Not all designers require heavy, unwieldy software tools like the Adobe Creative Cloud, and hopefully our Snappa review will help illustrate why!
We’ve rigorously tested the tool for several hours to provide you with an in-depth, hands-on perspective. Over the course of this review, we’ll cover the basic pricing tiers offered by the Snappa app, go over its features, compare it to some competitors (similar to our Snappa vs Canva Comparison), and assign it a final overall rating.
But, wait, let’s slow down a second: What is Snappa?
Great question! Founded back in 2015, Snappa is an online-based graphics app created for the purpose of helping designers quickly, easily, and intuitively construct their own projects.
Let’s look at the tool a little closer:
Background and Overview of Snappa: Review
So, why would someone want to use Snappa over any of the other design apps out there? What unique features does it have to offer its users?
As you’ll see later on, Snappa shines when it comes to a few key areas:
- Convenient graphic design & editing. Creating your own project is as simple as subscribing to the free Starter plan and opening up the website.
- Easily-imported templates and photos. With thousands of templates and millions of available photos in the Snappa library, it can take only a few minutes to get an outline for your design project.
- Support for teams and collaboration. Multiple designers can easily share and collaborate on projects, files, and graphics folders.
With this combination of features, Snappa is especially well-suited for casual designers, along with team-oriented professionals and businesses.
What Are Snappa’s Pricing Plans?
Before we can get to the meat of the Snappa review, it’s essential that we walk through the basic pricing plans offered by Snappa. For a deeper dive check out our snappa pricing guide:
Starter
$0/month
Main Features
- 24/7 access to Snappa’s editing tools
- No monthly fee
- Over 6,000 free design templates
- Over 5,000,000 free photos
- 3 downloadable projects every month
Pro
$15/month
Main Features
- All features in the Starter plan
- No caps on project downloads
- Custom font support
- Removable backgrounds
- Social media tools
Team
$30/Month
Main Features
- All features in the Pro plan
- 5 users per plan
- Shareable designs and projects
- Custom fonts for team use
- Branding & color features
So, is Snappa free? It can be, but more robust features, as with many of Snappa’s competitors, are confined to higher price tiers.
Pros and Cons of Snappa: Review
While we’re going to go into the benefits and drawbacks of Snappa in much more detail further on in our Snappa review, we usually find it helpful to start with a broader brush.
With that in mind, let’s check out the main attractive and not-so-attractive aspects of the tool:
Pros
Template and Asset Libraries
Though it’s not perfect, Snappa’s template and photo libraries are highly impressive, especially if you’re only subscribed to the Free plan.
Color Grading Features
Snappa includes virtually every standard color grading option you could look for in a design editor.
Stability with Larger Projects
Adding larger files won’t generally cause the editor to break, which is indispensable for bigger projects!
Cons
Cost of higher-tier plans
The Team plan, in our view, isn’t quite so valuable to justify the $30/month price tag.
Lack of a mobile interface
With the peculiar decision to not release a mobile app, Snappa isn’t winning any favors in the phone market.
Minimal language support
Designers who don’t usually work with English-language software will be put off by the lack of consideration for foreign languages.
Snappa Review: Rating Details
Pre-Made Templates and Effects
Snappa offers over 5,000 pre-made templates, catering well to beginners and casual users. However, professionals might find the collection limited and some designs outdated. Despite this, the vast array of choices generally meets the needs of new users, providing a satisfactory starting point for their projects.
Customer Assistance
Snappa provides a range of support options including a comprehensive Knowledge Base, video tutorials, and a standard contact form for customer inquiries. However, it lacks a community platform where users can engage in one-on-one discussions and seek community support, which could enhance problem-solving and user interaction.
Language Support
Snappa falls short in language support, offering primarily English as the default setting, which could pose accessibility issues for non-English speakers. However, it redeems itself slightly with support for foreign character sets in the text tool, preventing a complete failure in this category.
