How much does Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals cost?

There is not much to cut here, and that is the point. The exam is $99, the official study path is free, and the product trials are free. Anyone selling a several-hundred-dollar SC-900 bootcamp is reselling Microsoft Learn with a different font.

Two real discounts exist. Verified students at accredited institutions get a reduced exam rate from Microsoft. Microsoft also runs free Virtual Training Days on security, compliance and identity, and some sessions have carried an exam voucher for attendees. For a $99 exam, one of those takes the cost to nothing.

The trap specific to this exam is licence spending. SC-900 asks what Defender for Cloud Apps or Purview Insider Risk Management is for, never how to license it, so you do not need a paid tenant to answer anything. Start the trial in your final fortnight, click through the portals the exam names, and let it lapse.

If you are studying with colleagues, the free path scales at no cost. A weekly 45 minute session where each person explains one skill area to the others is worth more than a course, because product-name confusion shows up immediately when someone has to say the words out loud.

A retake is another $99, at full price. Microsoft's timing rules are the same across its exams: 24 hours before a second attempt, 14 days before the third and each attempt after that, and a limit of five attempts on the same exam in twelve months.

The 24 hour window is short enough that people rebook the same evening, which is almost always wrong. Your score report breaks the result down by skill area, and a failed SC-900 usually points at one area rather than a general shortfall.

If the report shows the Microsoft security solutions area low, the problem is names rather than concepts. Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, Defender for Cloud and Defender for Cloud Apps protect four different things, and the exam is happy to offer you all four. Two evenings with a sheet mapping each product to the asset it protects fixes more than a week of rewatching videos.

If the compliance area is low, spend the time inside a Purview trial portal instead. Sensitivity labels, retention policies and eDiscovery are much easier to keep straight once you have seen where they live.

SC-900 never expires. Microsoft's fundamentals certifications carry no renewal, no continuing education requirement and no annual fee, so the $99 is the entire lifetime cost.

That is worth holding next to the alternatives before you compare prices. A CompTIA certification runs on a three year cycle with continuing education units and a maintenance fee, and ISC2 charges an annual fee for every credential you hold. SC-900 charges nothing after the exam.

The credential does not expire, but the content ages, and on this exam it ages fast. Azure AD became Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft 365 Defender became Microsoft Defender XDR, and the compliance portal became Microsoft Purview. Your certificate stays valid through all of that. Your vocabulary does not, so read the current skills outline again before you quote SC-900 in an interview a year later.

If you go on to a role-based certification such as SC-300, the economics change slightly: those last one year and renew free through an online assessment on Microsoft Learn. Budget the hour, not a fee.

Preparation for Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals can genuinely cost nothing. The realistic range people spend is $0 to $150, 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.