PMI Certifications and Exams: Cost Breakdown

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If you have started or are planning to start a career in project management, certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI) can solidify your project management skills and make you more marketable as a project management professional.

The job outlook for project managers is excellent, with a projected growth of 33% (translating to around 22 million new jobs) from 2017 to 2027. Earning a PMI certification can make you a standout candidate for the many career opportunities available in this field.

PMI certifications are credentials that validate your knowledge and skills in project management. The Project Management Institute administers these certifications. Earning a PMI certification shows that you have demonstrated the knowledge and skills needed to be a successful project manager.

Certifications are available for project management professionals in all stages of their careers. These certifications help professionals bolster their skills and move to the next level of their careers. The Project Management Institute offers the following PMI certifications.

The PMP certification focuses on skills related to managing people, leading project teams, managing technical elements of projects and connecting projects to an organization’s strategies and goals.

The CAPM certification centers around managing large projects with a variety of approaches. It covers the fundamentals of project management and the principles of business analysis.

The PgMP certification builds the skills you need to coordinate and manage multiple projects within an organization.

The PfMP certification teaches individuals how to implement strategic initiatives in an organization’s portfolio management. This credential signifies that you have the ability to manage one or more portfolios according to an organization’s objectives.

The PMI-PBA certification focuses on using business analysis to establish accurate functional requirements and reach the intended business outcomes.

The PMI-RMP certification demonstrates that a project management professional can identify problems, assess risks, mitigate threats and achieve successful results while conserving resources.

The PMI-SP certification hones in on the fundamental role of scheduling in managing resources and activities and reaching successful outcomes in project management.

The PMI-ACP certification focuses on agile approaches and collaboration in project management.

The PMI Project Management Ready certification teaches high school and postsecondary students the basics of project management. This certification process aims to help young learners determine whether project management is a good career option for them.

Each certification has different requirements, and there are many ways to prepare for your certification exam. How long it takes to earn a PMI certification varies depending on the credential you pursue and your individual learning style.

Depending on the certification, you must meet a combination of education and experience requirements, which can take several years. Early-career certifications are more accessible; for example, CAPM applicants need only a high school diploma.

If you already have a college degree and years of relevant work experience under your belt, you can complete your certification requirements more quickly than someone starting right out of high school. If you’ve already met your secondary education requirements, you may be able to earn your certification in as little as eight to 12 weeks.

You should also plan time to study for the certification exam. While these exams only take a few hours, test-takers often study for two to three months in preparation.

Many universities offer project management certification test preparation programs. These programs often last five days and resemble a bootcamp. They use coursework that aligns with the PMI certification exam content. PMI certification preparation programs can provide you with education hours that count toward PMI’s application requirements as well.

You can find classes to help you prepare for your certification exam through the Project Management Institute, universities and other project management training organizations. There are many options for certification classes, and costs vary drastically.

PMI’s Authorized On-Demand PMP Exam Prep course costs $699 for members and $799 for nonmembers. You could also choose bootcamp programs, such as a live online bootcamp, for around $1,500. Project Management Academy offers three bootcamp course training packages that range in price from around $2,000 to $3,000. Clemson offers an online program for $2,700, and a similar program at Penn State costs around $1,200.

Some universities offer comprehensive project management training programs rather than just certification preparation coursework. For example, UCLA offers a $6,000 program that you can complete online or in a classroom setting. This program takes six months to two years to complete. UCLA’s course differs from other programs because it both prepares you for your certification exam and confers a separate certificate from UCLA.

There are also low-cost options available. For example, Udemy provides a $150 seminar that includes about 30 hours of lectures and online content.

The cost for PMI certification exams depends on the certification type. Each exam covers the material that’s relevant to its corresponding certification. Since every exam is different, costs vary as well.

You can take an exam up to three times during your one-year eligibility period. In other words, if you fail your exam the first time, you may retake it up to two more times. If you fail your exam three times, however, you must wait one year before taking it again.

To retake an exam, you must pay a reexamination fee. This costs $275 for PMI members or $375 for nonmembers.

Below is a breakdown of the costs for PMI certification exams.

There are many benefits of PMI membership, including lower certification exam and renewal fees. The fee to renew your certification is $60 for PMI members and $150 for nonmembers.

The PMI membership fee is $149 per year for most people. Students pay a reduced rate of $32 per year, and PMI members who have been members in good standing for five years or who have retired from employment can continue their membership for $65 per year.

