AWS certification cost in 2026, and free ways to prepare

An AWS certification exam costs 100 USD at the foundational level, 150 USD at associate level and 300 USD at professional and specialty level, as of October 2026. In India, AWS lists those tiers as INR 8,553, INR 12,829.50 and INR 25,659. The exams themselves are almost never free, but a lot of the official preparation is, and earning your first certification gets you 50% off another exam.

This guide sets out every price, the rules that can cost you money (retakes, rescheduling, no-shows), the official ways to pay less, what renewal costs, and the free preparation AWS offers. It ends with worked totals for common paths. Every figure was checked on AWS's own certification pages on October 21, 2026.

AWS exam prices by level

As of October 2026, AWS prices its exams by level:

Foundational: 100 USD. Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) and AI Practitioner (AIF-C01).
Associate: 150 USD. Solutions Architect, Developer, CloudOps Engineer, Data Engineer and Machine Learning Engineer.
Professional: 300 USD. Solutions Architect, DevOps Engineer and Generative AI Developer.
Specialty: 300 USD. Security, plus Advanced Networking until its last exam day on December 31, 2026.
Business: 100 USD. AI Business Strategist, the new business-level exam, once it leaves beta.

AWS's exam-policy page says prices are reviewed about once a year, so check the exam page when you book. The price is the same whether you sit the exam at a Pearson VUE test centre or online with a remote proctor. AWS's pages list one price, not two.

Beta exams cost less

AWS offers beta exams at a discount. As of October 2026, two are in beta:

AI Business Strategist (AIB-C01) beta: 50 USD, against 100 USD for the standard version.
Machine Learning Engineer – Associate (MLA-C02) beta: 75 USD, against 150 USD. It's English only and has been available since September 29, 2026.

There's a catch. You can take a beta only once, and if you fail you have to wait for the standard version to be generally available before trying again.

Prices in India and Singapore

AWS's exam-policy page lists local prices for some currencies. For India, the tiers are INR 8,553 (foundational), INR 12,829.50 (associate) and INR 25,659 (professional and specialty). The page says rupee pricing applies only when you buy through the Pearson voucher store (Mindhub), so paying in rupees means buying a voucher first and then booking with it.

Singapore dollars aren't on AWS's list. AWS's FAQ names local pricing only for a few currencies, such as the Australian dollar, euro, Korean won and Japanese yen. In Singapore you pay the USD price, and your bank's exchange rate applies.

On tax, AWS says only that "applicable taxes may apply". It doesn't say whether GST is added in India or Singapore, so expect your receipt to show tax on top of the list price.

Rules that can cost you money

These rules come from AWS's certification FAQ and exam-policy page:

Retakes: if you fail, you wait 14 calendar days before trying again. There is no limit on attempts, but every attempt costs the full fee.
Passing locks the exam: once you pass, you can't take the same exam again for two years.
Rescheduling and cancelling: free up to 24 hours before your appointment, with a refund if you cancel in time. You can reschedule an appointment only twice.
Inside 24 hours: the full fee is charged and not refunded. AWS may waive this for a documented illness or emergency.
No-shows: you lose the fee, and you can't rebook for 24 hours. A no-show is not recorded as a fail.
Vouchers: voucher expiry dates can't be extended, so use them in time.

The retake rule is the one that adds up. A failed associate exam turns a 150 USD certification into 300 USD, so it's worth scoring comfortably on practice tests before you book.

Ways to pay less

The 50% voucher

This is the most reliable discount. Once you earn an AWS certification, you get a 50% discount voucher, found in the Benefits section of your certification account, for recertification or any other exam. It's single-use, and it takes 50% off the price at the time you buy. An associate exam after your first pass costs 75 USD, and a professional exam 150 USD.

Renewing through a higher exam

Every AWS certification is valid for three years. Passing certain higher exams renews lower ones at the same time, so one exam fee can cover two certifications. AWS's recertification page lists the pairs: for example, Solutions Architect – Professional renews Solutions Architect – Associate, and any professional exam renews Cloud Practitioner.

Promotions

AWS runs discount campaigns from time to time, but they are dated and short. In 2026, a campaign offered 50% off AI Practitioner between May 26 and September 30, and a separate offer bundled a free retake with professional and specialty vouchers bought before June 30. Both have closed to new buyers. As of October 21, 2026, AWS's pages list no running promotion for new buyers. Be wary of coupon sites that claim otherwise. Check the voucher terms on AWS's own site.

Student routes

AWS Educate is free, needs no credit card and is open from age 13. It gives you learning content and digital badges, but AWS's page doesn't mention exam vouchers. Students on AWS Academy courses may be invited to AWS's Emerging Talent Community. There, points earned can buy discounted exam vouchers, though AWS says the rewards can change.

