With Hoopla Digital, you can access a wide variety of books, movies, TV Shows, audiobooks, and music for free. The only catch is the Hoopla Borrow limit, which restricts the number of titles you can access.
But how does the Borrow limit work? And what can you do if you want more content and you have exhausted your limit?
Below is a detailed look at the Hoopla borrow limit, how it works, and creative tips on how you can access more content beyond your current limit.
Understanding the Hoopla Borrow limit
Unlike traditional streaming services, Hoopla is not available for everyone. Instead, users (known as patrons) must be members of participating public libraries in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Once a patron from a participating library creates an account on Hoopla, they can access content on the platform for free.
But while the content is free for users, libraries are charged a fee by Hoopla every time a patron borrows an item. As a result, libraries often restrict how many titles a patron can borrow each month, which is how the Hoopla borrow limit comes into play.
The borrowing limits help public libraries manage the cost of the Hoopla service. After all, if there were no limits, public libraries could incur thousands in patrons’ borrowing fees.
The limits also help to guarantee equitable access for all library users. Without limits, heavy users can potentially exhaust a library’s budget for the Hoopla service, leaving other patrons with no access.
Types of Hoopla’s borrowing limits
When using Hoopla, you can encounter two types of borrowing limits:
- Monthly limit
- Daily limit
Monthly limit
The monthly limit is the most common of the Hoopla borrow limits. It restricts how many titles a patron can access from the streaming service each month.
The monthly limit is usually determined by a participating library’s budget (the amount they are willing to pay to Hoopla for patrons to access content). Therefore, the limits vary from one library to another; they can range from as few as three titles to as many as 15.
While a library’s budget is the main factor in determining the borrowing limit, the number of users in a participating library can also affect the monthly limit.
For example, recently, the Montgomery County public libraries reduced the borrowing limit to 5 (down from 10). The reason given for the reduction was the need to manage rising costs (due to Hoopla’s popularity) and ensure more users have access to the service.
Hoopla’s monthly limits reset at the beginning of every calendar month. In addition, unused borrowings do not roll over into the next month.
Note: All titles on Hoopla are on a rental basis: 72 hours for movies and TV shows, 7 days for music, and 21 days for audiobooks and eBooks. You can renew a title before the rental period expires, but renewals are counted as new borrows and count towards your monthly limit.
Daily limit
You may also encounter daily limits when borrowing titles from Hoopla. But, unlike monthly limits, daily limits are collective, library-wide limits, i.e., the total number of titles that patrons in a participating library can borrow in a single day.
Daily limits are calculated based on each participating library’s monthly budget for Hoopla. When a library makes a monthly payment to Hoopla, the amount is divided into equal, daily spending limits.
Every time a patron borrows a title from Hoopla, the borrowing fee is deducted from a library’s daily spending limit until the amount is exhausted. When this happens, no patron from that library can check out a title for the rest of the day.
Hoopla’s daily limit resets every day at midnight. Additionally, unlike the monthly limits, any unused borrows for that day are rolled over into the next day.
How to get more books, movies, and music on Hoopla
Hoopla is an excellent platform with a lot of content that you can access for free. However, the monthly borrowing limits can be very frustrating.
The good news is that you can access more titles, beyond the Hoopla borrow limit. Below is a look at various tips you can use to borrow more content.
1. Choose a different library
As already mentioned, the monthly limits vary from library to library, depending on the budget.
Therefore, one of the top tips for borrowing more titles on Hoopla is to find and join another participating library that offers higher limits.
2. Use the Hoopla Flex option
Hoopla offers two types of borrowing options: Hoopla Instant and Hoopla Flex.
With Hoopla Instant, titles are available to borrow instantly, and can be accessed by multiple patrons simultaneously. The monthly limits offered by participating libraries are for the Hoopla instant borrows.
On the other hand, Hoopla Flex borrows are available to one user at a time and require holds (reserving an unavailable title). Additionally, it has different borrowing limits; three simultaneous borrows, which do not count towards the monthly limits.
Furthermore, if you have reached the maximum number of Flex borrows, you can return one item, which would then free you to borrow another title.
Note: Some libraries do have limits to how many Flex borrows you can use per month, but these restrictions never count towards Hoopla Instant borrowing limits.
3. Use the Hoopla BingePass
Hoopla BingePass is another top tip you can use to borrow more items beyond the Hoopla borrow limit.
The BingePass offers you 7 days of unlimited access to curated content, which can include a collection of movies, TV shows, books, music albums, magazines, and more.
A BingePass will have several titles in a single collection; for example, a single movie BingePass can have more than 1,000 films. However, all the titles you access under one BingePass will only count towards one monthly limit for borrowing.
4. Use the Hoopla SeasonPass
Hoopla SeasonPass is part of the BingePass option, but for TV shows. It allows you to check out an entire season of a TV show, instead of borrowing only one episode at a time.
The SeasonPass is another excellent way to borrow more titles. Usually, each episode of a TV show counts as a single borrow on Hoopla, but with a SeasonPass, you can access an entire season with only a single borrow.
5. Take advantage of bonus borrows
Hoopla offers bonus borrows, which include a collection of titles that you can borrow during the last seven days of the month.
The bonus borrows are free to the patrons as well as the participating libraries. As a result, they do not count towards your monthly limit; therefore, you can borrow as many titles as possible in this category.
6. Other alternative services
If you have reached your monthly limit and have exhausted the above tips for more content, your only option is to wait for the month to end and your borrows to reset.
However, you can also take advantage of other Hoopla alternatives. The top ones to consider are Libby or Overdrive, which offer free access to eBooks, audiobooks, and magazines for patrons of participating public libraries.