CompTIA A+ vs Google IT Support: which one first?
By SunTzu, founder of CertOwl • Published • 4 min read
Quick answer
These two credentials are not the same kind of thing. The Google IT Support Professional Certificate is a training course you complete, priced by subscription at about $49 a month and finished by most people in three to six months. CompTIA A+ is an assessment you pass, two proctored exams at about $274 each, with no course attached. Google teaches you the material; A+ proves you know it, and it is A+ that appears as a keyword in enterprise and government job listings.
About $548 against about $49 a month. That price gap is what sends most beginners looking for a comparison, and it is also the least useful way to choose between these two, because they are not competing products. One is a course. The other is an exam. Comparing them on price alone is like comparing the cost of driving lessons with the cost of the driving test.
What each one actually is
The Google IT Support Professional Certificate is a five course programme hosted on Coursera. You watch, read and work through labs, and you earn the certificate by completing the material. There is no proctored exam and no invigilator. Most people finish in three to six months at around ten hours a week, which works out at roughly 120 to 140 hours of study. The subscription runs at about $49 a month, so the total depends entirely on how fast you move. Financial aid is available through Coursera, and in some regions the programme is funded outright by grants.
CompTIA A+ has no course attached at all. It is two exams, Core 1 (220-1201) and Core 2 (220-1202), each costing around $274, which puts the badge at about $548 before any study materials. You book them at a test centre or sit them online under supervision, and you either pass or you do not. How you prepare is your business, and we broke the full spend down in the A+ cost guide.
That single difference explains almost everything else about how employers treat them.
How hiring managers read them
A completion certificate and a passed exam carry different weight, and it is worth being blunt about why. Anyone who pays the subscription and finishes the videos gets the Google certificate. That does not make it worthless, but it does mean it certifies effort more than ability.
CompTIA A+ shows up as a keyword in job descriptions, particularly across enterprise IT, healthcare and government, where hiring runs through applicant tracking systems that filter on exactly that string. If a listing names a certification, it is usually this one. We went through which roles hire at this level in jobs with CompTIA A+.
Google has real weight of its own in a narrower lane. The company assembled an employer consortium of more than 150 organisations that agreed to consider graduates for entry level roles, so inside that network the certificate opens doors that a stranger's CV would not. Outside it, recognition thins out.
Where the overlap sits
The material covers a lot of the same ground: hardware, operating systems, networking basics, troubleshooting method, customer service. Someone who finishes the Google programme walks into A+ study with a genuine head start, and quite a few people use it that way on purpose.
The reverse is less common and makes less sense. If you already hold A+, working through a beginner course to collect a second beginner credential is time you could spend on Network+ or on a home lab.
Choosing without overthinking it
If you have never touched IT and want structure, start with Google. The videos hold your hand, the monthly cost is small, and you find out within a few weeks whether this work suits you at all. That is a cheap way to test a career change.
If you already know your way around a machine, or if you can see the job listings you are aiming at and they name a certification, go straight to A+. Paying for a beginner course to learn material you half know already is the expensive route to the same place.
If you can afford both, the sensible order is Google first for the foundation and A+ second for the badge that gets scanned. Just do not treat the first as a substitute for the second, because employers do not.
Test yourself: 3 quick questions
Which cloud characteristic allows resources to be added or removed automatically and quickly according to the current load, so that to the user they appear virtually unlimited?
Rapid elasticity means fast, usually automatic, scaling of resources according to demand. Measured service tracks consumption, resource pooling shares a common pool of resources among customers, and on-demand self-service lets users provision resources themselves without staff involvement.
Through a web portal, a user launches new virtual machines on their own within minutes, without any interaction with the provider's staff. Which cloud characteristic is that?
On-demand self-service allows the user to provision resources themselves, without the provider's staff. Resource pooling shares a common pool of resources, measured service tracks consumption, and broad network access describes availability over the network from various devices.
Under the shared responsibility model in IaaS, who is responsible for installing security patches for the guest operating system on a virtual machine?
In IaaS the provider takes care of the physical infrastructure and virtualization, while the customer is responsible for the guest OS, applications, and their patches. So updating the guest OS falls to the customer, not the provider, the CPU manufacturer, or the ISP.
Score: · Hundreds more with explanations, free in the app: Get CertOwl on the App Store
Frequently asked questions
Does the Google certificate replace the A+?
No. It teaches overlapping material, but it is not a proctored exam and does not carry the same recognition in enterprise or government hiring, where A+ appears by name.
Is the Google certificate a waste of money if I plan to do A+ anyway?
Not necessarily. If you are starting from zero, a few months of structured teaching for a small monthly fee is a reasonable way to reach the point where A+ study makes sense. If you already have the basics, skip it.
Which is faster?
A+ can be faster if you already have background knowledge, since nothing forces you to sit through a course. From a standing start the two take a similar few months, as we set out in is CompTIA A+ worth it.
CertOwl covers the A+ objectives in five minute daily drills: practice questions with every option explained, spaced repetition for what keeps slipping, and full simulations with an indicative score. The A+ and Network+ tracks are completely free.
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