How much does CompTIA PenTest+ cost?

The largest saving available is not a discount code, it is passing on the first attempt. A retake takes the exam line to $850, which is more than every other cost on this page put together. The preparation that prevents it costs nothing: enumerate, exploit and pivot on free vulnerable machines until the tools stop being the difficult part.

PenTest+ has an unusually good free route, and it is worth taking seriously before you spend anything. The objectives PDF tells you the scope. Kali ships with the tooling the exam expects. Free vulnerable targets cover reconnaissance, service exploitation, web attacks and lateral movement. Do not spend $450 on training until you have put forty or fifty hours into a terminal, because at that point you will know exactly which gap you are paying to fill.

After that the order of savings is familiar. Ask your employer first, since security teams usually hold a training budget and this exam maps directly onto work they want done. Use academic pricing through the CompTIA Academic Store if you are a student or staff at a participating institution. Use DoD COOL or GI Bill funding if you are eligible, which pays the fee back rather than cutting it up front. And buy the voucher on its own rather than a training bundle.

One trap deserves naming. Vouchers expire, usually twelve months from purchase. Buying during a sale and then discovering that your lab time is going slower than planned is a common way to pay $425 for nothing. Buy when you have a date in mind, not when you have a discount in mind.

CompTIA charges full price for a retake: another $425. There is no discount, no partial credit for the domains you cleared, and no shortened form. You sit the whole thing again, up to 90 questions across 165 minutes, performance-based items included.

The timing rules are gentler than the price. You can sit the second attempt immediately with no waiting period, and CompTIA requires 14 days between tries from the third attempt onward.

That immediate rebooking is where the second $425 goes. A PenTest+ failure is rarely a fact you can look up. It is usually one of two things: you were slow inside the performance-based items and ran out of clock, or you practised exploitation and skipped scoping, rules of engagement and reporting, which are worth marks and take no lab time to learn. Neither improves overnight.

Read the score report first. CompTIA breaks a failed result down by domain, and it is the most specific study guidance you will ever get for this exam. If attacks and exploits is the weak line, that is 35 percent of the paper and it needs lab hours. If engagement management is the weak line, that is 13 percent and a weekend of reading fixes it. Those are very different rebooking dates.

PenTest+ is valid for three years, and renewal costs either time or money. You choose which, and the choice is worth making in the month you pass rather than the month you expire.

The time route is 60 continuing education units across the cycle, plus CompTIA's continuing education fee. That is more than Security+ asks for, so do not carry the Security+ number across in your head and find yourself short in year three. CEUs come from things testers do anyway: higher certifications, relevant training, conference attendance, published writing, and documented work experience. A single higher security certification during the cycle can cover the whole requirement on its own.

The money route is re-sitting the current version of PenTest+ at full price, which is another $425 and another exam day. Over three years the CEU route is almost always cheaper, and the only real argument for re-sitting is that the exam version has moved far enough that you would rather hold the newer one.

Preparation for PenTest+ can genuinely cost nothing. The realistic range people spend is $0 to $450, and the top of that range buys convenience rather than a better chance of passing.

Our questions, explanations, and cheat sheets are free, and the explanation is never paywalled. That is the part of a paid practice set you are actually buying, so it is the part we do not charge for.