Canva makes beautiful event maps. ExpoFP makes event maps that stay current, can be searched, and sell booths for you.
Free to start
7-day trial
No credit card
DIY from $149/mo
No app needed
For attendees
Canva is one of the best design tools for people who aren't designers. It has thousands of templates, an easy drag-and-drop editor, brand kits, and real-time collaboration, and it has a free plan. Canva also has floor plan templates (in Canva Whiteboards) that you can drag, recolor, and label. For festivals, farmers' markets, craft fairs, and community events, organizers often use Canva to make a colorful vendor map, export it as a PNG or PDF, and post it on the website, on social media, and on printed signs. For a poster or an Instagram post, that's hard to beat.
Things get harder when that pretty map has to run the event. A Canva map is a picture. It isn't drawn to scale, so booth sizes are only roughly right. Attendees can't search it for a vendor or a category, and it can't show which booths are still open. Every time a vendor cancels, swaps spots, or signs up late, someone has to edit the design, export it again, and re-upload it everywhere. The old PNG keeps circulating in group chats and on printed handouts. Booth status lives somewhere else, usually in a spreadsheet or an inbox. Canva can't take reservations or payments, and it can't guide anyone from the entrance to stall 42.
This page is for organizers who design their event map or vendor map in Canva and are looking for a Canva alternative for trade show floor plans, festival vendor maps, and market booth layouts. Our aim is to be fair. Keep Canva for what it does best, and see where an interactive floor plan platform saves you time and brings in more revenue.
| Feature | ExpoFP | Canva |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose-built for event floor plans | Yes. An interactive floor plan platform for trade shows, expos, fairs, festivals, conferences, and venues | No. A general graphic design tool with floor plan and map templates |
| Drawing / editing booths | FP Designer: drag, drop, merge, and resize booths on top of your venue plan; changes go live instantly | Drag-and-drop shapes and templates; easy to style, but not to scale, and booths are graphics, not objects with data |
| Import an existing plan | Upload a file or image and the ExpoFP team builds it, or draw it yourself in FP Designer | You can place an image of a plan as a background and draw over it |
| Live booth availability | Yes. Available, reserved, and sold status shown on the map | No. Status has to be shown by recoloring shapes by hand |
| Booth reservations | Exhibitors reserve directly on the map; organizer approves and tracks in one place | Not supported; handled by email or forms |
| Online booth payments | Exhibitors can pay by credit card on the map (payment collection is a plan option) | Not supported |
| Exhibitor profiles & directory | Logo, description, and contacts per booth, plus a searchable directory | Text labels and logos placed by hand |
| Exhibitor self-service updates | Personal auto-login link; exhibitors fill in their details, organizer approves | Not supported; organizer edits the design |
| Attendee search & filters | Search by company, booth, or category; category filters; bookmarks | No search inside an exported image or PDF |
| Wayfinding / routes | Turn-by-turn digital wayfinding, accessible routes, area map; GPS, QR-code, and blue-dot positioning available | None |
| Mobile experience | Browser-based and mobile-ready; no app, no sign-in | Image or PDF that attendees pinch-zoom |
| Sharing & website embedding | Custom URL (yourevent.expofp.com), embeddable in websites and event apps, kiosks with offline mode | Export PNG/JPG/PDF or share a view link; a static design |
| Updating after changes | Edit once; the live map updates everywhere | Edit, re-export, and re-upload to every channel |
| Sponsorship / monetization | Sponsored listings, featured placements, banner ads, logos in booths, sponsorship packages | Only static logos you place yourself |
| Analytics | Included: searches, booth views, routes, exhibitor activity | No map-level analytics |
| Cost | Free to start (7-day trial, no credit card); DIY $149/mo; done-for-you from $990 one-time | Free plan; paid Pro and per-seat Business plans (check current pricing at canva.com) |
On paper, the Canva workflow is free. In practice it costs hours, and sometimes money. It starts nicely: you pick a template, sketch the field or hall, and drop in colored rectangles for food trucks, artisans, and sponsors. Then applications start coming in. Each confirmed vendor means a new label, so you edit the design and export it. A vendor upgrades from a 10×10 to a 10×20. Because the drawing isn't to scale, you discover on setup day that the row doesn't actually fit.
Meanwhile, the real booth list lives in a spreadsheet. Your team has to keep the spreadsheet and the Canva file in sync by hand, and that's where double-bookings happen. Two people promise booth 14 because one of them was looking at last week's PNG. Every change means another export, another upload to the website, another social post, and another email to vendors with "map_FINAL_v7.pdf" attached. Printed maps go to the printer days before the event and are already out of date when the gates open.
On event day, attendees open a JPEG on their phones, zoom in, and squint. They can't search "kettle corn" or filter for gluten-free vendors, so they ask the volunteers. Sponsors get a logo on a static image, with no way to measure whether anyone saw it.
| Step | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Booth changes | Edit in Canva, export, re-upload to the website, re-post on social. | Drag the booth in FP Designer, and the live map updates everywhere at once. |
| Booth status | A spreadsheet plus hand-colored shapes, with double-bookings possible. | Availability shown on the map, with every reservation in one place. |
| Selling booths | Email threads, invoices, and chasing payments. | Exhibitors reserve or pay by credit card right on the map. |
| Vendor details | You retype names and fix typos in the design. | Each vendor fills in their own logo and description through a personal link, and you approve. |
| Attendee experience | Pinch-zoom on a PDF. | Search, category filters, bookmarks, and wayfinding in the browser, with no app download. |
Try ExpoFP Free: 7 days, no credit card. Or Book a Demo and we'll walk through your current Canva map with you.
It doesn't need to be perfect. It's the reference for your layout.
On the DIY plan ($149/mo), you build the plan in FP Designer, dragging, merging, and resizing booths in your browser. If you'd rather not, upload your file or image and the ExpoFP team builds the map for you (Light, Standard, or Pro plans).
Add them to their booths, then send each one a personal auto-login link so they can fill in their own logo, description, and contacts. You approve before anything goes live.
Turn on booth sales so vendors see live availability and reserve or purchase directly on the map. Add sponsorship options such as featured placements or banner ads if you want extra revenue.
Publish on your custom URL (yourevent.expofp.com), embed it on your event website, and link it from social posts and QR codes on signage. Updates appear automatically, so you never re-upload. Next year, copy the map and exhibitors to your new event.
Canva is still the best tool for the marketing side of your event. Use it for the poster, the social graphics, the sponsor deck, and a stylized "at a glance" illustration for the printed program. It's also perfectly fine for a tiny, one-day pop-up with a few stalls that will never change. Many organizers keep Canva for branded visuals and use ExpoFP as the working floor plan: the one with real booth data, live availability, search, and sales. The two work well side by side.
Yes, as a starting point. Export your Canva design as a PNG or PDF and upload it. The ExpoFP team can build an interactive map from it, or you can use it as a reference while you draw booths yourself in FP Designer. Because Canva maps usually aren't to scale, it helps to also share a venue plan or real booth dimensions if you have them.
Information on this page is based on publicly available product materials and may change over time. Canva is a trademark of its respective owner. This is ExpoFP's own comparison and reflects our perspective based on publicly available information and user-facing product research.