How much are you paying to maintain your certification status?

CertifiedMonkey

The only cert that I have under my belt right now is the CompTIA Security+ which costs $49/yr to maintain. I see that a bunch of you have a bunch of certifications and I'm just wondering how much you all are paying to maintain your certification status.

bigdogz

YMMV. The more (non vendor certifications) you make, the more they take I think mine is close to ~ 1k / year. But I write them off during tax time. Some organizations may pay them for you.

With vendor neural certifications you need to pay your Annual Maintenance Fees (AMF's) and have x number of CPE's/ EU's/ECU's.
When I have to renew my Cisco and MS certs, my company will pay for the exam.

Regards,
bigdogz

Lexluethar

I update my MCSA when it updates (once every 3 or 4 years) which is one exam costing $150. Obviously there are some soft costs in there like study material, Pluralsight subscription, ect. So maybe $400 total every 3 years or so.

I'm hoping to have my VCP at the end of this year. To keep that updated I have to recertify every 2 years. That exam is $250 not including soft costs like material.

My plan is to stagger this so i'm not overwhelmed in one year. So roughly speaking:
-Every 3 years pay about $250 to update my Microsoft MCSA ($150 exam, $30 pluralsight, $70 book)
-Every 2 years pay about $350 to update my VCP to the current version ($250 exam, $30 pluralsight, $70 book)

*Most companies will pay for the certification cost, like my work will pay for a passed exam cost just not the soft costs that you use to study.

Some people have way more certs than myself - as time passes your focal points will diverge and move into other areas. For example I got my A+ and Net+ but never bothered to update because I was already in positions that were beyond what recertification would help with. Over time I may not work with VMware anymore so i won't bother recertifying in that either and may move to another area. I think there is a fine balance between what you can actually keep up with and what is manageable. I know people out there with like 5 certifications all that either expire or they have to update (MCSE, VCP, CCNP, ect). They are either way smarter than me or put way more value in having all of those certifications then i do.

TechGuru80

Each one is roughly $50-$75 per year. Some only require a retest and some allow others to renew them (I spread the cost over the three years). For example...I only pay for Security+ and that renews Network+. Now that is just in fees to keep current...you also have to consider credits required. Although you can get free credits for certain things, sometimes you just have to pay for classes/conferences/etc.

Krusader

I paid $150 to renew my A+ & N+ this year. Won't be doing it again!
After I get my MCSA 2012. I'll just be maintaning certs. So MCSA, CCNA and VCP. So VCP every 2 years, CCNA every 3 and MCSA will be a year or two after MS release a new version.
I usually get a book ($30) and practice tests ($100) when I start studying for an exam and then the price of the exam itself depending on vendor is $150-250

OctalDump

I haven't held enough certs that require maintenance for this to be an issue yet. If I do keep the CompTIA ones, I'll probably just be maintaining CASP. The Linux+ and Storage+ won't expire. Probably between the Cisco, MS, VMware and other certs, I'll have more than enough credits.

LPIC does expire at 5 years. Probably if I keep this, it will be by recertifying at a higher level. Maybe $50/year.

The Cisco ones, I will just keep doing an exam every three years (or two if I ever get interested enough to pursue CCIE).

VMware is likely going to be the biggest drag, since it means recertifying every two years. The plan is to just diversify out eg cloud, networking etc.

CEH, I'm not sure. It's $80/year which is cheaper than to redo the exam.

Getting the actual credits for continuing education shouldn't be a huge problem in the medium term, since I have a few more certs on my list and some other education needing to be done.

Most of the softskill certs I am looking at currently are good for life: ITIL, Prince2 etc.

Redhat and Microsoft will generally mean just getting certified for the current tech. RedHat exams are most expensive. I think about $800 to get RHCE. How much effort goes into those will depend on where I am working.

Adding those up, it would work out about $300-400/year plus whatever MS and RedHat work out to be. Likely MS will be about $100/year at my current level and MS release cycles, RHCE would be closer to $300/year (about $800 every 4th year).

