What Cidi Labs does

Cidi Labs is a privately held Utah-based SaaS company that builds a suite of six tools exclusively for the Canvas LMS (Instructure): DesignPLUS for course design and templating, UDOIT Advantage for accessibility scanning and remediation, TidyUP for course content cleanup, ReadyGO for course lifecycle management, Cidiscape for usage reporting, and ObservEd for student performance monitoring. The technology is delivered as LTI-integrated apps and custom CSS/JavaScript widgets embedded in the Canvas Rich Content Editor, giving the tools a native feel inside the Canvas environment. Founded in 2016 as a spin-out of Utah State University's Center for Innovative Design & Instruction (CIDI) and led by CEO Mike Zackrison (formerly of Instructure), the company serves more than 700 K-12 and higher education institutions across the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.

Cidi Labs sells annual SaaS subscriptions priced per full-time-equivalent student for higher education and per student count for K-12, with implementation and training fees layered on in year one. Cidiscape is provided free to existing customers as a cross-sell and adoption lever. The company went to market through a regional direct-sales model (West, East, K-12, North, APAC), backed by event-led demand generation centered on InstructureCon and a content-marketing engine (Design Matters Digest, webinars, white papers, case studies). The UDOIT product originated as an open-source tool at the University of Central Florida; Cidi Labs became its exclusive commercial hosting and support provider in 2019 and hired UDOIT's lead developer (Jacob Bates) as Director of Accessibility in early 2024. Cidi Labs is bootstrapped — no funding rounds are disclosed, and the founders retain ownership and operating control.

Name

Cidi Labs

Legal name

Cidi Labs, LLC

Website

https://cidilabs.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Cidi Labs is a bootstrapped Utah-based SaaS company that builds Canvas LMS-native tools (DesignPLUS, UDOIT Advantage, TidyUP, ReadyGO, ObservEd, Cidiscape) for course design, accessibility, and lifecycle management, serving 700+ K-12 and higher education institutions across the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Educational Software for Canvas LMS

NAICS

Custom Computer Programming Services (541511), Professional and Management Development Training (611430), Educational Services (611)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371)

akta.pro primary industry

Standards, Packaging & Interoperability Tools (SCORM/xAPI/cmi5/LTI) (EDAFAHAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

Subject-Specific Courseware (Math, Science, ELA, Social Studies, etc.) (EDAFACAB), Differentiated Instruction & Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Implementation Support (EDAKABAC)

Keywords

• Canvas course design tools
• LMS accessibility software
• Course lifecycle management
• Higher education SaaS
• K-12 instructional design

Headquarters

HQ city

Salt Lake City

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. DesignPLUS Subscription: Annual SaaS subscription based on student enrollments (FTE) for higher education or student count for K-12. Includes implementation and training fees additional in Year 1.
2. UDOIT Advantage Subscription: Annual SaaS subscription priced per organizational FTE or student count with small implementation and training fee in Year 1.
3. ReadyGO Subscription: Annual SaaS subscription based on FTE or student count, with implementation and training fee in Year 1 covering guided implementation and live/on-demand training.
4. TidyUP Subscription: Annual SaaS subscription based on organizational FTE or student count (K-12).
5. Cidiscape: Free reporting tool available at no additional cost to all current Cidi Labs customers.
6. Professional Services: Training services including live train-the-trainer sessions, on-demand video training, searchable video hub, and documentation provided during onboarding and ongoing.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

Cidi Labs develops and sells a suite of native SaaS tools (DesignPLUS, UDOIT Advantage, TidyUP, ReadyGO, Cidiscape, and ObservEd) that integrate directly into Instructure's Canvas LMS to help K-12 and higher education institutions build, deliver, and continuously improve high-quality, accessible courses. The company sells annual subscriptions priced per student or FTE, with implementation, training, and customer success services bundled in the first year.

Product overview

Cidi Labs offers a suite of six integrated tools designed exclusively for the Canvas LMS platform. The portfolio centers on DesignPLUS (core course design), UDOIT Advantage (accessibility remediation), TidyUP (course cleanup), ReadyGO (course lifecycle management), Cidiscape (reporting analytics), and ObservEd (student monitoring). These tools work both independently and synergistically—DesignPLUS creates accessible content during design, UDOIT scans and remediates accessibility issues across courses, TidyUP reduces clutter to minimize remediation scope, ReadyGO coordinates workflows across the toolset, and Cidiscape provides unified reporting. Together they support the full course lifecycle from design through delivery to continuous improvement.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• DesignPLUS: A suite of tools for Canvas course design that helps educators build beautiful, accessible courses without coding. Includes the Multi-Tool, Sidebar, Upload/Embed Image Tool, and QuickStart Wizard.
• UDOIT Advantage
• TidyUP
• ReadyGO
• Cidiscape
• ObservEd

