CAPM Certification Cost for CAPM Exam and Exam Prep Materials

Getting CAPM® certified would incur a lot of costs including the costs of the required project management training, exam prep reference books, resources as well as exam fee. This article will discuss on the costs involved in getting CAPM® Certified with some cost saving tips.

Note: For those of you who have just begun your project management certification journey, the CAPM® Certification is an entry level certification for graduates and those who are not YET project managers while the PMP is for the working professional with several years of experience.

CAPM® Certification Cost Consideration (CAPM® Cost is NOT just about CAPM® Exam Fee!)

Getting CAPM® Certification is certainly not cheap, the CAPM® exam fee alone is US$225 (for PMI members) / US$300 (for non-members). One will need to get necessary training / preparation in order to be able to pass the CAPM® in first try. Below are the breakdown of CAPM® Certification Costs:

1. Join PMI as a member (US$139)

Joining PMI is NOT a requirement for the CAPM® examination but is highly recommended.

Unlike the case for the PMP Exam in which the saving of being a PMI member with the PMP examination fee alone (US$150 less) outweigh the first year membership fee; for the CAPM® Certification Exam fee, the saving is only US$75. This may not seem to be attractive enough to get the saving alone.

However, begin a PMI member also opens the access to a variety of other benefits, including free access to projectmanagement.com as well as a free download of the PMBOK® Guide. Considering the membership joining fee for the 1st year of PMI is US$139 (application fee included), if you also take into accounts the cost of the PMBOK® Guide (~US$50), the PMI membership fee almost offset the savings in exam fee.

Therefore, if you are committed to project management profession, you are highly encouraged to become a member of PMI.

2. CAPM® Certification Exam Fee (US$225 for PMI Members)

Unless you are a PMI member who will enjoy the discounted CAPM® Certification Fee of $225 for the computer-based training (CBT), normal Aspirants will need to pay $300 to take the CAPM® Exam.

In short:

• CAPM® Certification Exam Fee for PMI members: US$225
• CAPM® Certification Exam Fee for non-PMI members: US$300

In additional, PMI also charges less CAPM® re-exam fee for PMI members. I hope this info is not useful for you!

3. PMBOK® Guide (Free for PMI Members)

The PMBOK® Guide is the almost identical to the CAPM® Exam syllabus. It contains all the CAPM® Exam content that every Aspirants should be very familiar with in order to pass the exam. Currently, the PMBOK® Guide is being sold for US$47.98 on pmi.org.

PMI Members will be able to download the PMBOK® Guide for FREE from the PMI website (e-book PDF version only). You are allowed to print a copy of the e-book for your own reference / exam preparation.

4. Project Management Training Course – for the 23 Contact Hours / CAPM® Exam preparation

Face-to-face type CAPM® preparation courses are extremely expensive in comparison with the exam fee or PMBOK® Guide cost. If budget doesn’t allow, you may choose online CAPM® training courses for the 23 contact hours of project management education which is much cheaper.

• An example of the online 23 contact hours training course is “The PM PrepCast™ for CAPM® Exam” prep video course as an alternative for CAPM® bootcamps (US$199). The PM PrepCast™ for CAPM® Exam is produced by Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM. It allows you to download the lessons as video files to your mobile devices or computer and prepare for your exam anytime anywhere. There is no time limit for viewing the course lecture files, once downloaded, you own all the training files which are very useful for your future references. (review here)

5. CAPM® Mock Exams (Optional)

You can easily search for free or paid CAPM® sample exam questions from the internet for free. Or if you would like to practice using an “CAPM® exam simulator” (one that has an interface and administration very similar to the actual computer based CAPM® Exam), you may need to pay extra (but is very worthwhile to help you to pass in first try).

• The CAPM® Exam Simulator is an example (its sister product is the highly acclaimed PMP Exam Simulator 2.0). There are 750 quality mock exam questions that are very close in difficulty and format to the real exam. And you can choose to practice full CAMP mock exam or just select questions from a certain project management domain to drill on. The unique feature of “Live Feedback” allows you to ask any questions about the mock questions from within the exam simulator that would be answered by qualified CAPM® Exam coaches. (review here)

6. Other expenses

This would include the travelling costs to face to face CAPM® bootcamps, CAPM® Exam Centre, etc. And some Aspirants may choose to live in a hotel nearby the exam centre the night before. The CAMP Certification costs, therefore, would not include these items as they are very specific to individual Aspirants.

How much is the CAPM® Certification?

The table below will give you an analogous estimation of the minimum CAPM® certification cost:

The combination of these three items is the minimal cost for the CAPM® exam success! Hope you have gotten a better understanding of the cost involved in getting CAPM® certified.