Looking at a couple of others, CISM is about $80/year and CISSP is about $85/year. So not really onerous at all. I does appear that RedHat is potentially the most expensive to stay current with, and CompTIA the cheapest.

CertifiedMonkey

bigdogz wrote: »

YMMV. The more (non vendor certifications) you make, the more they take I think mine is close to ~ 1k / year.

Regards,
bigdogz

~1k a year! That's pretty steep. I hope that the ROI is worth it though if you're paying that much.

OctalDump

CertifiedMonkey wrote: »

~1k a year! That's pretty steep. I hope that the ROI is worth it though if you're paying that much.

Yeah, it's a hard calculation to make. Probably if your employer requires the certifications, they will pay, so it would be most useful only when seeking new employment. So it would depend on how often you are doing that, what you estimate the chances of being, and what value the certifications are likely to add both in terms of getting jobs, and also how much they pay.

I think, though, that there is also a personal benefit in having the certifications, just like some people spend 1000s on hobbies just for enjoyment, some people can spend on education/training for personal pleasure/fulfilment/growth.

gespenstern

This year I've paid $85 AMF for maintaining (ISC)2 cred. That's the only pure maintenance payment I've made.

There were other expenses, but they were not pure maintenance related as they are advancements. So I've paid $600 for challenging CEH, $400 (AFAIR) for challenging ISSAP and $179 for Transcender CISSP questions (used them for ISSAP preparation, total waste of money BTW), $225 SCS DLP failure + $112 SCS DLP retake.

All in all it was close to ~$1500 which is okay considering new advancements that will hopefully pay off via landing a security architect position one day.

People who buy a lot of books and pluralsight & CBT videos for preparation probably spend more, but I hate videos and isn't good with books so I skip it altogether.

TechGromit

CertifiedMonkey wrote: »

The only cert that I have under my belt right now is the CompTIA Security+ which costs $49/yr to maintain..

Wow that seems like a lot for a entry level security cert. I took my A+ and Network+ back in 2003, so I was grandfathered in, they don't expire. My GSEC expires in 2019, and will cost $399 to renew, so that works out to $100 a year.

OctalDump wrote: »

Looking at a couple of others, CISM is about $80/year and CISSP is about $85/year.

$85 is worth it, the CISSP is a prestigious certification. It just seems to me that the organizations that issue certs are greedy. The justification is they are ensuring that you keep up with your education so your knowledge will not get stale, but it's really expensive, considering 90% of verifying your meeting your continuing education requirements can be automated. It should be a nominal fee, not a hardship.

twodogs62

GSEC renews every 4 to 5 years. Was $150 to renew and I think saw $399. In past this has included cost of new course books, huge stack and MP3 recordings of recent live class.
Taking CAPM within year so that renews every 5 years. I think couple hundred to renew.

Joined PMI and ISSA so will have cost of couple of prof organizations in addition.

I think that would make it couple hundred per year. I don't pay yearly few for comptia certs.

annual cost and cost of exam is one reason I have not done CISSP yet.

The question asked of OP is good question as you need to think of yearly costs and effort to keep certs current. In addition to increasing demands at work.

Mike7

It depends on the ROI you get from them.


If that CISSP lands you that $180K job (and nice $60K increment), the $85 annual fee is a small price to pay. Depending on what you do, the certification initials can be useful at work. I did technical pre-sales, and there is a noticeable difference after getting my CISSP; customers asked fewer or no questions.

For some (such as ISACA), it is cheaper to renew if you are a member. Also check out the membership benefits, free resources and maybe attend some local events. Most are free or at a discounted rate and contributes to your CPE. The local events are good networking and information exchange opportunities; you get to exchange ideas, meet people who can advise you on next career steps and who knows someone may even offer you a new job opportunity.

Eventually, you may not want to maintain some of certs that are more entry-level and are superseded by high-level certifications that you have obtained. If I have to renew my Security+ (mine does not expire), I may not do it since I have CISSP.