Cost-Effectiveness
Snappa presents a mixed bag in terms of cost-effectiveness. The upgrade from the Starter to the Pro plan is perceived positively, offering attractive features that justify the price increase. However, the transition from the Pro to the Team plan doesn’t offer substantial benefits unless collaborative work is a significant part of the user’s workflow.
Scalability
Snappa excels in handling large files, allowing users to import extensive templates, photo assets, and graphics without compromising the app’s usability. This feature ensures that users can work with substantial assets without experiencing a decline in performance, maintaining a smooth workflow.
Mobile Compatibility
As of 2023, Snappa disappoints with a lack of mobile app availability. This limitation could be a dealbreaker for users who prefer working on mobile devices or those constantly on the move, restricting the software’s accessibility and convenience.
Color Grading Tools
Snappa shines in the color grading department, offering users a robust set of tools for color manipulation. The Effects panel facilitates adjustments to color overlays, saturation, hue, brightness, and contrast, providing a versatile platform for users to enhance their designs with vibrant and dynamic color grading options
Rating Snappa
Now that we’ve got a more general picture of Snappa’s benefits and downsides, let’s break down each category in detail and then give the tool a final rating based off these areas of the editor:
To its credit, Snappa has all the templates a beginner or casual user could want. With 5,000+ pre-made templates, most new users will find themselves completely satisfied with the number of choices.
However, advanced and professional designers are likely to be disappointed with the number of templates in the library, as well as the outdated design aesthetic of some of them.
Customer Assistance
Snappa has most of the must-have ways of getting help: The app has an extensive Knowledge Base filled with helpful articles, video tutorials for new users, and a standard contact form that customers can use to reach out to the company.
The main drawback we found here was the lack of any platform to talk one-on-one with other users and solve problems with community support.
Language Support
Snappa doesn’t allow users to easily change language settings, with the default (and seemingly only) language setting in English. This poses major accessibility problems for non-English speakers.
On the other hand, there is support for foreign character sets with the text tool, so Snappa didn’t quite deserve a zero on this metric.
Cost-Effectiveness
There’s two main areas to note here: The cost-effectiveness of the upgrade from the Starter to the Pro plan, and the cost-effectiveness of the upgrade from the Pro to the Team plan.
Regarding the former, we have no complaints! The Pro plan offers several highly attractive features that make the price increase well worth the change.
That said, the Team plan isn’t quite so big of a jump; we found that, unless you work very closely on your designs with a number of close collaborators, there’s little incentive to upgrade from the Pro tier.
Scalability
Working with large files doesn’t prove to be an impediment with Snappa at all!
You can import bigger templates, photo assets, and graphics like logos and illustrations, and you won’t see any sort of significant dropoff in the usability of the app.
Mobile Compatibility
As of 2023, Snappa doesn’t offer users a mobile app.
While designers who primarily work from their desktop or laptop may not find this to be a significant issue, users who are always on-the-move or who otherwise enjoy working on their phone or tablet will probably see this as a dealbreaker
Color Grading Tools
On a more positive note, Snappa definitely shines when it comes to working with color grading!
Using the Effects panel, you can make adjustments to the color overlay on your design, use the color picker to select pre-generated color choices, or directly change the saturation, hue, brightness, and contrast of your colors.
What Features Does Snappa Provide?
Our Snappa review would be remiss if we didn’t talk about the most fundamental features of the tool!
Here are the most noteworthy, exciting, and useful features you’ll find bundled with Snappa:
Text and Captions
Regardless of what price plan you’re subscribed to, Snappa always allows users to add custom text and captions to their projects.
With added bonuses like over 200 different fonts, special text effects, and the ability to adjust line height, letter spacing, and text rotation, you can experiment with fairly sophisticated typographical effects: Even on the Starter plan.
Background Remover
For the Pro and Team plans, it’s possible to remove backgrounds from any image in your project by using Snappa’s built-in background remover tool.
If, for example, you’d like to get rid of a backdrop when editing your headshots, you can easily do so with the background remover. Likewise, you can add transparent and custom backgrounds to any photography project after removing the existing background.
