Cost of using Canvas

[eworley2001]

I'm researching the costs associated with building course material for approximately 40k students within the next 3 months.  I find "free" on all website information, but is there a threshold when costs become a consideration?

Thank you

[scottdennis · Accepted solution]

Hi Brad,

Canvas is indeed free and open source.  Anyone may create a free course and use it for as long as they like, free of charge, or download the software and run it on their own servers.  What people do pay for are administrative control/access of an entire instance, support and training, and sometimes integration support.  So, if a teacher wants to manually create courses they can do that easily enough but if a college wanted to create an integration with their student information system and a course shell and enrollments for every course in their SIS they would likely become a Canvas customer. 

Would you like to be contacted by someone from our company to discuss more specifics?

[scottdennis · Accepted solution]

Hi Brad,

Canvas is indeed free and open source.  Anyone may create a free course and use it for as long as they like, free of charge, or download the software and run it on their own servers.  What people do pay for are administrative control/access of an entire instance, support and training, and sometimes integration support.  So, if a teacher wants to manually create courses they can do that easily enough but if a college wanted to create an integration with their student information system and a course shell and enrollments for every course in their SIS they would likely become a Canvas customer. 

Would you like to be contacted by someone from our company to discuss more specifics?

[eworley2001]

Yes, please contact me at 817 805-2425

[abunag]

If you haven't already, I'd suggest checking out the Free For Teachers server (canvas.instructure.com), along with anyone else you're working with that may be involved in deciding on an LMS.  It'll give you a good idea of what Canvas can do for your institution.

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Brad,

Just to supplement Anthony's comment, you can learn how to sign up for a Free for Teachers (FFT) account here: How do I sign up for a Canvas account as an instructor?

We also offer a comparison PDF​ that shows the differences between FFT accounts and paid accounts, as not all features are available in the FFT account. When a Canvas representative contacts you, feel free to ask about any of these features, or you can also search the community and find information about each of them to learn more about their functionality.

Hope that helps, and thanks for being interested in Canvas!

Erin

[user_12]

what is minimum number of user for purchasing canvas license ? is it available for 50 users license ? 

[JohnBletheal]

So how much is Canvas?

[JohnBletheal]

I ran into this post and I am not sure I fully understand the open source nature of Canvas. I read that Canvas LMS software is Open Source is part of the AGPLv3 license.  Is this is how it is open source?  Don't users of AGPLv3 licensed software have to make any work based on it public and free? So, one cannot, for example, use it open source to create for-profit courses on their website? I am understanding this, correct? 

Can businesses or any company use Canvas LMS in that capacity and not make it free?

[randallthompson]

Not sure if I need to be a customer or just a single user.  can I call someone to learn more

Would you like to be contacted by someone from our company to discuss more specifics?  answer - YES

[Chris_Hofer]

@randallthompson ...

You can sign up to get a demo at Instructure Learning Platform | Request Demo | Instructure

Also, you can sign up for a Free For Teachers account by going here: Try Canvas Free for Teachers and Educators | Instructure.  FFT don't have all the same features as a paid Canvas account (for example, there is no administrator features in FFT accounts).  Canvas free for teacher account comparison | Instructure

Hope this helps a bit!

[Stef_retired · Accepted solution]

Thanks to everyone participating in this thread. If you are interested in learning about pricing for a paid Canvas instance for your organization, please click on the Get a Demo link on this page and submit the form; a member of Instructure will contact you.

@JohnBletheal Organizations that are willing to pay for their own hosting, self-maintain the instance, and share their code enhancements publicly can use the resources at Canvas Dev & Friends - Instructure Tech Blog and Home · instructure/canvas-lms Wiki · GitHub to get started.