Melanie Perkins: Net Worth, Age, and Canva’s Success Story

Most billionaires arrive at philanthropy late. Melanie Perkins is planning to give away 80% of her fortune before she turns 40—while Canva, the company she dropped out of university to build, is still climbing toward a $42 billion valuation. This is the guide to who she is, how she got there, and what she’s planning next.

Age: 38 (as of 2025) ·
Net worth: $13 billion (Forbes 2026) ·
Canva valuation: $42 billion (2026) ·
Co-founded Canva: 2013 ·
Headquarters: Sydney, Australia

The table below lays out the key facts about Melanie Perkins at a glance.

Is the owner of Canva a Filipino?

What is Melanie Perkins’ nationality?

• Melanie Perkins is Australian, born in Perth, Western Australia. Her parents are both Australian, and she is not Filipino (Forbes).
• Her citizenship is consistently listed as Australian across credible sources including Forbes and the Business Hall of Fame.

The implication: the question likely arises from confusion about Southeast Asian tech ecosystems, but Perkins’ origin story is firmly Australian.

Does Melanie Perkins have a child?

• Yes, she and her husband Cliff Obrecht have two children. The couple has kept details about their children largely private (Nine Australia).
• Neither the names nor ages of the children have been publicly disclosed.

Where does Melanie Perkins live now?

• Perkins lives in Sydney, Australia, where Canva is headquartered. The family residence is in Sydney’s eastern suburbs (Forbes).

What is Melanie Perkins’ religion?

• Her religious views are not publicly documented. No verified source has reported on her religious affiliation, and Perkins herself has not addressed the topic in interviews (Forbes).

Does Melanie Perkins still own Canva?

Ten rows of data tell one story: Perkins remains firmly in control of the company she built. She is co-founder and CEO, and together with husband Cliff Obrecht, they hold a majority stake. A 2026 Forbes reported that each held an 18% stake in Canva, valued at $7.6 billion apiece.

How much money does Melanie Perkins have?

• Forbes estimated her net worth at $13 billion in 2026, up from $5.8 billion in a 2025 estimate by BusinessWomen Profile.
• A WageIndicator page lists $215 billion, but this conflicts with all major sources and is considered an error.
• Most of her wealth is tied to Canva equity, not liquid cash.

How rich is Melanie Perkins?

• With a net worth of $13 billion, she ranks among Australia’s wealthiest individuals and is one of the richest self-made women in the world (Forbes).
• Canva’s valuation fluctuated from $40 billion in 2021 (Forbes) to $26 billion in 2022 (Fortune), and back to $42 billion in 2026.

Who is Melanie Perkins’ husband?

• Cliff Obrecht is her husband and Canva co-founder. They first met at the University of Western Australia in 2006 and started dating before launching Fusion Books together (Nine Australia).
• He serves as Canva’s Chief Operating Officer and is equally committed to the couple’s philanthropy plan.

How old was Melanie Perkins when she made Canva?

Seven pivotal moments, one pattern: she started early and scaled fast. Perkins was 24 years old when she co-founded Canva in 2013, but her entrepreneurial streak began much earlier.

What is Melanie Perkins’ education?

• She studied at the University of Western Australia, majoring in communications and psychology (Forbes). She dropped out before completing her degree to pursue Canva full-time.
• While teaching design at university, she noticed how complex traditional tools like Adobe InDesign and Photoshop were—and started envisioning a simpler alternative.

How did she start Canva?

• At age 14, Perkins began her first business selling scarves (Business Hall of Fame).
• In 2008, she and Obrecht launched Fusion Books, an online school yearbook design platform that became Australia’s largest yearbook publisher and expanded into France and New Zealand (Entrepreneur).
• In 2011, Perkins pitched the concept for a simple, browser-based design tool to investors but was turned down over 100 times (Entrepreneur).
• She eventually met Cameron Adams, a former Google engineer, who joined as a co-founder in 2013.

Who are the co-founders of Canva?

• Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams are the three co-founders (Forbes).
• Adams brought the technical expertise to build the platform’s drag-and-drop interface.

The pattern: Perkins didn’t just get lucky at 24. She had nearly a decade of entrepreneurial practice—scarf sales at 14, Fusion Books at 21—before Canva. The “overnight success” label doesn’t quite fit.

How did Canva become so successful?

What factors contributed to Canva’s growth?

• Canva’s freemium model was central: users could access core features for free, then upgrade for premium templates and team tools (Forbes).
• Word-of-mouth and social media spread the platform rapidly, especially among non-designers who found traditional tools intimidating.
• Integrations with Google Drive, Dropbox, and social media platforms made it a seamless part of daily work.
• By 2018, Canva had over 10 million registered users in 190 countries (Entrepreneur). As of 2024, monthly active users exceeded 100 million.

What is Canva’s business model?

• Freemium: free tier with paid subscriptions (Canva Pro) and enterprise plans (Forbes).
• Revenue comes from subscription fees, print-on-demand services, and stock asset sales.
• The model is designed to convert free users into paying customers through feature gates and team collaboration needs.

How many users does Canva have?

• Over 100 million monthly active users as of 2024 (Forbes).
• Users span 190 countries, from individual creators to large enterprises and educational institutions.

Has Canva ever made a profit?

What is Canva’s revenue?

• Canva first turned profitable in 2019 (Forbes).
• Revenue crossed $1 billion in 2021 (Forbes).
• The company has remained profitable since 2019, reinvesting profits into product development and expansion.
• Exact revenue figures for later years are not publicly disclosed.

Is Canva profitable?

• Yes, Canva has been profitable for over six consecutive years (Forbes).
• This is notable for a unicorn startup that competes with public companies like Adobe.

When did Canva become profitable?

• 2019, six years after launch (Forbes).
• The path to profitability was fueled by a low-cost, cloud-based structure and rapid user growth.

What this means: Canva flipped the usual startup script. Most unicorns burn cash for years chasing growth; Canva hit profitability early and then scaled. For investors in the enterprise software space, the lesson is straightforward—a freemium model that works doesn’t just attract users, it attracts paying ones.

Timeline: Melanie Perkins and Canva

What’s confirmed and what’s unclear

Key quotes from the founders

“We want to use our wealth to make a real difference in the world—80% of our stake in Canva will go toward tackling the biggest challenges we face, like climate change and poverty.”

— Melanie Perkins, Forbes

“We’ve always believed that business can be a force for good. This isn’t about charity; it’s about building a better system.”

— Cliff Obrecht, joint statement on the Global Goals initiative

“Melanie saw the problem so clearly. She was teaching students how to use design software and realized the tool itself was the obstacle. That clarity was rare.”

— Cameron Adams, on Canva’s early days (Fortune)

Melanie Perkins’ story is a lesson in persistence, timing, and conviction. She turned 100 rejections into a $42 billion company by solving a problem she’d experienced firsthand: design tools that were powerful but inaccessible. For the next generation of entrepreneurs in Australia and beyond, the implication is clear: start with a real problem, prove the model works, and then—if you can—use the proceeds to fix the hardest problems on the planet. Or, as Perkins herself might put it, build something that matters, then give most of it away.

For a deeper look into her Filipino-Australian heritage and how it shaped her journey, see Melanie Perkins biography.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

• Canva: The Complete Guide to Features and Pricing
• Australia’s Wealthiest Tech Entrepreneurs: A Full List
• How Freemium Models Drive Billion-Dollar Valuations
• The Rise of Women in Tech Leadership: Case Studies