Short answer first: yes, through the Canada Student Grant for Services and Equipment for students with disabilities. canada.ca sets it at up to $20,000 per school year, on a school year running 1 August to 31 July, for education-related services or equipment, and StudentAid BC's examples include notetakers, tutors, interpreters and technical aids. You apply through your province or territory, and you send written confirmation from a qualified person that you need it plus a document confirming the cost. Ontario pairs it with a provincial bursary of up to $2,000. Quebec runs its own program instead. The paperwork goes through your university's accessibility office.
This article covers what the grants pay for, who assesses the need, and what the note-taking tools such funding usually buys actually cost. Registering with the accessibility office in the first place is a separate job, and it is covered in academic accommodations at Canadian universities.
What does the federal grant actually pay for?
Two federal grants sit side by side and students often confuse them. One pays towards the cost of studying. The other pays for things.
- The Canada Student Grant for Students with Disabilities is the first. canada.ca states that you could receive $2,800 per year if you have a financial need, are in a qualified program at a designated school, and are a student with a disability recognized by the Canada Student Financial Assistance Program. You submit documentation of the disability with the application.
- The Canada Student Grant for Services and Equipment is the one that buys tools. canada.ca puts it at up to $20,000 per school year for education-related services or equipment. The federal page does not list examples; StudentAid BC's page for the same grant names notetakers, tutors, interpreters and technical aids.
- The school year is 1 August to 31 July, on both pages, which is not the same as your academic year and matters when a purchase falls in the summer.
- You apply through your province or territory, not to the federal government directly. canada.ca's own instruction is to apply for student aid with your province or territory.
The evidence the federal page asks for is specific and it is the part students underestimate. You send written confirmation from a qualified person that you need the education-related services or equipment, and separately a document which confirms the related cost. The qualified person can be a rehabilitation caseworker, a disability centre official, a guidance counsellor or a financial aid administrator. In practice at a Canadian university that means your accessibility advisor writes the first document and a vendor quote is the second.
What does your province add?
This is where the amounts and the conditions change, so read your own province's page rather than a national summary.
In Ontario, OSAP runs the two grants on one application. Its page sets the Bursary for Students with Disabilities at up to a maximum of $2,000 an academic year and the federal services and equipment grant at up to $20,000, both for eligible disability-related services and equipment needed to participate in postsecondary studies. It tells students to work with their school's office for students with disabilities or accessibility services office to complete the application, and to submit it to the financial aid office at least 60 days before the study period ends.
In British Columbia, StudentAid BC describes the same federal grant as up to $20,000 per loan year and lists notetakers, tutors, interpreters and technical aids as examples of what it covers. That list is worth reading closely, because a human note-taker and note-taking software are both on the same menu and the office may prefer one.
Quebec is outside this system. canada.ca's list of student aid offices sends a Quebec resident to Quebec Student Financial Aid, as it does residents of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories to their own programs. Quebec's Allowance for Special Needs splits into categories, and the first one is specialized services: oral reading, note taking, transcription, interpreting, accompaniment and academic support. Material resources and the repair of an eligible device sit in the second category. The program's main page says you must have the recommendation of the educational institution, which is the same gate as in Ontario under a different name.
What does an assessment of need look like?
It is not a test you pass. It is a short chain of documents, and every link is written by someone other than you.
The University of Guelph publishes the clearest version. Its Student Accessibility Services page on the bursary sets out five steps: submit a request to the office using its eligibility screener form; if the advisor approves it, submit the full application with quotes and supporting documentation by the deadline; the office sends it to Student Financial Services for financial approval; the funding arrives by electronic transfer to the same account that receives your OSAP; and you submit receipts afterwards. Unused funds go back.
