Limits & quotas
Exactly what the free tier allows, and what changes when you add a key.
The free tier runs on API keys we pay for, so it has bounds. Everything here disappears the moment you add your own key — except the channel-size ceiling, which exists for a different reason.
Every limit, in one table
| Limit | Free (our keys) | Your own AI key |
|---|---|---|
| Courses built per day | 2 per IP address | Unlimited |
| Shared daily cap | A server-wide ceiling across all free users, as a circuit breaker | Doesn't apply |
| Max videos in a channel | 1000 | 2000 |
| AI Overviews per course | 3 distinct videos | Unlimited |
| AI Overviews per day | 6 per IP address | Unlimited |
| Transcripts | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Opening a cached course or Overview | Free and unmetered | Free and unmetered |
| Export, progress, panel, feed bar | All included | All included |
Daily counters reset at midnight UTC. They're keyed to your IP address, since there are no accounts — which means a shared or corporate network shares the allowance.
Why channels have a size ceiling
CoursifyYT is all-or-nothing: it refuses a channel above the limit rather than quietly analysing the first 1000 videos and handing you a course with holes in it. A partial curriculum that looks complete is worse than a clear refusal.
- Over the limit, you'll see “This channel has N videos…” with the ceiling for your tier.
- Shorts don't count. They're filtered out before the total is measured.
- Adding your own key raises the ceiling from 1000 to 2000 — enough for the large majority of educational channels.
What each refusal means
| You see | What happened | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Free limit reached | You've used your 2 runs for today from this IP. | Wait until midnight UTC, or add your own key. |
| This channel has N videos… | The channel is above your tier's size ceiling. | Add a key (1000 → 2000), or pick a smaller channel. |
| You've used your free overviews for this course | The per-course cap of 3. | Add a key. There's no retry — nothing else changes the answer. |
| Daily free Overview limit reached | 6 shared-key overviews from this IP today. | Wait for the reset, or add a key. |
| Service is busy | The shared daily cap across all free users was hit. | Try later, or add a key to bypass it entirely. |
Cached work is always free
Opening a course someone else already built, or an Overview that already exists, costs nothing and counts against nothing — on either tier. The limits only apply to generating something new.