Image Sizing and Adjustment
Let’s say you want to make adjustments to an image’s size, rotation, or cropping. No problem!
Snappa lets users fiddle with the resizing photos and graphics, as well as spin the image into a more satisfying angle or reduce the field of vision by cropping it.
These are standard (but crucial!) features, so it’s always a plus to see an editor include them.
Blurring Effects
Need an additional effect to spice up your project a little? Snappa might just have the answer: Blurring.
Simply use the blur tool, which offers a sliding adjuster to change how heavy you want the blur to show up, and your photo can look much more visually interesting than it otherwise might.
Template Library
It isn’t always convenient to create a new graphic design project completely from scratch. This is where templates come in handy!
In Snappa’s template library, you’ll find access to thousands of pre-made design outlines.
Template categories include social media graphics, blogging presets, and email and networking headers; quite a convenient list of project skeletons.
Photo and Graphics Assets
While templates are nice, many designers prefer something a little less constrained; they’d still like to design the overall look and feel of their project, while still having access to pre-assembled graphics.
Say hello to Snappa’s photo library!
Consisting of several million readily-imported graphics assets, this library can help you kick off your designs quickly and without any unnecessary fuss.
Social Media Integration
A lot of designers more or less require social media tools as part of their workflow.
How does Snappa fare in that department? Very well!
The program offers a wide range of social media integration features, including templates for banners and profile pictures on popular sites, infographic design assistance, and preset photo dimensions for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch.
Custom Font Support
Sometimes you may find that you need a font that isn’t available in the default list of typefaces.
Luckily, if you’re subscribed to Snappa’s Pro plan (or above), you’ll be able to upload your own custom fonts to any project. No need to settle for a “good enough” typeface when you can include the exact one you have in mind.
Comparing Snappa to Its Competitors
We’d be outright lying if we said Snappa didn’t have competitors that can certainly give the tool a run for its money!
Let’s go through the strengths and weaknesses of a few of the main contenders:
Canva
Compared to Snappa, Canva has some inescapable advantages, including an overall easier user interface, support for mobile devices, and a more extensive library of templates and graphics assets.
On the flip side, Snappa also excels in areas where users find Canva lacking, like free storage, customer support options, and more intuitive locations for common design tools.
Sketch
With its integration of community support (especially plugins), convenient application to UI and UX design, and intuitive interface, Sketch inarguably has a lot going for it over Snappa.
That said, Snappa outshines Sketch when it comes to performance with larger files, general ease of use, and support for platforms besides macOS.
Prezi
Prezi definitely gives Snappa a run for its money in areas such as business & educational presentation support, pre-made effects, and simplicity of the user interface.
But, there’s also no getting around Snappa’s superior template library, more professional toolset, and more frequent product updates and support.
Snappa’s Support Resources
Even the most seasoned designers sometimes need a little help. What exactly does the Snappa app offer in the way of community outreach & help resources?
Let’s break it down:
Getting Started Videos
Even the most seasoned designers sometimes need a little help. What exactly does the Snappa app offer in the way of community outreach & help resources?
Let’s break it down:
Knowledge Base
If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a more detailed, instruction-manual-type breakdown of solving issues you encounter with Snappa, the site’s Knowledge Base is the place to go!
Under varied categories in the Knowledge Base, you’ll find solutions for effectively using the Team plan, troubleshooting common software errors, and managing your account & monthly or annual billing cycles.
Contact Page
As a last resort, you can reach out to Snappa directly if you can’t find an answer to a burning question. The official contact page provides a form for you to explain your problem or question, and the support team will then write you back via email to help resolve the issue.
Final Verdict
There’s undeniably a huge amount of potential for Snappa that users should be aware of: The support for external libraries, color grading, and social media tools combine to make this a worthy competitor to any other web-based graphic design program.
But, Snappa’s far from perfect. Its lackluster foreign language support, neglect of the mobile market, and pricier Team plan keep it from getting a maximum score.
Instead, we’ll finish off our Snappa review by assigning the tool a 3.7/5 rating.
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