IC Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown

What You Are Actually Paying For

The Isograd CyberCitizen credential, publicly branded as Tosa CyberCitizen, is a short, adaptive assessment of everyday cybersecurity competence. The exam contains 35 adaptive questions with a 60-minute limit, mixing multiple-choice, interactive, and in-application items. It is available in English and French. Because the format is compact, the cost conversation is less about a single big exam fee and more about which bundle of extras you choose around it.

Every U.S. package includes one exam attempt and proctoring. The packages then differ along two axes: how many practice assessments you receive and whether you get the guided online course. Understanding those two axes makes the pricing table below easy to read. If you are still orienting yourself on the credential itself, start with What Is IC Certification? before comparing bundles.

The U.S. Price Tiers, Side by Side

The U.S. store structures CyberCitizen into five purchasable options. Package inclusions follow whichever product you select, so the table below is the quickest way to see what each price actually buys.

Two patterns stand out. First, each additional practice assessment costs roughly USD 10 to USD 16 more within the same family of packages: moving from Ready (USD 109) to Prep (USD 125) is a USD 16 step, and Prep to Prep Plus (USD 135) is USD 10. Second, adding the online course roughly doubles the price compared with the matching non-course tier: Skill Builder at USD 225 versus Certification Prep at USD 125 is a USD 100 difference for the same single practice assessment.

Choosing the Package That Fits Your Starting Point

If you already work with security tools daily

Candidates who routinely manage passwords, multi-factor authentication, device updates, and phishing reports at work may only need confirmation of what they know. For them, Certification Ready at USD 109 is the lean option. The risk is walking into an adaptive exam with no exposure to its question style, which is why many in this group still choose one practice assessment.

If you are new to the format but not to the topics

Certification Prep (USD 125) or Prep Plus (USD 135) fits people who know the concepts but have never faced adaptive, in-application questions. The practice assessments let you see how interactive items behave before the scored attempt. With Prep Plus you can take one practice attempt early, study your weak domain, and take the second closer to exam day to confirm improvement.

If cybersecurity is genuinely new to you

Skill Builder (USD 225) and Skill Builder Plus (USD 235) bundle the course with practice assessments. The public CyberCitizen Learning Lab course estimates 25 to 40 hours of study. That structured path suits career changers and students starting from zero. Keep in mind that the course curriculum does not replace the four formal exam domains and should not be treated as exhaustive exam coverage, so pair it with the blueprint itself. Our IC study guide shows how to map course modules to exam content.

No percentage weights are published for these domains, so budget your practice time evenly rather than assuming any one area dominates. For a deeper walkthrough, see the complete guide to all four IC content areas.

Costs Outside the Sticker Price

The package price covers the exam, proctoring, and whatever study materials the bundle lists. A few other items deserve a place in your budget.

Equipment for remote proctoring

Remote delivery uses the Tosa/Isograd platform with proctoring through Integrity Advocate. You need a computer, webcam, microphone, and internet connection. Most candidates already own these, but if you plan to test from a shared or work machine, confirm that the device permits webcam and microphone access. Testing is closed book, proctored throughout, with no breaks and no outside materials, so you also need a quiet, clear space for the full 60 minutes.

Photo identification

Valid photo identification is required. There is no formal education, experience, training, or age prerequisite, so ID is the only document gate. If your ID is close to expiring, renewing it first avoids a last-minute problem. More on eligibility is in our IC requirements guide.

Test center option

If you prefer an in-person setting, the U.S. store supports English-language CyberCitizen at Prometric centers. Travel to a center is your own cost, so weigh that against the convenience of testing at home with a proctor watching remotely.

Retakes, Validity, and the Cost of Renewing

Here the public information is not perfectly consistent, and a careful buyer should know that before paying. The CyberCitizen blueprint and the directly retrieved U.S. credential page describe three-year validity and retesting for renewal or score improvement, with a minimum 24-hour interval between retakes on that U.S. page. In contrast, the general Tosa FAQ describes lifetime certification in which scores become outdated after three years, with no minimum retake waiting period, and it references a 551 minimum for other certifications including digital literacy.

Retain CyberCitizen's own distinction: scores from 351 to 550 earn the certification diploma, while 551 and above also qualify for a Credly digital badge. Verify the validity and retake terms for the specific channel where you book, because a retake means buying another attempt. Budget for that possibility rather than assuming a single purchase is guaranteed to be enough.

These are scaled proficiency bands on a 1 to 1000 scale produced with item response theory, not percentages of questions answered correctly. If a digital badge matters to your résumé or LinkedIn profile, you are effectively buying toward the 551 threshold, which affects how many practice assessments are worth purchasing. Our IC passing score breakdown explains how to interpret these bands.

Preparation Time as a Cost

Money is only one currency. The credential page recommends around 150 hours of training and practice for a Productive result or higher, while the public Learning Lab course estimates 25 to 40 hours. These are preparation recommendations, not admission requirements, and they are separate from the 60 minutes of actual exam time.

That gap matters for budgeting. The course alone is not the same as the guidance for reaching the Productive band or beyond, so if the badge is your target, expect to invest more hours than the course estimate alone suggests. Candidates aiming only for the Basic diploma at 351 or above may reasonably need less. For a realistic view of effort, read how hard the IC exam really is.

A Budget-Aware Plan Built Around the Four Domains

If you buy a package with practice assessments, sequence them so each one earns its cost. Here is one way to arrange a plan around the domains rather than a generic calendar.

Since no domain weights are published, the baseline assessment in Week 1 is the most valuable use of a practice attempt: it tells you where to spend limited hours. A second assessment, available in Prep Plus and Skill Builder Plus, gives you a before-and-after comparison. For a condensed refresher near the end, the IC cheat sheet helps with last-minute review.

Is the Spend Justified?

At USD 109 to USD 235, CyberCitizen sits at the affordable end of professional credentials, and the compact 35-question format keeps the time commitment on exam day modest. Whether the investment pays off depends on how you plan to use it: as proof of baseline security awareness for a job application, as a workplace compliance signal, or as a first step toward further study. Salary effects are difficult to isolate for an entry-level, awareness-style credential, so be skeptical of any promise of a specific pay bump. Our ROI analysis weighs the benefits more fully.

If you are unsure about readiness, you can sample question styles on the IC Exam Prep practice test site before committing to a paid package, then use your results to decide between the lean Certification tiers and the course-inclusive Skill Builder tiers. No official candidate pass rate has been verified, so rely on practice performance rather than rumors about difficulty; the pass rate article explains what is and is not known.

Frequently Asked Questions