Looking for a Badgr Alternative? What to Do Now That Free Issuing on Canvas Credentials Has Ended

For years, Badgr was the easy answer for a program that wanted to hand out digital badges without a budget line. Instructure bought it, renamed it Canvas Credentials, and kept a free issuer tier running. That tier is now gone. If you were one of the instructors, departments, or small training programs that relied on it, you are probably shopping for a replacement right now.

This guide covers what changed, what your learners still have, and a short checklist for picking the platform you move to.

What changed with Canvas Credentials

The free version was wound down in two steps. New free issuer accounts stopped being created after June 30, 2025, and the free issuing system itself shut down on December 31, 2025. Stephen Downes summarized the timeline in his June 2025 note on the change, and Instructure's community lists the December 31, 2025 removal of free issuer capabilities in its Canvas Badges/Credentials release notes.

In practical terms: if you issued badges on the free tier, you can no longer award new ones there. Continuing on Canvas Credentials now means a paid institutional agreement. For a university that already licenses it, that may be the right call. For a CPE provider, a bootcamp, a vocational program, or a single professor who used the free tier, it usually is not.

What your learners keep

Badges that were already issued were awarded to people, not to your account. Learners who stored them in a backpack or added them to a profile still have a record of what they earned. What stops is your ability to issue the next cohort's badges from the same place.

That distinction matters for planning. You are not migrating anyone's past achievements; you are choosing where future ones come from. It also means you have a natural cutover point: the next cohort, the next course run, or the next term.

A checklist for choosing a Badgr alternative

Most badge platforms look similar on a feature page. The differences show up a year later, when a learner applies for a job or an auditor asks for records. These are the questions worth asking.

1. Does it issue to an open standard?

Badgr was built around Open Badges, which is why badges could move between backpacks and platforms. Keep that property. The current version of the standard is Open Badges 3.0, published by 1EdTech, and it is built on the W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model 2.0. A platform that issues Open Badges 3.0 credentials gives your learners a document that other tools can read and check, not just an image with your logo on it.

Ask the vendor directly: "Is each credential an Open Badges 3.0 OpenBadgeCredential, and is it signed?" A clear yes is what you want.

2. Can anyone verify it without logging in?

The person who most needs to check a badge is usually an employer or a licensing reviewer who has never heard of your platform. Verification should work from a public link, with no account and no fee.

3. Can you revoke a credential?

Mistakes happen. Someone gets issued the wrong course, or a completion turns out to be invalid. Look for a documented revocation method. The W3C Bitstring Status List is the standard way a verifiable credential tells a checker whether it is still valid.

4. How does issuing fit your actual workflow?

Think about where completion data lives today:

• A spreadsheet or roster. You want bulk issuing from a list of emails.
• An LMS. You want an integration, or at least an API that your LMS or a no-code tool such as Zapier can call when someone completes a course.
• A one-off award. You want a manual issue button that does not require a support ticket.

If the platform can only issue to people who already have an account on it, expect friction. Learners should be able to receive a credential by email and claim it.

5. What does it cost, and what is being metered?

Badge pricing is metered in very different ways: per badge, per learner, per seat, per issuer. A program that issues several credentials to the same person (a module badge, then a course certificate, then a capstone) can see wildly different bills depending on the meter. Do the math against your real numbers for the next twelve months.

6. Can learners show it where it matters?

A badge nobody sees does little for the learner. At minimum, check that each credential has a shareable public page and a one-step way to add it to a LinkedIn profile.

How Student Center handles each of these

Student Center is the credential platform we build, so read this section as our answer to the checklist rather than a neutral review.

• Standard and signature. Each credential is built as a W3C Verifiable Credentials 2.0 document with the Open Badges 3.0 OpenBadgeCredential type, signed with an Ed25519 Data Integrity proof. It also carries an on-chain anchor: a token recorded on the Base network, so the record of issuance does not depend on our database alone.
• Verification. Anyone can check a credential from its public link or the verify page. Employers do not pay to verify.
• Revocation. Credentials include a Bitstring Status List entry, so a revoked credential reads as revoked to any checker.
• Issuing workflow. Institutions can invite learners by pasting emails or uploading a CSV, issue in bulk, connect TalentLMS, or call an issuance API from an LMS or Zapier. The API records the credential against an email address, emails the learner a claim link, and the credential is minted when they claim it.
• Learners. Signing up takes an email address. Receiving a credential costs the learner nothing, and each credential can be added to a LinkedIn profile.
• Pricing. The Free plan lets you build and preview credential templates; issuing starts on Pro at $79 per month or $799 per year, covering up to 500 learners per year. Enterprise is $249 per month or $2,499 per year for up to 3,000 learners per year and adds the TalentLMS integration. Plans meter unique learners per subscription year, not credentials, so issuing a second or third credential to the same person does not count again. Current details are on the pricing page.

If your program issued badges on the free Badgr tier, the shortest path is usually: recreate your badge templates, issue the next cohort from the new platform, and point learners from the old badges to the new ones when it comes up. You can see how issuing works for programs on the Student Center institutions page.

The short version

Free issuing on Canvas Credentials ended on December 31, 2025. Your learners keep what they earned. For what comes next, pick a platform that issues signed Open Badges 3.0 credentials, verifies from a public link at no cost, supports revocation, fits how your completion data already flows, and meters pricing in a way that matches how you issue. Whatever you choose, make the switch at a cohort boundary so nobody ends up with half a transcript in each place.