The Best Tools for Making Social Media Graphics in 2026: 16 Options

Most social media graphics are made in one of a handful of tools, and the deciding factor is rarely features. It is the free plan’s limits: how many downloads you get, whether exports carry a watermark, whether the one-click resize you will want for every platform costs extra. Those limits vary from generous to nearly useless. Snappa allows three downloads a month, PicMonkey none without a subscription.

This guide covers sixteen tools grouped by who they suit, with what the free plan really allows. We checked each vendor’s own pricing and help pages in October 2026. Where a price was not published in a form we could confirm, we leave it out rather than guess. At the end there is a table of current image sizes for each platform, from the platforms’ own documentation.

Quick picks

Template-first tools for most people

1. Canva

Canva is the default for a reason: its free plan includes more than 1.6 million templates, 5 GB of storage, one brand kit with three colours, and up to 20 AI uses. It exports JPG, PNG, PDF, SVG, PPTX, MP4 and GIF, and runs in the browser and as apps for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. Free exports of free content carry no watermark.

The limits that matter for social media: Magic Resize, the background remover and the content planner are all paid features, as are export quality controls and transparent PNGs. The content licence allows commercial use within designs but forbids using Canva content in a logo or business name. Canva’s Pro price is not published in a form we could confirm; check its pricing page for your region.

2. Adobe Express

Adobe Express is Canva’s closest rival and has one free feature Canva lacks: a content scheduler, for one account per network across Facebook, Instagram, X, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube and TikTok. The free plan includes 5 GB of storage, templates, a free image resize action and limited generative AI credits. Premium is $9.99 a month and adds one-click resizing for multiple channels and 250 AI credits a month. Adobe’s own pricing page contradicts itself on whether the image background remover is free. Some Adobe Stock assets carry a limited licence that bars standalone export and merchandise use.

3. VistaCreate

VistaCreate, the tool formerly called Crello, has a free Starter plan with 100,000 templates, one brand kit and 10 GB of storage, and is strong on animated posts. Pro, at $10 a month on its annual option, covers up to ten seats and adds the one-click resizer, background remover and scheduling. That makes it unusually cheap for a small team.

4. Microsoft Designer

Designer is free with a Microsoft account and leans on AI: describe a post and it drafts designs to edit. AI actions use monthly credits, and Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers get up to four times more. It runs on the web and mobile and inside Windows Photos. Microsoft does not publish the free credit number. It suits Microsoft 365 users who want a quick first draft.

5. Snappa

Snappa is a simple web tool with over 6,000 templates and exports web-optimised JPG, high-resolution PNG and 2x retina versions. Its free plan allows only three downloads a month and no background removal. Pro costs $10 a month billed yearly and connects to Buffer for scheduling. It suits bloggers who want speed and nothing more.

6. Fotor

Fotor combines a photo editor with templates on web, Windows, Mac and mobile. The free plan exports normal-quality JPG, PNG and PDF with 512 MB of storage. HD exports, transparent PNGs and removing watermarks from paid effects and templates need a paid plan.

7. PicMonkey

PicMonkey is a capable editor with Smart Resize and a brand kit on its Pro plan, but it has no usable free plan: its own FAQ says you need to subscribe to download or share. There is a 7-day trial. Consider it only if you will pay.

For designers and teams

8. Figma and Figma Buzz

Figma is the standard design tool for teams, with a free Starter plan. Figma Buzz, its tool for marketing assets and still in beta, lets designers publish locked brand templates that others fill in, and can bulk-create variants from a spreadsheet. Buzz exports PNG, JPG and PDF, and MP4 on paid plans. Paid Collab seats, which include Buzz, are $3 a month. It is not the easiest tool for a beginner working alone.

9. Affinity

Affinity, now owned by Canva, relaunched as a single app that replaces Designer, Photo and Publisher, and is free for individuals on Mac and Windows. It imports PSD, AI and IDML files. Its AI tools need a paid Canva plan. It has no social templates to speak of; it is a professional tool for people who want Adobe-level design without a subscription.

10. Kittl

Kittl is built around typography and is popular with merch and print-on-demand sellers. Its free plan is restrictive for social media: five projects, exports capped at 800 pixels at 72 dpi, and personal use only. Pro is $15 a month, or $144 a year, and includes a commercial licence.

11. Placeit

Placeit, from Envato, specialises in mockups: your design on a T-shirt, a phone screen or a mug, plus social post and video templates. A free account gives some free templates; the unlimited plan is $8.33 a month on the annual option. Social posts export as PNG sized for each platform.

For infographics and data

12. Visme

Visme is strongest for infographics, charts and data-heavy posts. The free plan offers unlimited projects and 500 MB of storage, but free projects carry the Visme logo, and Visme’s own pages disagree on whether free accounts can download at all. Starter costs $147 a year.

13. Piktochart

Piktochart is aimed at infographics and reports and lists social publishing on its free plan, but the free plan includes only two PNG downloads. Pro is $10 per member a month billed annually, with unlimited PNG exports.

Free photo editors

14. Photopea

Photopea is a free, Photoshop-like editor in the browser that, by its own description, runs fully locally without uploading your files. It opens and saves PSD files and reads almost anything else, including WebP, HEIC, AVIF, SVG, PDF and Figma files. It has one-click background removal. It has few templates, so it suits people who already know how to design.

15. Pixlr

Pixlr offers quick editing (Pixlr Express) and a fuller editor on web, desktop and mobile. The free version has ads and limited saves. Paid plans start at $1.99 a month billed yearly, among the cheapest upgrades here, with no refunds.

16. GIMP

GIMP is free, open-source photo editing software for Windows, Mac and Linux, with version 3.2.6 released in September 2026. It has no templates or social presets. Use it for serious photo work on no budget, not for knocking out a week’s posts.

Image sizes for each platform

These come from each platform’s own help or advertising documentation in October 2026. Platforms change these more often than you would expect, so check the source if a post looks cropped.

After you export

On a free plan you often end up with one design at one size and need it at four others. Rather than rebuild it, export once at the largest size you need and scale copies down. Our PNG resizer and JPG resizer do that in your browser. If a tool gave you a PNG of a photo-based post, converting it with PNG to JPG usually makes it several times smaller before upload.

For posts that link to your own site, the image people see in the preview comes from your page’s Open Graph tags, not from whatever you designed. Our Open Graph tag generator writes those tags, and the image should be at least 1200 by 630 pixels for Facebook and LinkedIn to show it large.