How we picked (and what we actually checked)
This is a terms check, not a hands-on test: we read each product’s own pricing page in a real browser on 2026-10-09, saved the screenshot, and wrote down the number the page printed. We did not create an account, upload a design file, or export anything, so nothing below is a claim about how any of these tools feels to use.
Every price in this article came from the vendor’s page on that date — not from a round-up list. That matters more than usual here, because the list-style numbers circulating for this category are demonstrably out of date (see the Lunacy section).
| Alternative | Free tier, as printed on 2026-10-09 | Cheapest paid step | Where we read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Figma (baseline) | Starter: “Unlimited drafts”, UI kits, 150 AI credits/day (500/mo cap) | Professional Full seat $16/mo billed annually ($20 monthly) | figma.com/pricing, both billing states |
| Penpot | Professional $0, up to 8 team members, unlimited viewers | Unlimited $7/user/mo, bill hard-capped at $175/mo | penpot.app/pricing |
| Sketch | 30-day trial, no credit card | Standard $12/editor/mo billed yearly ($120 one-time Mac-only license) | sketch.com/pricing |
| Canva | Free plan, US$0 for one person | Pro US$144/year for one person | canva.com/pricing |
| Lunacy | Free, full single-user license | — (Icons8 sells assets, not the app) | icons8.com/lunacy |
The baseline: what Figma itself costs now
Worth stating before you switch, because Figma’s pricing page has changed shape since most “move off Figma” advice was written. Checked 2026-10-09 with the page’s own Prices in USD label visible:
- Starter — free. The card says “Unlimited drafts”, UI kits and templates, and “150 AI credits/day, up to 500 AI credits/mo”. The paid plans are the ones that list “Unlimited files and projects” as a key feature.
- Professional — three seat types now, not one: Full seat $16/mo, Dev seat $12/mo, Collab seat $3/mo on the Annual setting; click Monthly and the same three become $20 / $15 / $5.
- Organization ($55 / $25 / $5) and Enterprise ($90 / $35 / $5) are printed “Billed annually” — the Monthly toggle does not change them, there is no monthly state.
Two numbers we calculated ourselves from those two states: annual billing saves 20% on the Full and Dev seats ($192 vs $240, $144 vs $180 per year) and 40% on the Collab seat ($36 vs $60). And the free plan is usable without a card — on a paid plan, Figma’s page notes you can “let others view and comment on your files without purchasing extra seats”.
Penpot — the only free tier here that covers a team
Penpot’s page re-read today returns the same figures as our 2026-09-14 capture, so nothing has moved: Professional $0 for up to 8 team members with unlimited viewers, 10 GB and the devtools/inspect workflow; Unlimited $7/user/mo with a $175/month bill cap no matter how large the team; Enterprise $25/user/mo; Private Server from $50,000/yr; and self-hosting free with community support. Our full breakdown of what the free card includes is on the Penpot pricing page.
The math that matters: eight seats on Figma’s cheapest design seat (Professional Full, $16/mo annual) is $1,536/year. Eight members on Penpot is $0, and Penpot’s own paid ceiling ($175/month for the whole team) is only reached above roughly 25 seats.
Sketch — cheapest per editor, but it is a Mac-first tool
Sketch still separates a subscription from a one-time license. Read from the page on 2026-10-09: 30-day free trial, no credit card, then Standard $12 per editor/month billed yearly, Professional $24, Enterprise $44, Private Cloud on request — plus a Mac-only license at $120 per seat, keeping it forever, one year of updates included, which explicitly excludes collaboration, online sharing and iOS previews. Our browser session was served the EUR edition of the same page (€11 / €22 / €44 billed yearly), which is the reminder that this page prices by store.
Canva — the cheapest paid plan, for a different kind of work
Canva’s pricing page shows a Free plan at US$0 for one person and Canva Pro at US$144 per year for one person (US store text layer, same day), with Business at US$250/year per person. The page carries a “Save from 16%” badge and a Monthly/Yearly toggle; our automated session could not get the Monthly click to change the printed figures, so we are not quoting a monthly Canva price. The plan card we did capture was served in a local currency (HK$960 / HK$1,700 per year) — same structure, different store.
Two honest constraints from Canva’s own FAQ on that page: only one person can use a Canva Pro account, and the free plan is template-and-stock-led rather than design-file-led. If your work is component libraries, auto layout and developer handoff, this is not the swap.
Lunacy — free, and its own comparison table is wrong about the others
Lunacy (by Icons8) is a native Windows/macOS/Linux app with a free single-user license, offline mode and Figma file import — and the page sells Icons8’s asset subscriptions rather than the editor.
It is also the reason this article exists. The site’s own “Lunacy vs other graphic editors” table prints a “Full single user license” row of Free / Figma $12/month / Sketch $9/month / Pixso $8/month. We checked both of those against the vendors’ pages the same day:
- Figma at $12/month is not Figma’s Full seat — that is $16/mo annual or $20 monthly. $12 is Figma’s Dev seat on annual billing.
- Sketch at $9/month does not match Sketch’s own page either, which prints $12 per editor/month billed yearly as the Standard tier.
Neither figure is a scandal; both are just stale. Which is the practical lesson of this page: the number on a comparison table is a snapshot, and the vendor’s own pricing page is the only thing that gets updated when a price moves.
Which one to pick
- Keep the Figma standard, pay nothing: the Starter plan’s “unlimited drafts” is enough for solo work, and a Collab seat is $3/mo annual if collaborators only need to comment.
- Team of up to 8, open source matters: Penpot — $0, no trial clock, and the cap at $7/user means the bill cannot surprise you.
- Mac-only shop that wants out of the subscription: Sketch’s $120 one-time license, with the explicit trade-off that you lose collaboration and online sharing.
- Marketing assets, not product design: Canva Pro at US$144/year for one person.
- Windows-first, offline, no budget: Lunacy.
Methodology & sources
All checks performed 2026-10-09, from a desktop Chrome session with no account signed in; screenshots are linked in the evidence list above.
- https://www.figma.com/pricing/ — read in both billing states (Annual then Monthly); the Organization and Enterprise columns do not move between states.
- https://penpot.app/pricing — Cloud tab, figures cross-checked against our 2026-09-14 capture (no drift).
- https://www.sketch.com/pricing/ — USD figures from the page text layer, EUR figures from the rendered session; we could not cleanly isolate Sketch’s Monthly state (the yearly numbers stay in the document after the toggle), so no monthly Sketch price is quoted.
- https://www.canva.com/pricing/ — plan cards and badge captured; US$ figures from the US store’s text layer; the Monthly toggle did not change the figures in our session, so no monthly Canva price is quoted.
- https://icons8.com/lunacy — feature comparison table screenshot, column order verified against the rendered table (LUNACY / Figma / Sketch / Pixso).
What we did not do: create accounts, run a design file through any editor, or verify collaboration/export behaviour. If you want the hands-on side of this decision, our Figma vs Penpot and Figma review pages carry the price evidence we have for both.
