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Canvas API Fees, Quotas & Limits in Atomic Search

Beginning August 1, 2026, Atomic Search tracks and limits the number of Canvas API calls it makes each day on behalf of each customer. We made this change because Instructure now charges vendors like Atomic Jolt fees to call Canvas APIs.

To keep Atomic Search high quality and sustainable, we’ve made the following changes:

  1. Tracking. Track Canvas API calls made on behalf of each customer.
  2. Quotas. Assign each customer annual and daily Canvas API quotas.
  3. Limits. Stop calling Canvas APIs once a customer hits its daily limit.
  4. Reports. Provide customer-facing reports on Canvas API usage.
  5. Controls. Provide settings customers can use to control how quotas are used.
  6. Optimize API Usage. Reduced the number of Canvas API calls made.
  7. Canvas Live Events. Enhanced Canvas Live Event support for indexing content.
  8. Canvas Data 2 (CD2) Support. Added CD2 support for indexing content.
  9. Find and Replace (F&R). Disabled account-level F&R unless CD2 support is enabled.

To get the best performance from Atomic Search, we encourage customers to:

  1. Enable Canvas Live Events. This ensures content is updated quickly.
  2. Enable CD2 access. This dramatically reduces the Canvas API calls needed to index new content and keep indexes up to date.

We’ve added information to the Atomic Search interface to inform users about these changes:

  1. Customers without CD2. If your Canvas isn’t sharing CD2 data with Atomic Search, account-level F&R is disabled.
  2. Customers without Canvas Live Events. If your Canvas isn’t configured to send Live Events to Atomic Search, you must manually request an index update after making changes to a course.
  3. Indexing may be delayed. If Atomic Search hits its Canvas API call limit, indexing is delayed until the next day, which may result in out-of-date indexes.

Customer admins can view their Canvas API quotas and usage on the Canvas API Usage screen in Atomic Search. They can also control:

● Subaccounts - Which sub-accounts of their Canvas instance are indexed.

● Course types - Which types of courses are indexed: active, in preparation, or old.

● Content types - Which types of content are indexed: pages, files, assignments, quizzes, and announcements.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Instructure start charging vendors fees to call Canvas APIs?
Instructure says the fees help cover infrastructure costs and encourage vendors to use the APIs more efficiently.

What does Instructure charge for?
Instructure currently charges based on the number of Canvas REST API calls a tool makes each month. It doesn’t yet charge for Live Events or Canvas Data 2 (CD2) calls, but plans to charge for CD2 calls in the future.

How much Canvas API quota does each customer get?
Quotas are based on the size of a customer’s annual subscription fee.

How has Atomic Search optimized its API usage?
Atomic Search optimized its API usage in three ways:

  1. Stop polling. Atomic Search no longer calls Canvas REST APIs daily to check for content updates in indexed courses (it still checks daily for new courses and status changes). Instead, a course’s index updates only when a user requests it, or immediately if your Canvas instance sends Live Events to Atomic Search.
  2. Call bulk APIs. Atomic Search now uses bulk API calls to request content added since it was first implemented.
  3. Use CD2 for new and updated content. If you share CD2 data with Atomic Search, it uses CD2 APIs during initial indexing and course copy.

Is sharing CD2 data with Atomic Search secure?
Yes. Atomic Jolt follows industry best practices for security and privacy, including annual SOC 2 audits and penetration testing. Atomic Search only requests CD2 content tables, never tables containing user information. Instructure plans to release table scoping for CD2 APIs in Q3 2026, which will let customers further restrict Atomic Search to course-content tables only.

Will CD2-based indexes be current?
Instructure updates CD2 data every four hours, so CD2-based indexing may lag by up to four hours. To reduce this delay, we recommend also enabling Canvas Live Events: with Live Events on, changes to individual course items update immediately, while course copy and blueprint push still rely on CD2.

Where are Canvas API usage reports shown?
Log into Canvas as an account or application administrator, open Atomic Search, and select Canvas Usage from the three-dot menu in the top right. This report is visible to administrators only.

How does CD2-based Find and Replace work?
If CD2 access is enabled, Atomic Search uses CD2 to index and cache content, then runs Find against that cache. For each match, it calls the Canvas API to confirm the content hasn’t changed since it was last indexed, then updates it. To stay within quota, each F&R job is limited to one-tenth of the day’s Canvas API quota.

Does Atomic Search still support Canvas Discussions?
Searching Canvas Discussions is a premium feature used by very few customers. We’re still evaluating whether to continue supporting it.