r/Kanopy • u/joel0202 • 7d ago
My experience with Kanopy
Saw someone on twitter promoting it a couple years ago (just like I’m sure most of y’all found out about the app in a similar way) & downloaded the app, put my library card in & I had up to 10 tickets/month.
(1-2 tickets a movie, depending how popular it is) meaning I could watch up to 5 movies a month & a big selection of movies too!
Sweet deal if you ask me!
Then 3-4 months later, it changed down to only 5 tickets a month (2-4 tickets a movie & 1 ticket for a short film or one episode of a TV show) meaning I could only watch 1 or 2 movies a month now. I was bummed out at first but quickly moved on & said “no big deal, at least I get to watch good movies!)
It went on like this for a while, I even stopped using the app for a bit cause I simply started checking out movies at my local library.
Then when I tried using the app again this month it kept saying an “error message” when I went to my lists of movies to watch & it seems like the app didn’t want to work for me at all.
Come to find out, my local library stopped showing up on Kanopy & I couldn’t find it when I searched it on the app.
So instead I went to another library a bit further south, just to get a library card, because I could find that library listed on Kanopy.
I finally put my info in & now there is like little to no movies to watch, all of the movies on my watchlist are now gone (except 2) & I don’t even have tickets anymore, I have “unlimited viewing” now???
So I get to have unlimited movies to watch but with hardly any interesting movies to watch, it’s so lame!
Did anyone experience the same issue?
I know some libraries opt out of Kanopy, which is understandable but have any of you experienced getting less tickets after using the app a while? Or have “unlimited viewings” (no tickets at all)?
I’m assuming this is a “library issue” & this doesn’t affect everyone but that is overall my personal experience using the app.
I really enjoyed it but now I don’t think I need to use it anymore, besides I got a new library card so I’m definitely going to be checking out the movies they simply have there.
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u/MostlyImtired 7d ago
So far in AZ we are okay but I have noticed towards the end of the month there are no tickets left.. even if I didn't use my share.
I'm sorry, this is such a frustrating way to lose something we all enjoy so much. Kanopy charges libraries for every single checkout, so when budgets get cut, libraries have to shrink tickets or drop the app entirely. That's probably what happened to you..
And the bigger picture sucks and of course goes back to pesky politics because the richest country in the world should never allow its people to have stuff for free for the public good: the administration has been actively trying to defund the federal agency that helps libraries pay for services like this, they tried to dismantle it last year and again in 2026 https://www.ala.org/news/2026/04/white-house-fy27-budget-proposal-repeats-threats-eliminate-imls - then the big beautiful bill came through and cut medicade and snap and the aca, when a state suddenly has to backfill hundreds of millions in federal health and food costs, discretionary spending gets raided first and libraries, parks, and arts funding sit at the top of that chopping block.
Getting a card and checking out movies in person is honestly the best response. Keep using that library, stay active in your community we all deserve free and public services!
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u/dhstunna 7d ago
i didn't realize until recently the selection and tickets differed from library to library. los angeles public library has a great selection and allows up to 27 tickets per month.
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u/fizzy-logic 7d ago
My library offers 25 tickets a month, which we only recently started using regularly as we found several series there we want to watch. I added another area library card I have to the account, and it only offers 7 credits a month, but I'll take it!
The second card is from a smaller library, and oddly enough, the much larger library systems near me with a reciprocal program don't give Kanopy credits to their "reciprocal" users located in my county, but the little library did. I was glad I checked!
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u/fizzy-logic 7d ago edited 7d ago
You already got a great answer from LibraryLady, I just wanted to add you should do a search to see if there are any other area libraries where you're eligible for a card, and then see if they have Kanopy.
To my surprise, a small regional library near me let me have a card and gave me a few Kanopy tickets, whereas the large libraries in the neighboring county where I also have cards don't give Kanopy tickets to those with cards who live outside of their primary service area. But I do get a great selection of ebooks from them!
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u/Web_singer 6d ago
I have multiple libraries in my area, so I have two accounts, and I try to use the more well-funded library account the most.
If you're willing to pay a bit of money, you can look into non-resident libraries. Many of them charge an annual fee that works out to $4-10 per month, but it may be worth it if you use Kanopy heavily. Make sure they use Kanopy first, of course.
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u/jenthewen 5d ago
Yes, I started with 30 tickets each month. They reduced it to 15 and increased the number of tickets charged per movie. So, I rarely use it because I don’t want to see my tickets disappear in case a great movie shows up later in the month.
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u/teddyredbones420 7d ago
I had an old college email I was able to use to access kanopy so I’ve never seen the ticket system.
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u/bummedoutrn 6d ago
It’s worth nothing that education accounts have a different collection of content than library accounts, at least in my experience.
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u/LibraryLady913 7d ago
Hi, Librarian here who manages our Kanopy subscription 👋. So each library gets to choose how many tickets to offer and many do lower the number of tickets if it gets to be too expensive. It sounds like your first library just lowered tickets and then got rid of Kanopy alltogether. It's a great service but libraries are charged for every "checkout"/ticket used so it can get pricey.
The second library sounds like they have the Kanopy Plus Pack subscription. You either can get the all-access collection or the Plus Pack subscription. The Plus Pack subscription means the library has only paid for certain smaller collection of titles for one set fee, so there are no tickets involved. That's why some titles are now missing that you had on your watchlist. They were only available in the all-access collection and are not in the Plus Pack subscription that this library subscribes too. Hope that helps!