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CompTIA Network+ exam cost in 2026: what you'll really pay

By the founder of CertOwl • July 2026 • 4 min read

The sticker price first: a CompTIA Network+ exam voucher costs $399 in 2026. That buys you one attempt at the N10-009 exam, taken either at a Pearson VUE test center or online with a proctor watching through your webcam. One exam, one certification, which already makes it a smaller financial commitment than the A+ and its two required exams.

That $399 is not the whole story though. Depending on how you shop and how prepared you walk in, your real total can land anywhere from about $350 to well over $1,000. This article breaks down where the money goes and where you can keep some of it.

The voucher, and why the price looks different on older pages

CompTIA raised voucher prices on June 1, 2026. The Network+ went from $390 to $399, and the other exams moved up with it. Plenty of blog posts and forum threads still quote the old numbers, so if you see $390 or lower on a page with no date, that's your clue it predates the increase.

The voucher itself is the same product wherever you buy it. It's a code you redeem when scheduling your exam, and it's typically valid for about a year, with the exact expiry printed at purchase. Buy it when you're one to two months out from exam day, not at the start of your studying. A voucher expiring unused is the most avoidable way to lose $399 in this process.

Paying less than list price

You don't have to pay the full $399. CompTIA works with authorized reseller partners, and several well-known ones sell Network+ vouchers in the $350 to $360 range year-round. That's a legitimate discount of roughly 10 percent for a few minutes of shopping around.

Two cautions here. First, buy only from authorized partners; a search for the reseller's name plus "CompTIA partner" settles it quickly. A too-cheap voucher from a random marketplace can turn out to be region-locked, expired or simply fake, and CompTIA won't help you if it does. Second, students should check academic pricing before paying anything, because CompTIA's academic store sells discounted vouchers to eligible students and the savings are significant.

The costs people forget

A failed attempt. There are no free retakes. Fail, and the next attempt costs another voucher at full price. CompTIA does sell a voucher-plus-retake bundle that works out cheaper than buying two separately, which is worth considering if you're going in with limited prep time. The rules around timing are covered in our retake policy guide: no waiting period after a first fail, then 14 days between later attempts.

Study materials. The exam objectives are a free download and should be the spine of your preparation. From there, costs vary wildly. Books and video courses run anywhere from free to about $100. CompTIA's own CertMaster training bundles are the premium route and can push the total past $1,000 when combined with a voucher. They're polished, but nobody needs them to pass, and the price gap between "free objectives plus a good practice question bank" and "official everything bundle" is money that could fund your next certification instead.

Renewal down the road. The certification stays valid for three years. After that you renew it through continuing education activities or by passing the newest version of the exam, both of which carry costs. It's not part of your day-one budget, but it belongs in the honest total cost of holding the cert long-term.

A realistic budget

For most self-studiers in 2026, a sensible Network+ budget looks like this: a discounted voucher around $355, free official objectives, one solid study resource, and a practice question bank. All in, roughly $400 to $500. The expensive versions of this journey mostly come from either buying training you didn't need or paying for a second attempt that better preparation would have prevented.

Whether the exam is worth that money depends on where you are in your career, and how much work it takes to pass is a separate question, one we covered in how hard the Network+ really is. And if you're comparing certification paths cost-wise, the A+ price breakdown makes a useful side-by-side: two exams at $265 each against one at $399.

Plan for one attempt, prepare like it's the only one you can afford, and the Network+ becomes one of the cheaper career moves in IT.