r/AWSCertifications

Every time I post here, I get a comment saying, "That's a lot of money to spend on certifications." But let's think about it, is it really?

I like to think about how much other things cost. How much do people pay for a new iPhone? Or how much do they spend when they go out for a night or to a nice restaurant? Things that aren't really necessary and offer quick pleasure, but don't really give you anything in the long term.

Also, let's think about how much people spend on shitty courses, only to end up without a job, or maybe with a job that doesn't pay very well.

When you get all the AWS certifications, you become a Golden Jacket. Even though being a Golden Jacket is not a 100% guarantee that you'll get a specific job, it can increase your chances significantly, especially at companies that are AWS Partners. There are currently only around 300-400 Golden Jackets worldwide. Let that sink in.

So I'll ask again: is $1,325 really that expensive for a title that's internationally recognized? I actually think it's quite cheap.

You pay $1,325 if you manage to pass every single exam without failing, because you get a 50% voucher after every pass. If you fail, things obviously start getting more expensive.

Also, a bonus for now:

🟥 Beta exams already cost half the price.

The AI Business Strategist and Machine Learning Engineer are currently in beta, so you already pay half price without needing a voucher.

🟩 There's also a new 50% off + free retake promotion.

With the code PearsonRetake2026, you pay 50% for the first attempt, and if you don't pass, the retake is free. The first attempt can be taken between 09/29 and 11/17/2026, and the retake between 01/04 and 04/07/2027.

Official link: https://www.pearsonvue.com/us/en/test-takers/free-retake.html

I appreciate all the people who shared their tips and tricks and helped answer questions. I wanted to give back to this subreddit.

Timeline: 24 days (September 9th - October 3rd)

Past experience: Two SWE Internships, no cloud experience

Materials:

• Stephane Maarek SAA course
  • Finished the course in about 18 days
  • Took notes in Google Docs on a second monitor pausing when necessary. I ended up not even reading my notes after finishing the course
  • Skipped the hands on practice
• Tutorial Dojo practice test
  • Finished all practice exams in review mode only
  • Scores were:
    • Practice Exam: 69% (Stephen Maarek)
    • Test 1: 70% (TD)
    • Test 2: 58% (TD)
    • Test 3: 71% (TD)
    • Test 4: 60% (TD)
    • Test 5: 66% (TD)
    • Test 6: 75% (TD)
    • Test 7: 73% (TD)
    • Test 8: 83% (TD)
    • Test 2 (retake): 82% (TD)
    • Practice Exam (retake): 92% (Stephen Maarek)
  • Try to explain to yourself why the correct answer is correct, and why the others are wrong.
  • Kept a Google Doc on topics to review, which was very helpful

Test Day: I flagged around 10 Questions and finished in 70 minutes. I did a quick review of the flagged questions and submitted. I did not review questions I didn't flag because I found that in school I will second guess myself a lot. If you have the time, I definitely recommend to use it all.

Opinion: The test is worded simpler than TD exams (in my opinion). The questions themselves are very slightly easier than TD. One thing that was a lot easier is that I feel that there are no "unfair" questions, unlike in TD (like my bad I didn't know that if a certain resource is made using AWS CLI, some settings are different than if it was made using console). I've done a lot of complaining on here about TD questions lol.

Extra Details:

• Took the exam on site. Process was very smooth. I was able to have a white board and expo marker
• Questions can be flagged and reviewed at the end
• I took the exam in the morning and received results on the same day in the afternoon. Around 8 hours of waiting.

Feel free to ask questions that are appropriate!

Been lurking on this sub for a long time, finally got an opportunity to post.

Happy to announce that I have passed the AWS certified Solutions Architect - Professional examination and have finally acquired the certification.

I managed to get a score of 758/1000, barely scraping through by the skin of my teeth.