Products and services

• DesignPLUS A comprehensive course design toolset for Canvas LMS that enables educators and course designers to build beautiful, accessible courses without coding, featuring templates, content blocks, interactive elements, and automated module creation. Sold as an annual SaaS subscription priced per student FTE (higher ed) or student count (K-12), with implementation and training fees added in Year 1.
• UDOIT Advantage A course accessibility assistant for Canvas that scans course content, identifies accessibility issues, and provides guided remediation with clear explanations to help non-experts fix issues with confidence. Includes AI-powered alt-text suggestions via SpeedFIXIT. Sold as an annual SaaS subscription based on organizational FTE or student count, with a small implementation and training fee in Year 1.
• TidyUP A Canvas course cleanup tool that scans whole courses to identify and remove unused, outdated, duplicate files, and empty folders to reduce clutter and accessibility remediation workload. Sold as an annual SaaS subscription based on organizational FTE or student count for K-12, with installation, setup call, and initial training included.
• ReadyGO A course lifecycle management system that serves as a central hub for managing Canvas course quality, workflows, and communication, bringing together Canvas data, Cidi Labs tool data, and built-in task management. Sold as an annual SaaS subscription based on FTE or student count, with an implementation and training fee in Year 1 covering installation, guided implementation, and live/on-demand training.
• Cidiscape A complimentary (free) reporting tool available to all current Cidi Labs customers, providing customizable views of key data across Cidi Labs products (DesignPLUS, UDOIT, TidyUP) with role-based access to help institutions understand tool usage and make informed decisions.
• ObservEd A student performance monitoring tool for Canvas that securely provides real-time academic data to authorized staff for students they are assigned to support, maintaining strict privacy and security controls including role-based access.

Quantifiable outcome

• Completion rates in online certification courses more than doubled using DesignPLUS
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers29 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

AI capability2 records

Feature11 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• University of Central Florida (UCF)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2019UDOIT was originally created by UCF and became a popular open-source solution. Cidi Labs partnered with UCF to provide a supported UDOIT solution to the Canvas community. Cidi Labs became the exclusive hosting and support provider for UDOIT Advantage, providing code updates, bug fixes, and maintenance.
• Utah State University - Center for Innovative Design & Instruction (CIDI)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2016Founding partnership that created Cidi Labs. The company was founded in 2016 in partnership with USU's CIDI, originating from Kenneth Larsen's work developing tools at the university. CIDI provided the foundation for Cidi Labs' first products including DesignPLUS (formerly Kennethware). Products developed: DesignPLUS, ReadyGO, TidyUP, ObservEd.
• Instructure (Canvas)coreTechnology or IntegrationLong-time Canvas partner delivering and supporting tools for the Canvas LMS ecosystem. Cidi Labs was among the first Canvas partners to deliver integrated course design tools at institutional scale.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Kaltura: Kaltura is an enterprise video platform used by higher ed and K-12, with Canvas integrations and accessibility features. It is a broader incumbent in the video/accessibility space that competes for some of Cidi's accessibility and content budget.
• Anthology: Anthology (formerly Blackboard) is a broad higher-ed incumbent offering LMS, accessibility, and student success tools. It overlaps with Cidi at the institutional buyer level in higher education, especially for accessibility and course design initiatives.
• PowerSchool: PowerSchool is a large K-12 and education platform incumbent that has expanded into unified classroom, accessibility, and analytics tools, partly overlapping with Cidi's K-12 segment.
• Instructure: Instructure is the maker of Canvas LMS and Cidi Labs' core platform partner. It is a broad incumbent that offers the underlying LMS, an app marketplace, and increasingly native design and analytics features that overlap with Cidi's product surface.

Direct peers

• Atomic Jolt: Atomic Jolt is a long-standing Canvas app partner that builds LTI-integrated course design, video, and engagement tools (e.g., Atomic Search, Atomic Video, Atomic Assessments). It is the most direct comparable to Cidi Labs in terms of being a Canvas-exclusive, LTI-based, educator-built product suite.
• YuJa: YuJa provides video management, lecture capture, and accessibility (captioning, compliance) tools to higher education and K-12 institutions, often integrated with Canvas. It overlaps with Cidi's accessibility and content tooling and competes for the same institutional budget.
• PlayPosit: PlayPosit builds interactive video and learning engagement tools with built-in accessibility, delivered as Canvas LTI integrations. It targets similar course design, accessibility, and engagement use cases for higher ed and K-12.
• Respondus: Respondus is a long-time Canvas and LMS partner that provides assessment authoring, lockdown browser, and proctoring tools. It is a peer in the Canvas partner ecosystem and a category leader in assessment.
• SoftChalk: SoftChalk provides LMS-integrated course content authoring tools that help educators build interactive lessons. It is directly comparable to Cidi's DesignPLUS in that it focuses on no-code course design for higher ed.

Regional players

• D2L (Brightspace): D2L is an LMS competitor to Canvas with its own course design, accessibility, and analytics features. While not a direct app partner, it represents the alternative-platform risk Cidi must consider in platform-pivot scenarios.

Market position

Strengths6 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/cidilabs
• YouTubeyoutube.com/c/CidiLabs
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/cidi-labs

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles14 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Cidi Labs