Instructure licensing is the set of terms under which Instructure, Inc. and its affiliates sell hosted learning software, chiefly Canvas LMS and the products around it. The Master Terms and Conditions apply to “the provision of the products or services identified on the Order Form” by the Instructure entity named on that form, and the Order Form, the Master Terms and any applicable Supplement together form the “Agreement”.[1] Where the terms conflict the Order Form wins, then the Supplement, then the Master Terms.[1] Instructure describes what it provides as “proprietary software as a service” for the duration of the Order Form, with updates and upgrades deployed at no additional charge.[1]
Two features set Instructure apart from most SaaS vendors. First, the Canvas LMS core is also published as open source under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3, and Instructure calls the arrangement dual licensing: “one source code tree, but offering two licenses”.[8][6] Second, the Master Terms contain an express user-count verification mechanism that lets Instructure compare the Contracted User Count on the Order Form with the active users it sees in the customer’s student information system (SIS).[1] Both are covered in separate articles linked under See also.
Editions
Instructure does not publish an edition or price table. Its product pages and legal documents name the offerings below. Quantities, terms and prices are set on the Order Form.
| Offering | What the documents say | Unit and governing document |
|---|---|---|
| Canvas LMS (Canvas Cloud) | Hosted Canvas sold by subscription; the commercial licence is “the basis for the Canvas Cloud solution”[8] | Users on the Order Form; Master Terms[1] |
| Canvas Studio | Video creation, a Canvas-hosted media library and in-video quizzes and discussion[13] | Users; listed among “Canvas Products” in the Support Terms[3] |
| Canvas Catalog | Course marketplace with e-commerce, including paid programmes and discounts[14] | Users; “Canvas Products” in the Support Terms[3] |
| Canvas Career | Skills-based learning for non-degree and professional programmes, “powered by IgniteAI”[15] | Users; excluded from the 24X7 add-on at some support tiers[3] |
| Impact | In-app messaging, walkthroughs and surveys across Canvas, Mastery and Parchment[16] | Named separately in the Support Terms[3] |
| Mastery Connect, Mastery Item Bank, Mastery View Assessments | K-12 assessment authoring and analytics; item and assessment content licensed under Supplements[17][12] | Users; registered-student Territory for item content |
| Parchment, Digitary | Credential Requests;[11] Authorised Users and record-volume Tiers[19] | Per Request; per Authorised User and Tier |
| IgniteAI, Intelligent Insights | AI Features governed by the AI Supplement; agentic features are credit limited[4] | Credits per billing metric per subscription year |
| Canvas Lite | Free account for individual educators, effective 2026-09-30[5] | Eligible User; no fee |
Catalog SKUs for each row are listed on the vendor page, for example Canvas LMS subscription, Canvas Studio and Canvas Lite. The Support Terms treat Canvas Products, Mastery Products, Impact, LearnPlatform and Elevate Data Quality as separate families for support availability.[3]
Metrics
| Instructure term | Catalog row | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Contracted User Count | Contracted User Count | The number of Users for which the Customer has purchased subscriptions, as specified on the Order Form.[1] |
| Active User Count | Active User Count | The number of active Users accessing the Service during the subscription period, which Instructure may verify from the SIS.[1] |
| Eligible User | Eligible User (Canvas Lite) | An individual educator, or School Personnel, eligible for a free Canvas Lite account.[5] |
| Request | Request | One Credential sent to one Credential Recipient through Parchment.[11] |
| Agentic AI credits | AI credits | Limits “expressed as credits per billing metric per subscription year”.[4] |
A “User” is “an individual who is authorized by the Customer to use the Service and for whom the Customer has purchased a subscription”.[1] The documents do not define User by role, so an administrator, teacher, student or observer who is authorised and covered by a purchased subscription is a User. How the number on the Order Form was chosen is not stated.
