Perusall is an independent company with no external funding. We’re committed to providing a best-in-class social learning platform for our adopters including a strong security posture, strict privacy for student data, high-quality human customer support directly from our US-based team.
As of July 6, 2026, Instructors who create courses that meet both of the following criteria will be asked to select a platform access fee for students during setup:
- The institution does not have a license.
- The instructor hasn’t adopted a book from the Perusall catalog.
When choosing a platform fee, instructors will have the agency to exempt individual students in their Perusall course due to financial hardship.
Courses set up prior to July 6, 2026 will not be affected.
When creating a new course, Get Started > Student Cost you will be presented with two options:
Option 1: Adopt a book
Use the search fields (Title, Author, ISBN) to locate and select your required text from the Perusall catalog. Once a title is approved, it will be loaded into the library of your course.
Students will pay only the national e-book list price determined by the publisher or rental price when purchased directly through Perusall.
Option 2: Choose a fee for students to access the platform
Select a fee, and choose who pays for the course access:
- Students will purchase access from Perusall or the bookstore: Students pay individually. They get a 14-day grace period from the course start date before they are required to pay via credit card through our platform or purchase a access code through the bookstore.
- I will purchase access on behalf of my students: You or your department pays a one-time lump sum based on estimated enrollment using a departmental credit card or direct billing. Students will never see a payment prompt.
Click Next step.
Exemptions
Perusall provides options for instructors to waive platform access fees, either by manually exempting individual students or by applying for a course-wide fee waiver.
Individual hardship exemptions
If you choose a standard platform access fee for your course, you have the option to manually exempt individual students due to financial hardship.
To add an exemption for a student, navigate to Course home > Students, select a student from the list, and then click Exempt from platform access fee on the right panel.
Apply for a course fee waiver
If you select Apply for a fee waiver, a window will pop up:
- I’m using Perusall with my students for the first time.
- I’m testing or demoing Perusall.
- My institution does not allow students to pay for courseware.
- I missed my institution’s deadline for assigning a fee, but I will add it next term.
- I’m interested in assigning a fee, but my bookstore doesn’t work with Perusall.
- I'm teaching a high school course.
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