To maintain your PMI certification, you should meet continuing certification requirements, which entail earning professional development units (PDUs). Depending on the type of PMI certification you hold, you must earn between 15 and 60 PDUs to maintain the credential.

You can earn PDUs by continuing your education or giving back to the project management community. Options include taking classes, attending seminars, mentoring those new to the profession, giving presentations and creating relevant content.

As you decide which route to take for your PMI certification training, you should consider program quality, material covered and cost. It’s difficult to estimate how much it costs to earn a PMI certification since there are so many factors to consider.

At the end of the day, you can expect to pay anything from $150 to $6,000 for PMI certification courses and exam preparation. It then costs between $225 and $1,000 to take your PMI certification exam, depending on your chosen certification and whether or not you are a PMI member. PMI membership costs between $32 and $149, depending on your specific situation.

All up, you could spend between $182 and $7,130 earning a PMI certification.

Best Free Project Management Training Materials for IT Pros

Project management and information technology (IT) have a complicated relationship. While it’s not exactly a core subject for related academic curricula, project management is something that touches deeply and directly on most IT activities. That probably explains why project management certifications command a constant presence among the top 10 top-paying certifications of interest to IT professionals over the past decade. 

Given the incredible popularity and demand for project management skills and knowledge, it is no surprise that one can find commercial project management training courses to fit nearly every schedule and budget. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t good choices available for free training. In this article, you’ll learn about some of the best project management training systems and certifications to help you become a better IT manager.

An online education phenomenon is reshaping the training landscape as we know it. It’s based on free online training courses called MOOCs, short for massively online open courses. These are housed on open, high-volume, high-capacity, cloud-based training platforms, such as edX, Moodle and Udemy.

While monetization of training is possible on some of these platforms, a MOOC is supposed to be free for the taking. Organizations or institutions that offer such free courses can still charge fees for testing, certificates of completion and other add-ons, but the basic course materials remain free to all interested parties.

Here’s a list of some of the best project management offerings.

Professional instructor Vincent McKeown delivers a 10-module series of video lectures, each of which maps to a domain in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) for the Project Management Institute Project Management Professional (PMI PMP) certification. At just over five hours, the course is neither incredibly detailed nor extensive, but it does provide a useful orientation for those just getting started on the subject.

With more than 282,000 students having either taken or now taking this course, this MOOC has seen some serious traction to mostly positive reviews. The course contains three modules, covers 28 topics and takes 10 to 15 hours to complete. While it doesn’t map directly to the PMP or other project management credentials, it does provide a useful introduction to the subject matter.

As a full-fledged MOOC delivery platform, ALISON offers a project management page among its course listings. In addition to the previous diploma item, it has courses about project management fundamentals, skills, resource management and a host of other topics. 

Udemy courses are not always or even often free, but many are inexpensive. A search for project management on Udemy produces hundreds of courses. Most cost between $20 and $50 each, although we found many as low as $10 and a few on the high end at $200. A search on PMP produces more than 2,600 free and paid courses. You’ll spend a lot of time fiddling with the search engine to find what you want, but there are plenty of choices here.

EdX gets many of its project management courses via Microsoft these days. As a result, despite a huge catalog of offerings, many of the project management courses relate to Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Portfolio Management (PPM). We did find a few project management courses from institutions such as the University of Adelaide, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Australian National University and the University of Washington.

The best online project management software can help companies organize their work and monitor tasks big and small. 

A search on MIT OpenCourseWare produces thousands of results for project management courses, many of which show a profound focus on engineering and business management topics. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here that’s well worth trawling through for those seeking top-notch offerings.

ProjectManager.com has 30 guides designed to help you learn the basics of project management. Inside many of these guides are video tutorials that provide more information about their respective topics. You’ll need some time and willpower to stitch a curriculum together here, but there’s lots of good material available. The company also maintains a YouTube channel, where you can easily find training videos.

YouTube is rife with project management training videos. Searches on YouTube for “project management” or “PMP” produce hundreds of thousands of results.

The MOOC List allows you to execute a consolidated search for trainings available in the next 30 days. Most courses are offered with specific starting dates, so this database points only to relevant courses starting in the near term.

The Oxford Home Study Centre offers several project management courses that introduce candidates to the many aspects of project management, project life cycles and project management roles. A certificate is issued at the end of each course.

