Build your certification study plan
Tell us your exam date, how many hours a week you can study and your experience level, and we’ll turn it into a week-by-week plan — built from the real lessons for your certification, in exam-weight order, with mock exams at the end. Free, no account needed.
How long does it take to study for a certification?
A good study plan works backwards from your exam date: cover the syllabus in exam-weight order first, reserve the final weeks for full-length mock exams, and practise questions every week rather than saving them for the end. The generator above turns your exam date, weekly hours and experience into a week-by-week schedule built from the actual lessons for your certification. The rest of this page explains how it decides — and how to study once you have your plan.
| Certification | Lessons | Reading time | Exam |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS Certified AI Practitioner (AIF-C01) | 14 | 3 hr 59 min | 65 Qs · 90 min |
| AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) | 19 | 5 hr 58 min | 65 Qs · 90 min |
| AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) | 13 | 3 hr 8 min | 65 Qs · 130 min |
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) | 14 | 6 hr 31 min | 65 Qs · 130 min |
| Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) | 15 | 5 hr 19 min | 50 Qs · 100 min |
| Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) | 11 | 2 hr 48 min | 45 Qs · 45 min |
| AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate (SOA-C03) | 13 | 5 hr 8 min | 65 Qs · 130 min |
| AWS Certified Data Engineer – Associate (DEA-C01) | 17 | 5 hr 38 min | 65 Qs · 130 min |
| AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer - Associate (MLA-C02) | 12 | 4 hr 25 min | 65 Qs · 130 min |
| AWS Certified Security – Specialty (SCS-C03) | 16 | 6 hr 39 min | 65 Qs · 170 min |
| CompTIA Security+ (SY0-801) | 27 | 8 hr 59 min | 90 Qs · 90 min |
| CompTIA Tech+ (FC0-U71) | 10 | 2 hr 43 min | 70 Qs · 60 min |
| Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate (Databricks DEA) | 13 | 3 hr 54 min | 45 Qs · 90 min |
| Databricks Certified Generative AI Engineer Associate (Databricks GenAI) | 15 | 4 hr 33 min | 45 Qs · 90 min |
| GitHub Actions (GH-200) | 9 | 2 hr 57 min | 60 Qs · 100 min |
| GitHub Foundations (GH-900) | 8 | 1 hr 58 min | 60 Qs · 100 min |
| Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer (ACE) | 12 | 3 hr 54 min | 55 Qs · 120 min |
| Google Cloud Generative AI Leader (GenAI Leader) | 15 | 3 hr 37 min | 55 Qs · 90 min |
| HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate (004) | 10 | 2 hr 38 min | 57 Qs · 60 min |
| ISC2 Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) | 38 | 13 hr 37 min | 150 Qs · 180 min |
| ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) | 19 | 4 hr 32 min | 100 Qs · 120 min |
| ISTQB Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL) | 22 | 4 hr 4 min | 40 Qs · 60 min |
| Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) | 13 | 3 hr 33 min | 60 Qs · 90 min |
| Microsoft 365 Certified: Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals (AB-900) | 7 | 1 hr 59 min | 45 Qs · 45 min |
| Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate (AI-103) | 14 | 4 hr 39 min | 50 Qs · 120 min |
| Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Fundamentals (AI-901) | 7 | 1 hr 48 min | 45 Qs · 45 min |
| Microsoft Certified: Cloud and AI Security Engineer Associate (SC-500) | 12 | 4 hr 20 min | 50 Qs · 120 min |
| Microsoft Certified: Fabric Data Engineer Associate (DP-700) | 10 | 3 hr 23 min | 55 Qs · 100 min |
| Oracle Certified Professional: Java SE 25 Developer (1Z0-831) | 24 | 7 hr 54 min | 50 Qs · 120 min |
| Project Management Professional (PMP) | 26 | 8 hr 16 min | 180 Qs · 240 min |
How to build a study plan that works
Most plans fail the same way: front-loading easy topics, leaving mocks until it’s too late, and treating practice as an afterthought. These four rules fix that.
Start from the exam date and work backwards
Fix your exam date first, then divide the weeks between learning and review. As a rule, reserve the last 15–25% of your time purely for mock exams and fixing weak areas — not new material. Booking the exam early is the single best way to hold yourself to the plan.
Study in exam-weight order, not chapter order
The exam is weighted, so your time should be too. Start with the heaviest domain and work down — that’s where the marks are. The plan above already orders lessons this way, so week one always hits the domains that matter most.
Practise every week, not just at the end
Practice questions are how you find the gaps between “I read it” and “I can answer it under exam pressure”. Do a batch each week on the domains you just covered, and review the explanation for every option — right and wrong — not only the ones you missed.
Finish with full-length, timed mocks
Nothing predicts readiness like sitting a complete, timed paper. Use your review weeks for at least one full mock, review every miss, and re-drill the domains where you lost marks. Aim to clear the pass mark with room to spare before you book — or before your booked date arrives.