How much does ISC2 SSCP cost?

The largest reduction on this exam is not a discount, it is passing at the first attempt. A retake is another $249, so two sittings is $498, which is more than every other cost on this page put together. The adaptive engine can stop at 100 items once it is confident you sit below the standard, so an underprepared candidate can pay the full fee for a short exam. Drill until your scores sit clear of the pass line before you book.

If you already hold an ISC2 certification, the recurring cost is already paid. ISC2 bills a single maintenance fee per member however many of its certifications you hold, so a CISSP or CCSP holder adding SSCP takes on the exam fee and no new annual cost. A CC holder is the one exception: earning a second ISC2 certification moves you onto the member fee, and ISC2 charges the difference once.

Register as an ISC2 Candidate before you buy anything. ISC2 says the first year of Candidate dues is waived for new Candidates while that offer runs, the status carries 10 percent off ISC2's own online self-paced training, and the dues you do pay are credited to your first year of membership. Paying list price for a voucher and a course without checking Candidate benefits is money left behind.

Price the second attempt before you buy the first. ISC2 sells the exam with Peace of Mind Protection, which it describes as two attempts at a lower cost than two single exams, with 180 days from purchase to sit both. It is worth the comparison only if you think a second sitting is genuinely likely, because ISC2 says the purchase is not refundable and the 180 day window is shorter than the year a plain exam code gives you.

Book a date you can keep, and watch the other clock. Moving the appointment late costs a fee and cancelling costs more, both listed in the table above. ISC2 also says an exam code must be scheduled and administered within 365 days of purchase, so buying early and then not being ready is a way to pay the full fee for nothing at all.

A retake is another $249 at full price, unless you bought the exam with Peace of Mind Protection. There is no discount for a second attempt and no partial credit for the domains you were strong in, because the adaptive engine rebuilds its estimate of your ability from the first item every time.

The waiting periods get longer with each attempt. ISC2 lets you retest 30 test-free days after a first attempt, 60 test-free days after a second, and 90 test-free days after a third and every attempt after that. Across all of it you may sit an ISC2 exam at most four times in any 12 month period for a given certification program, so booking your way through it is not an option.

You will not get a score to argue with. ISC2 says no scores are provided, and that candidates who fail are given a list of proficiency levels for each domain at the testing center. That sheet is the only specific guidance the exam itself produces, and it is worth more than the wait: SSCP failures usually cluster in the domains a candidate's day job never touches, which for most operations people is Cryptography at 9 percent and the risk and analysis material at 15.

SSCP runs on a three year certification cycle. Staying certified means 60 CPE credits across the cycle, of which at least 45 must be Group A, plus the annual maintenance fee every year. ISC2 suggests 20 credits a year to keep the pace even and states there is no annual requirement unless you hold associate status, so an uneven year is allowed as long as the cycle total lands.

Group A credits have to relate to the domains of a certification you hold, which for SSCP means operational security work rather than any training that happens to be running. The remaining 15 may be Group A or Group B, and Group B is professional development more broadly. Vendor training, conference sessions, teaching, writing and further certifications all count, and somebody active in security operations generates them without planning much.

The fee is what makes SSCP a cost you carry rather than one you clear. It is charged every year you hold the credential, and because ISC2 bills one fee per member rather than one per certification, it does not grow if you add CISSP or CCSP later. Missing either the credits or the fee has a defined end: ISC2 gives 90 days after the cycle ends to submit outstanding credits and pay past due fees, then suspends the certification, and a suspension held for two consecutive years ends in termination and sitting the exam again.

If you passed without the year of experience, the arithmetic is different while you wait. An Associate of ISC2 sits on a one year cycle with 15 CPE credits due annually and the lower associate fee, and moves onto the member fee once the endorsement clears.

Preparation for SSCP can genuinely cost nothing. The realistic range people spend is $0 to $500, 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.