What renewal costs

Renewal has two routes, and their costs differ:

Renew: pass the latest version of your exam, or a listed higher exam, before your certification expires. That adds three years. You pay the normal exam fee, and your 50% voucher applies.
Maintain: for some certifications, AWS lets you extend by one year through AWS Skill Builder. AWS lists it for the associate exams, Solutions Architect and DevOps Engineer – Professional, Security and Advanced Networking, but not for Cloud Practitioner, AI Practitioner or Generative AI Developer – Professional. You need an active paid subscription, and your certification must be within 90 days of expiry.

Cloud Practitioner has one more route, an AWS Cloud Quest option, open when your certification expires within six months. Its guided version was free during a beta that ended in July 2025, so check the current cost on AWS's recertification page.

Free official preparation

This is where you can save real money. AWS Skill Builder has a free tier with more than 1,000 learning resources. For certification prep, AWS's prep page labels the first three of these as free as of October 2026:

Official Practice Question Sets: 20-question sets, with feedback on each answer.
Exam Prep courses: about two hours each, covering the exam's domains.
AWS Cloud Quest: the basic version, a game-style way to practise building on AWS.
AWS Training on Twitch: live and on-demand sessions, which the Cloud Practitioner page calls free.
Exam Readiness webinars: live sessions run by AWS instructors, listed with the additional prep resources.

The paid Skill Builder subscription costs 29 USD a month or 449 USD a year as of October 2026. It adds full Official Practice Exams with pass or fail scoring, longer exam prep with labs, and the full Cloud Quest roles. It's useful in the last few weeks before an exam, but it's not required.

For hands-on practice, the AWS Free Tier now gives new accounts up to 200 USD in credits: 100 USD when you sign up and up to 100 USD more for trying services. On the free plan, the account closes after six months or when the credits run out, whichever comes first. More than 30 services stay free within monthly limits.

Practice questions on this site

This site's practice tests are free and need no account. For the cheapest first step, the Cloud Practitioner practice tests cover all four domains, including billing and pricing, which is 12% of the exam. Cost questions are a good test of whether you know which tool does what. This practice question on Savings Plans asks which commitment survives a change of instance family, this practice question on cost alerts asks how to get an email before a budget is overrun, and this practice question on estimating costs before migrating asks which tool produces an estimate for investors. The full Cloud Practitioner question list has 130 questions in all.

If AI is your reason for certifying, the AI Practitioner practice tests come at the same 100 USD level, and its question list includes cost topics such as this practice question on token-based inference cost.

What a certification path really costs

These totals use October 2026 list prices and assume you pass first time and use the 50% voucher from your first certification on the second exam:

Cloud Practitioner only: 100 USD (INR 8,553).
Cloud Practitioner, then Solutions Architect – Associate: 100 USD, then 75 USD with the voucher, so 175 USD in total.
Solutions Architect – Associate, then Solutions Architect – Professional: 150 USD, then 150 USD with the voucher, so 300 USD. When you pass the professional exam, it also renews the associate certification.
Straight to Solutions Architect – Associate: 150 USD (INR 12,829.50). Many people with some AWS experience skip Cloud Practitioner, since AWS has no prerequisites.

Add a failed attempt at full price to any of these, and add tax. If you want help choosing which exam to start with, the guide to which AWS certification you should get covers that, and the best AI certifications guide compares AWS with other vendors.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free AWS certification?

Not as a standing offer. Every AWS certification exam has a fee, and the cheapest are the 50 USD and 75 USD beta exams as of October 2026. AWS Educate is free but gives badges, not certifications. What is free is much of the preparation: practice question sets, short exam prep courses, Twitch training and Free Tier credits.

How much does AWS certification cost in India?

As of October 2026, AWS lists INR 8,553 for foundational exams, INR 12,829.50 for associate and INR 25,659 for professional and specialty. Those rupee prices apply when you buy a voucher through the Pearson Mindhub store, and tax may be added.

Which AWS certification is the cheapest?

Cloud Practitioner and AI Practitioner, at 100 USD each, and AI Business Strategist once it leaves beta. The beta exams are cheaper (50 USD for AI Business Strategist, 75 USD for ML Engineer – Associate), but you can take a beta only once.

How much does it cost to retake an AWS exam?

The full fee, every time. You wait 14 days after a failed attempt, and there's no limit on the number of attempts.

Do I have to pay to renew an AWS certification?

Usually. You either pass an exam again (with the 50% voucher) or, for the certifications that allow it, extend by one year through a paid Skill Builder subscription. Cloud Practitioner also has a Cloud Quest route. Passing a higher exam can renew a lower one at the same time.

Is AWS certification worth the cost?

At 100 to 300 USD, the exam fee is usually smaller than the cost of the study time. It's worth it if you work, or want to work, on AWS. Doing the free preparation first lowers the risk of paying twice.