Counting / floors
The verification mechanism is the central compliance rule. Under section 7.2 the Customer must ensure that “the number of active Users accessing the Service does not exceed the Contracted User Count”.[1] Instructure “may periodically compare” the Active User Count, as indicated by the SIS or Instructure’s own system data, with the Contracted User Count. If it finds an excess it notifies the Customer in writing, and within thirty days the Customer must reduce the Active User Count or sign an Order Form for the excess Users at Instructure’s then-current rates, prorated for the rest of the term, and/or pay an invoice for excess usage.[1] Section 7.1 adds a parallel rule for any usage or storage limit stated on the Order Form or in documentation.[1]
Fees are the other half of counting. They are payable annually in advance, thirty days after invoice. Unless the Agreement or Order Form says otherwise, “payment obligations are non-cancelable”, fees “are based on subscriptions purchased and not actual usage”, and “quantities purchased cannot be decreased during the relevant subscription term”.[1] The January 2024 version, as archived, ended its Fees clause with “all Fees are non-refundable” and did not contain the Contracted User Count and Active User Count terms, so contracts signed under earlier versions may be worded differently.[18] No floor or minimum quantity appears in the Master Terms; any minimum is an Order Form term. The details are in Instructure Master Terms and user count verification.
Virtualization & partitioning
Instructure’s subscription products are hosted services, so processor, core and partitioning rules do not apply. The only deployment that a customer runs itself is the open-source Canvas LMS build, which the AGPL-3.0 licenses without any counting metric.[6] Access that “circumvents the contractual usage limit” is prohibited.[1]
Cloud / BYOL
Canvas Cloud is the commercial hosted service. There is no bring-your-own-licence path from the AGPL build to Canvas Cloud, and Instructure states that some extensions are not open source. Its FAQ, last edited on 2020-05-19, listed New Quizzes, MasteryPaths, the Plagiarism Platform, proprietary SIS integrations, Catalog, Canvas Data and others.[7] A self-hosted installation therefore does not automatically carry the features of a subscription. See Canvas LMS open source and Canvas Lite licensing.
Programs
- Order Form, Master Terms and Supplements. The contract framework. Supplements apply “to the extent that the applicable product and/or feature is listed on the Order Form and/or utilized by Customer”, so a feature used without being listed can still bring its Supplement into force.[1]
- Canvas Lite. A free tier with 500MB storage, five active published courses and fifty students per course.[5]
- Support tiers. Community self support, Basic and Enhanced Administrator Support and a Designated Support Point of Contact; the higher tiers carry an additional fee.[3]
- Partner Program. Free-Tier and Paid-Tier partners; only Paid-Tier partners may use the API.[10]
- AI usage limits. Credit limits for agentic AI Features.[4]
Contract terms
The Master Terms bar selling or sublicensing the Service or its output, using it for competitive purposes, and permitting access that circumvents the contractual usage limit; a violation is a material breach.[1] Use of the API is subject to the Instructure API Policy.[9] Instructure owns “Usage Data”, which includes statistical and analytical data and de-identified customer data, and the Customer may not use it to train artificial intelligence without consent.[1] Instructure may modify the Agreement by posting a revised version, and continued use after the effective date counts as consent, with written notice where a change materially affects rights or obligations.[1] Governing law is Delaware where the entity is Instructure, Inc., and the law of England and Wales with English courts where it is Instructure Global Limited.[1]
The Master Terms promise 99.9 percent annual uptime for services identified as a Subscription Service, remedied only by a credit of 3 percent of one twelfth of annual fees per hour below the commitment, claimed in writing within thirty days.[1] On termination or expiry the Customer must stop using the Service and may export Customer Content for three months where an export feature exists.[1]
Audits and compliance
The Master Terms contain no separate audit clause; verification relies on SIS and Instructure’s own system data.[1] The reconciliation in section 7.2 is the nearest equivalent and ends in a true-up, not a penalty rate. Other compliance levers are suspension for overdue fees or violations of the restrictions, the AUP or the API Policy.[1] Partner and Digitary terms add narrower audit-like duties: partners must permit audits of their data protection compliance, and Digitary customers must supply a list of Authorised Users within five Business Days of a request.[10][19] See true-up and software license audit for the general method.
Out of scope
- Prices and the method by which an institution’s quantity is derived (for example from FTE or headcount). Neither is public.
- Signed Order Forms, negotiated amendments and public-sector contract vehicles, which override the web terms.
- Data processing terms, privacy notices, the Acceptable Use Policy and the LearnPlatform user terms of service.
- Products Instructure acquired or markets under other names whose terms were not reviewed, such as Parchment Digital Badges and the Badgr credentialing service.
- Litigation. No court case about Instructure’s software licensing was identified with a primary court record.