Canvas GPA calculator

Does Canvas calculate your GPA?

No. Instructure’s student guides describe course grades only. On a course’s Grades page, your total grade “may display as a point value or as a percentage,” and if your institution restricts quantitative data it is “displayed using a grading scheme, usually letter grades.” The Dashboard lists the same course grades side by side. Neither guide mentions a GPA, grade points or credit hours. Those belong to your school: the registrar sets what each letter is worth, and each course carries its own credits. A GPA built from Canvas is therefore an estimate from grades that can still change.

Sources, checked October 20, 2026: Instructure’s How do I view my grades in a current course? and How do I view grades for all courses in the Card View Dashboard?

Where Canvas shows the grades you need

Open the Dashboard and select View Grades in the sidebar. Instructure says the Courses I’m Taking section “displays the name of each course and a current overall grade, if available,” and a course with nothing graded yet shows “no grade.” If a course uses grading periods, the Dashboard shows the current period’s grade, and a drop-down switches to another period. Inside a course, the Grades page shows the same number with more detail.

Instructure warns that “your instructor may restrict you from viewing grade totals.” Our guide to why your Canvas total grade is hidden covers each setting that does it.

Sources, checked October 20, 2026: Instructure’s Dashboard grades guide (View Grades, grading periods and the app’s lock icon) and Grades page guide.

How does a Canvas percentage become grade points?

It takes two scales, and they come from different places. The first turns the percentage into a letter. That is the course’s grading scheme in Canvas. Canvas’s built-in scheme starts the A at 94% and the A- at 90%, and Canvas rounds the percentage to two decimals before it picks the letter, so 89.996% becomes 90.00% and counts as an A-. Instructors can replace the scheme, and a common replacement starts the A at 93%. The second scale turns the letter into grade points. That one belongs to your school, not to Canvas: on the usual 4.0 scale an A- is 3.7, some schools count it as 3.67, and some give an A+ 4.3.

With a letter and its points for each course, multiply the points by the course’s credits, add them up and divide by the total credits. The College Board’s GPA guide uses a plain average of class grades as its example and notes that “your school may calculate GPA differently,” so check how yours counts credits.

GPA = sum of (grade points × credits) ÷ sum of credits

Sources, checked October 20, 2026: Canvas’s open-source grading scheme code (default cutoffs and the rounding) and the College Board’s How to calculate your GPA on a 4.0 scale.

A worked example

Four courses, with the grades as Canvas shows them, on Canvas’s default scheme and the 4.0 scale:

44.5 quality points ÷ 14 credits = 3.179, a 3.18 GPA. If your syllabi start the A at 93% instead, Biology’s 93.5% is an A worth 4.0, and the GPA is 45.7 ÷ 14 = 3.26. The same four Canvas numbers give two GPAs 0.08 apart, which is why the calculator asks for the cutoffs.

Should you use the current grade or the total grade?

Canvas works out two grades for each course. The current grade counts only graded assignments and is what you see while “Calculate based only on graded assignments” is ticked. The total grade counts every assignment, so ungraded work counts as zero. For a GPA estimate partway through a term, the current grade is the better guide. The total grade is the floor: what the course would be if nothing else were turned in. The gap can be large. A course at 85.5% current and 68.4% total is a B (3.0) or a D+ (1.3) on the default scheme, a difference of 6.8 quality points on a 4-credit course.

Source, checked October 20, 2026: Instructure’s How do I view my grades in a current course? (View Current and Total Grades). For what-if scores inside a course, see our guide to Canvas What-If grades.

Is the Better Canvas GPA calculator accurate?

Better Canvas is a free, open-source browser extension for Chrome and Firefox. It is a separate project on GitHub, not made by Instructure, and its README lists a “GPA calculator (college and highschool).” We make Silent Student, not Better Canvas. Here is what its own code does, read from its GitHub repository (version 5.12.6 in its manifest) in October 2026:

• It fills each course with the current score Canvas reports, or the current grading period’s score in a course with grading periods. You can type over it.
• It turns that percentage into grade points with its own cutoff table, not the course’s grading scheme. By default the A+ starts at 97% and is worth 4.3, the A starts at 93% (4.0) and the A- at 90% (3.7), down to the D- at 60% (0.7). Its GPA settings let you change the cutoffs.
• Each course starts at 1 credit until you change it. Its weighted GPA adds 0.5 for honors and 1.0 for AP or IB.

So it is as accurate as its settings are for your school. With the defaults, a 93.5% that Canvas’s default scheme calls an A- counts as a 4.0, an A+ counts as 4.3 where the most common scale gives it 4.0, and a 4-credit lab counts the same as a 1-credit seminar. Canvas’s API also leaves the course scores out when a course hides its totals, so there is nothing to fill in for that course. Set the extension’s cutoffs and credits to match your school, or use the calculator above, which asks for both.

Sources, checked October 20, 2026: Better Canvas’s GitHub repository and README, its default settings (cutoffs and points) and GPA calculator code, and Instructure’s Courses API (scores are left out when a course hides final grades).

Why your estimate might not match your transcript

• The course isn’t finished. A Canvas percentage moves with every new score. The GPA uses the final letter your instructor reports.
• Your instructor overrode the grade. Instructors can replace a calculated final grade with one they set. Source: How do I override a student’s final grade in the Gradebook?
• The course uses its own scheme. Check the syllabus and pick the matching cutoffs, or type your own.
• Your school counts letters differently. An A- worth 3.67, or an A+ worth 4.3, changes the result.
• Some grades don’t count. Pass/fail, withdrawals, incompletes, transfer credit and replaced retakes are often left out of a GPA.
• Grading periods. The Dashboard shows only the current period, so a year-long course’s final grade can differ.
• Rounding. Some schools cut a GPA off at two decimals instead of rounding it. The calculator tells you when that changes the number.

Canvas GPA calculator FAQ

For one course at a time, the Canvas grade calculator works out a course grade by Canvas’s rules. With letter grades already in hand, use the college GPA calculator, or the high school GPA calculator for honors and AP weighting. The raise GPA calculator finds the term GPA you need. If your high school grades live in PowerSchool, the PowerSchool GPA calculator follows its formulas, and the other free tools cover the rest.

Sources

• Instructure, How do I view my grades in a current course? (Canvas student guide). Current and total grades, point or percentage display, letter-only display. Checked October 20, 2026.
• Instructure, How do I view grades for all courses in the Card View Dashboard? View Grades, “no grade,” grading periods and hidden totals. Checked October 20, 2026.
• Instructure, How do I override a student’s final grade in the Gradebook? Checked October 20, 2026.
• Instructure, Canvas LMS grading_standard.rb (open-source code). Default grading scheme and rounding to two decimals. Checked October 20, 2026.
• Instructure, Courses API (Canvas LMS REST API documentation). Course scores are not returned when a course hides final grades. Checked October 20, 2026.
• College Board BigFuture, How to calculate your GPA on a 4.0 scale. Checked October 20, 2026.
• Better Canvas, GitHub repository, js/background.js and js/content.js (version 5.12.6 in its manifest). Default GPA cutoffs, credits and weights. Checked October 20, 2026.