It was not an easy endeavour, given that I had appeared for the exam around 3 months ago and failed, getting 691. That experience shattered my confidence and made my question whether I could actually even attempt an AWS certification exam again (for reference, I had passed the AWS SAA-C02 5 years ago & primarily work with GCP and there is very little practical AWS experience that i possess).

I decided to take a break from preparation and did not look at any AWS training material for weeks.

I decided to register for the exam using my personal account at the beginning of September 2026, with the knowledge that I had an uncanny ability to get it right and pass on the second attempt (this experience occurred during my CKA recertification attempt)

Scheduled the exam for the 25th September 2026, but as the date approached, I felt anxious so rescheduled it for the next day.

Resources I used:

1.) the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam course by Stephane Maarek - great for re-establishing familiarity with the myriad amount of AWS services that are a part of the exam, even if this course has no hands on. I even registered for his SAA-C03 course, but was unable to complete watching it.

2.) the TutorialsDojo course for the SAP-C02 - honestly I would say that this was the game changer. My previous attempt was botched by the fact that I bought this course but could not find the time to use it! The exams are worth their weight in gold. What also mattered was my attempt at trying to read the explanations and answers for the ones that I got incorrect. the exams are tough, I don't recall getting more than 63% answers correct. Overall, a really great way to solidify your knowledge and fix gaps in it wrt the exam.

3.) Neal Davis's exams on Udemy: Had to purchase this course even though I never finished all 17 exams on TD. Tried around 3 out of 6 exams, failed in all of them but also made sure to read the answers/explanations as much as I could.

Exam Experience:

Right off the bat, it was a disaster. After showing the proctor my testing environment, the exam was released. But there was some kind of weird halo around my MacBook screen, that prevented me from seeing the option buttons along with parts of the question. I thought It might be an issue with my Mac so called for help. The next proctor made me undergo the check again! and then released the exam.

Same result, with the exam environment check process being repeated 2 more times!

On the 3rd or 4th attempt, I complained about this to the proctor, who still made me undergo the check-in process. Finally, after all this rigmarole, he released the exam, and to my relief, there was no more halo. I could see all the questions clearly.

I dont know if it is just me, but has Pearson Vue's testing process degraded significantly? Feel free to disagree if you wish.

The exam began with relatively simple questions, but as time went on, the questions grew more complicated. My ability to reason went out of the window, caused due to the late hour and also because I hadn't eaten anything substantial for hours. I completed answering all the questions with around 35 minutes remaining. At the start of the exam, I thought of reviewing all my answers, but decided to submit the exam anyways with all that time left.

I awoke the next day, dreading the thought of opening my email. Finally summoned the courage to check it, and lo and behold, saw the email from credly and the email along with the passing report.

Special thanks to u/stephanemaarek, u/jonbonso-tdojo and u/neal-davis for the courses and exam resources, that were a tremendous help in passing this beast of an exam.

A huge thanks to everyone in this community as well, since your posts gave me the impetus to keep going.

Sorry for the massive rant, and thanks once again. Keep learning!

Gave my first beta exam today and completed the whole 85 questions in around 1.5 hrs. Got my pass result couple of hours later.

The 85 questions were honestly quite a bit much but thankfully most of the questions weren't too long though there were quite a few long questions that required multiple readings and some of the wording were not that clear to me (Not a native English speaker and also took ESL +30 min).

I have years of experience in AWS and thought it would be easy but man if you aren't business minded, then you will have to think a lot carefully. I have never gotten score less than 800 in any of AWS certification exam (including SAP) so that hopefully tells something.

And also there will be some technical stuff, at least about what AI/ML/Deep Learning stuff and some AWS AI services and framework.

Learning materials: The skillbuilder free exam prep course of AI Business Strategist and Chatgpt. Nothing else.

Time it took to prepare: 3 days to finish the free skillbuilder exam prep. Another 2 days of Chatgpt created notes for quick reading.

Honestly it was a fun and a little challenging exam and made me think in a business minded way that I hadn't realized before so I actually liked this exam!