The size is the tell
Canva asks what you are making. That question is the product: it supports hundreds of formats, and TikTok is one entry on a long list. You pick a vertical size, you design, you download, you upload.
PXT never asks. Every project opens at 1080 x 1920 because there is nothing else to open at. Text placement, the safe-zone margins and every template assume a full-screen vertical feed. It is a smaller product, and that is the entire proposition.
Consistency across ten slides
A carousel is one post made of many images, and it falls apart when the images do not agree with each other. Different type sizes, headlines starting at different heights, a colour that drifted on slide six.
In a general design tool this is down to your discipline, or to a template you build yourself before you start. It is worth doing if you post regularly, and most people do not do it. In PXT the styling carries from slide to slide by default, so the set matches unless you deliberately break it.
The end of the process
The last step is where the time actually goes when you post often. Download the images. Get them to your phone. Open TikTok. Select them in order. Check they went in the right order, because sometimes they do not.
PXT connects to your TikTok account, so finishing the carousel and publishing it are the same action. Once a month, this is nothing. Three times a week, it is most of the job.
What you give up
Canva's template library is far larger, its free plan includes 5GB of storage and team collaboration, and it edits photos and video, builds presentations and removes backgrounds. If carousels are one of many things you design, that breadth is worth having and PXT does not replace it.
What the same money buys
Canva Pro is $14.99 a month or $119.99 a year on the App Store. PXT Pro is exactly the same. So this is not a cheaper-versus-dearer decision, it is a question of what that identical spend is pointed at.
With PXT, all of it goes into one format. Every project opens at 1080 x 1920, styling carries across every slide so ten images read as one post, the AI drafts the slide breakdown from a one-line topic, and the finished carousel publishes to your TikTok account without a download in sight. Pro adds 200 posts and 200 images a month, 100 AI credits, three connected TikTok accounts, ten custom templates and 1080p exports with no watermark.
With Canva, the same money spreads across hundreds of formats, and the last step of every carousel is still yours: download, transfer, select in order, check the order held.
If you post carousels regularly, buy the shorter path
The design difference between the two is small. The difference in what happens after you finish is not, and it repeats on every single post. Three carousels a week is roughly a hundred and fifty export-and-upload cycles a year that PXT does not ask you to run.
You can test the whole workflow before paying anything. The free plan covers 50 active posts a month, 50 images, 5 AI credits and a connected TikTok account, and it publishes. Exports carry a watermark until you upgrade, and nothing else is held back.
Prices above are the in-app purchase prices shown on the App Store listing, checked 9 August 2026. Buying on the web sometimes differs, and any of these can change.