The judgement happens in step two, and the page explains what it turns on. The office reviews the request to confirm the equipment or service is necessary for participation in studies based on your disability, and information from your health care provider and from the office itself is used to determine what eligible costs may be funded. The eligibility conditions on the same page are stricter than most students expect: you must be eligible for OSAP and approved for at least $1 of OSAP for the current study period, considered a full-time student by OSAP, have a documented permanent or persistent or prolonged disability or be seeking confirmation of a learning disability, and have submitted a complete OSAP Disability Verification Form.
Two warnings on that page deserve their own paragraph. The first is that each university and college in the province has a limited amount of funding allocated by the government, that there are consistently more applications than available funding, and that there is no guarantee all applications will be approved. The second is that applications to fund computer equipment, including laptops, will only be supported when the equipment is required for assistive technology. The grant follows a functional limitation. It does not follow a shopping list.
The quote you have to attach
The quote is the part students leave until last and it is the part that sets the timing. Guelph's page says equipment quotes may be dated no earlier than 60 days before the start of the semester, and that assessments have a six month window. It also prints its own deadlines for the current year: applications to the office no later than "Fall Semester: Wednesday October 14, 2026" and "Winter Semester: Thursday February 18, 2027", with receipts for services due "Fall Semester (services): Tuesday December 22, 2026" and "Winter Semester (services/assessments): Friday April 30, 2027". Your university will publish its own. Find them in week one and work backwards, because a quote, an advisor appointment and a financial services review do not fit into the last fortnight of a term.
Glean, now Genio
Glean was the note-taking tool most often named on Canadian assistive technology lists, built around recording a class and building notes against the recording. It is now Genio: glean.co redirects to genio.co, and the pricing path redirects to a page aimed at institutions.
As of 15 September 2026 it has no Canadian dollar price. The pricing page for individuals showed us a regional availability notice instead of a plan table, saying that due to regional billing constraints Genio is temporarily unavailable for new individual subscriptions, with a form to register interest. The plan table it serves in other regions is in British pounds, from £12 a month. The institution pricing pages offer package comparisons, an ROI calculator and a demo, and no number.
For a student applying for funding that is not necessarily a problem, because the grant route buys licences through the institution anyway. For a student paying out of pocket it is a wall: you cannot compare a price you cannot see. Ask your accessibility office whether it already holds Genio licences before you assume you need a grant to get one.
Otter
Otter is a transcription service rather than a study tool, and its pricing page is the most legible of the four. Checked on 15 September 2026, the free Basic plan gives 300 monthly transcription minutes, a maximum of 30 minutes per conversation and 3 lifetime audio or video file imports. Pro is 16.99 US dollars per user a month, or 8.33 US dollars a month billed annually. The plan table states that prices are in USD.
There is an education discount, and it carries a catch for Canadian students. Otter's page gives 20 percent off Pro for .edu email addresses: 6.67 US dollars a month billed 79.99 annually, or 13.59 US dollars monthly. Canadian universities issue .ca addresses. Whether a given Canadian address is accepted is not something the pricing page answers, so test it before you budget for the discounted rate.
Everything on that page is in US dollars, which means the amount on a Canadian statement moves with the exchange rate and may carry a foreign transaction fee. The other limit is what Otter returns: a transcript. A fifty-minute lecture is roughly seven thousand words of it, and the gap between that and something you can revise from is the subject of why a transcript is not a set of notes.
Word's Transcribe, through your university licence
The cheapest tool on this list is usually one you are already paying for through tuition. Microsoft's documentation says a Microsoft 365 subscription allows a maximum of 300 minutes of uploaded audio a month, rising to 30,000 minutes with a Copilot licence. It runs in Word for Microsoft 365 on Windows, Word for the web and OneNote, and both English (Canada) and French (Canada) are on the language list, which few tools on this market can say.
Most Canadian universities license Microsoft 365 for students. UBC IT states that the service is currently offered to UBC students at no cost, covering Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote on up to five PCs or Macs, five tablets and five phones per user. What Microsoft's documentation does not say is whether an education tenant includes the transcription minutes, so test Transcribe on a ten-minute recording in the first week rather than finding out in week ten.