Saylor Academy has two project management courses: one in the business field and the other in software engineering. The first course requires 62 hours and covers the key elements of project management and its more technical details. The software engineering course totals 41 hours and presents topics ranging from life cycle models to design quality assurance. Upon completing either course, you’ll receive a free certificate.

GoSkills pulls up 30 project management courses when searching for project management. These courses span basic frameworks, software programs and process control. Each course includes video tutorials along with tests and quizzes to help you prepare for project management exams and earn learning hours toward your certification.

Various online platforms offer free training, lessons and certification prep for deeper dives into project management skills and practices. It’s just a matter of sorting through the available options to find the ones that appeal to you.

If you’re willing to spend a small sum of money, there are some appealing low-cost project management training options. For example, most Coursera courses are $49, and multicourse bundles are also available (such as UC Irvine’s Introduction to Project Management Principles and Practices). The Master of Project Academy offers numerous free online training courses for project management certifications, such as the PMP, CAPM, Six Sigma and Prince 2. However, for $397 per month, you can purchase an all-course bundle that includes all Master of Project Academy courses.

Like UC Irvine, many colleges and universities offer courses aimed at the PMP and related PMI certifications, such as CAPM and PMP add-ons for portfolio and program management, as well as other credentials for risk management, scheduling and so forth. These courses cost the same as other college courses and are taught in a similar fashion. That puts them halfway between low-cost/no-cost options and short-term, higher-priced intensive courses from traditional training outlets such as Global Knowledge, New Horizons and Learning Tree.

Hundreds to thousands of other offerings for project management training at higher costs are readily available around the globe. For PMP or other PMI certifications, there’s a whole network of partners that teach an official curriculum. Some are in academia; others offer purely commercial courses. All the biggest training companies offer PMP and related certification training, as do the major online training players (such as LinkedIn Learning, Simplilearn and Pluralsight).

Our project management software buying guide is designed to help small businesses find the right product for managing their operations.

Project management software is at the heart of most IT activities, including system design and development, deployment, and maintenance. All of these routine activities can also be characterized as projects – some of massive scope and duration, others more quick and evanescent. Indeed, that’s why project management skills and knowledge are in high demand among IT professionals in nearly every specialty and area of technical focus in that field.

The best project managers possess a great eye for detail and are highly organized. Masters of soft skills, they are clear, concise and effective communicators in both speaking and writing. These professionals are excellent problem-solvers and negotiators. It’s also helpful if they have an understanding of cross-functional areas – such as supply chain, HR and resource constraints; procurement; finance; and change orders – which may impact overall project outcomes.

As a project management professional, you’ll find no shortage of methodologies. There is no one “right” methodology, and the one you choose to practice will be influenced by factors like the type of project, industry sector and your business’s preference. When choosing project management training materials, look for courses that complement the methodology you want to practice.

These are some of the most popular project management styles and frameworks:

While project management is all about managing workflow, project resource management is about ensuring resources are being used efficiently.

Requirements to earn a project management certification are set by the individual certification provider and may include a combination of exams, specific training courses, and minimum education level or experience. The requirements to earn advanced certifications are generally more than those for entry-level credentials. For example, the Project Management Professional is one of the most highly prized certifications available. In addition to passing a rigorous exam, candidates must also possess a combination of education, project management education and experience.

CompTIA’s Project+, an entry-level certification, recommends that candidates have 12 months’ experience before attempting the exam. However, since this is a recommendation only, candidates can obtain this certification by sitting for the exam regardless, which makes it the only one we found that is available without requiring additional training, education or experience.

In the table below, you’ll find information on obtaining five popular project management certifications. 

There are several types of project management certifications. Some are more difficult than others, and each one has its own requirements for candidates.

You don’t necessarily need an IT certification to lead projects in the field. However, obtaining an IT certification can help you gain more knowledge and skills for effectively managing projects and leading your team. Getting an IT certification can also result in a salary increase and make your résumé more appealing to employers.

If you believe an IT certification could be a good addition to your career, the first step is to choose the area in which you want to receive a certification; project management is hardly the only option. Below are more than a dozen of the best certification areas for IT professionals.

Start digging into the outlets and offerings that interest you most. When training is free, the only thing you have to lose is your time and energy. Thus, you can try things out and stop at any time if they don’t work for you. When it comes to paid training, we recommend looking at online reviews, seeking personal recommendations from people you know and trust, and requesting feedback from former course attendees or materials users to help steer you toward the right choice.

Shayna Waltower contributed to the writing and research in this article.