures, an annotation layer, a cursor you can hide, and a desktop it tidies before the shot. Recordings export as GIF or MP4 without a round trip through an editor. It is macOS only, and the cloud sharing that competes with Loom is a separate subscription.
Our note
Buy the $29 licence and ignore the cloud tier unless you are sharing captures with a team every day. Loom is the better answer for anything that needs to be watched rather than looked at.
Only on this side
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.