Three hundred minutes is six fifty-minute lectures a month. It is not a term, and it stops at the words, but it costs nothing and it needs no grant, no quote and no advisor appointment.
What do these tools cost, side by side?
Prices are as each vendor's own page showed them on 15 September 2026, in the currency that page uses, with Notibo's row updated on 29 September 2026. None of the four publishes a Canadian dollar price except through a university licence.
| Tool | Price on the vendor's page | What it returns | How students usually get it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genio, formerly Glean | no Canadian price; a regional availability notice where we opened it, a plan in British pounds elsewhere | recording with notes built against it | institution or funded licence |
| Otter | free Basic, 300 minutes a month; Pro 16.99 USD a month or 8.33 annually | transcript | personal subscription in US dollars |
| Word Transcribe | included with a Microsoft 365 subscription; 300 minutes of uploaded audio a month | timestamped transcript | university licence you already have |
| Notibo | 14-day Pro trial, no card, then free 30 minutes a month; Pro 9.99 EUR a month or 88.99 a year | transcript, structured notes and flashcards | personal subscription in euro |
The column that decides it is the third one, not the second. Two of these four stop at the words. If your accommodation is about processing a lecture rather than capturing it, a transcript moves the work rather than doing it. The wider market, compared on Canadian terms, is in the best note-taking app for students in Canada.
The half hour that decides the tool
Before you ask for funding, record ten minutes of one real lecture with each candidate and try to revise from what comes out the other end the next morning. That half hour tells you more than any feature list, and it also produces the sentence your advisor needs for the rationale: not "I would like software" but "I cannot hold the thread of a lecture and write at the same time, and this returns something I can study from".
What if you are not eligible?
Quite a lot is still available, and none of it needs a grant.
- The licence you already have. Word's Transcribe, above, plus whatever else your IT page lists. Start there.
- Lecture capture. Where your university publishes recordings, the download button is worth more than any recorder you buy. Find out which system your university runs and how long a file stays online, because the retention window is usually shorter than the term.
- Equipment loans. Many accessibility offices lend recorders, FM systems and licences rather than funding purchases. Ask what is on the shelf before you ask for money.
- A note-taker. StudentAid BC lists notetakers alongside technical aids, and some universities run peer note-taking schemes that cost the student nothing.
- Free tiers. Otter's Basic plan and Notibo's free plan both exist, and Notibo opens with a 14-day Pro trial that needs no card. Neither free plan covers a full term, and both are enough to test a workflow.
One rule applies whichever route you take: recording a class needs the instructor's permission unless your accommodation letter says otherwise, and tutorials, labs and placements are usually a no. The wording institution by institution is in recording lectures in Canada.
Where Notibo fits
Notibo is on this list as one option among four, and the honest description is short. It records a lecture, or takes an audio file you upload, and returns a transcript, structured notes and flashcards with spaced repetition. It does the same with a PDF, PPTX or DOCX file. Transcription covers 89 languages, and the transcript comes back in the language spoken. Pro is free to try for 14 days with no card, and the trial includes 240 minutes of recording. Afterwards the free plan is 30 minutes of recording a month. Pro is 9.99 euro a month or 88.99 euro a year, and the local amount is shown at checkout, which is on pricing. Uploads are capped at 50 MB, and long recordings are saved in smaller parts as they run and joined back into one transcript.
Two things it is not. It is a general study tool rather than something sold as assistive technology, so an accessibility office assessing a funding request may not have it on its list, and you would be making the case yourself. And it is not stored in Canada: files are held in the EU, on Supabase in Frankfurt, with transcription and the AI notes running on US processors under standard contractual clauses. If your reason for asking about funded software in the first place is that a transcript alone does not help you, that is the gap this fills. If your reason is that the tool has to be bought through the accessibility office, ask the office what it already licenses first.