Claude Certification: Anthropic's 4 Exams, Costs and Access

The four Claude certification exams compared

Anthropic sorts its exams by role and level. Anthropic's pages put a dash between the role and the level in each name; we use a comma.

The codes come from Pearson VUE's Anthropic page, the questions and prices from each exam's page and guide on Anthropic Partner Academy, and the tier column from Anthropic's certification FAQ. The tier column matters to your employer: certified staff count toward the firm's standing in the network.

Each exam guide publishes a weighted blueprint, and the heaviest domain tells you what the exam is really about:

The Architect Foundations exam has its own page here, with every domain and a study plan: Claude Certified Architect exam guide.

Anthropic certification: who can take the exams

Anthropic's certification FAQ answers it directly: certification is available only to people at organizations in the Claude Partner Network. To sit any Anthropic Claude certification exam, you register with an email on a company domain linked to your firm's partner record, personal addresses don't work, and you must be at least 18, checked against your ID at check-in (certification FAQ).

The network itself is not a closed club. When Anthropic launched it on March 12, 2026, it said any organization bringing Claude to market can join and that membership is free (Anthropic's announcement). Applications go through claude.com/partners. We did not apply, so we can't say how long approval takes or what Anthropic checks.

Claude certification exam format, scoring and rules

All four exams follow the same rules, set out in the exam guides and on Anthropic's policies page:

120

minutes per exam, about 135 with check-in

720

scaled score out of 1,000 to pass

12

months before a certification expires

4

attempts per exam in any 12 months

From Anthropic's exam guides, certification FAQ and policies, checked October 27, 2026.

• Questions: multiple choice and multiple response; each item says how many answers to pick.
• Delivery: Pearson VUE, online with OnVUE proctoring or at a Pearson test center. The exam is closed book: no notes, documentation, AI assistants or browser translation.
• Language: English or Japanese. You register once and choose the language when you schedule.
• Results: on screen at the end, as a scaled score from 100 to 1,000 plus the percentage you got right in each section.
• Credential: a Credly badge, usually by email within minutes of an online exam, and a PDF certificate you can download from Credly.
• Renewal: before your 12 months run out, you pass a free, open-book online assessment on Anthropic Partner Academy, which adds another 12 months. If it lapses, you take the full exam again at the full fee.
• Retakes: wait 14 days after a first fail, 30 days after a second and 90 days after a third, paying the full fee each time.

pearsonvue.com/us/en/anthropic.html

Your registration stays valid for 5 years, so you can pay now and sit the exam later. Cancelling an appointment in Pearson does not refund you; you email certifications-support@anthropic.com for that.

Claude certification cost and discounts

The list prices are in US dollars, before any partner discount:

• Associate, Foundations$99
• Developer, Foundations$125
• Architect, Foundations$125
• Architect, Professional$175

From each exam's page on Anthropic Partner Academy, checked October 27, 2026.

Discounts follow your firm's partner tier. The Registered tier pays full price; Select, Preferred and Global Premier partners get 50% off, applied at checkout. Through December 31, 2026, Global Premier partners pay nothing for any exam, then the 50% applies again. You pay by credit card on Anthropic Partner Academy; a voucher store for teams is in progress but not open yet.

One price changed this year: Architect Foundations went from $99 to $125 on June 30, 2026, the day the exams moved to Pearson VUE. A retake costs the full fee again, with your tier discount, while renewing on time costs nothing.

Which Claude certification fits your role

None of the four lists a mandatory prerequisite; the guides give recommended experience only, and the credential depends on the exam alone. Foundations and Professional are separate exams, so you can take Architect Professional without Architect Foundations, and Foundations never upgrades on its own.

01Associate, Foundations

For people who use Claude for business work: operations, marketing, project management, consulting. The guide says no software or API experience is needed.

02Developer, Foundations

For engineers with 1 to 5 years of software experience, 6 months or more with Claude or similar tools, and Python or TypeScript.

03Architect, Foundations

For solution architects with 6 months or more of hands-on work with the Claude API, Agent SDK, Claude Code and MCP.

04Architect, Professional

For senior architects with 3 years or more in systems architecture and production experience with Claude.

If you don't code, the Associate is the only one written for you. Its blueprint leans on judgment more than on features:

• Output Evaluation and Validation21%
• Workflow Integration and Solution Design16%
• Governance, Risk, and Responsible Use15%
• Prompting and Task Execution14%
• Product and Model Selection12%
• Configuration and Knowledge Management12%
• Troubleshooting and Optimization10%

From the Claude Certified Associate exam guide, version 1.0, July 2026.

Claude certification courses: the free prep path

Anthropic certification courses come in two kinds, and both are free. Each exam page on Anthropic Partner Academy links its prep courses: for Architect Foundations, seven general courses such as Claude 101 and Building with the Claude API; for the other three, a role-specific prep course on the partner academy (exam prep page). The general courses are public on Claude Academy, which Anthropic describes as free courses from its education team, and each ends in a completion badge.

anthropic.skilljar.com/claude-code-in-action

The FAQ calls the exam guide the authoritative source for what each exam covers. The guides include sample questions, while the old practice exam was retired when the exams moved to Pearson.

1. March 12, 2026Anthropic launches the Claude Partner Network with its first exam, Claude Certified Architect, Foundations.
2. June 30, 2026Exams move to Pearson VUE and badges to Credly; Architect Foundations goes from $99 to $125 and validity from 6 to 12 months.
3. July 2026Version 1.0 exam guides take effect for all four exams.
4. October 2, 2026Anthropic counts more than 175,000 Claude certifications across 46,000 partner firms.
5. November 17, 2026Updated exam guides for Associate, Developer and Architect Professional.
6. December 7, 2026Those three exams switch to the updated content.
7. December 31, 2026The 100% exam discount for Global Premier partners ends.

If you plan to test on December 7 or later, prepare from the new guide. Architect Foundations is not on the list of exams being updated.

Free Claude certification options, and what each one proves

If you searched for a Claude certification free of charge, no exam is free for everyone, but several Anthropic credentials cost nothing:

The Claude Code partner badge is the deepest free option: 8 courses, about 12 hours on Skilljar plus 10 to 15 hours of practice, a capstone and a 34-question scenario assessment (badge page). Anthropic also runs Claude Frontier Academy, a residency for engineers their organizations nominate, which ends in its own badges.

Outside Anthropic, a Claude Code course with a certificate shows you finished the lessons; our roundup of the best Claude Code courses compares those certificates. For proctored AI exams you can book without a partner email, see AI certifications from Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud and PMI.

How to register for a Claude certification exam

1. Check your email domain. Sign in to Anthropic Partner Academy with your work email. If you see "You aren't signed in with a partner company employee email", ask partner-support@anthropic.com to link your domain; it takes 7 to 10 days.
2. Read the papers. Open your exam's page, download the exam guide and read the Certification Terms and Conditions and the Exam Policy, which you accept when you register.
3. Pay. Register and pay by card. The checkout applies your tier discount.
4. Schedule. Pearson emails you a link (and login details if it's your first Pearson exam). Pick online or a test center, and English or Japanese.
5. Prepare the machine. For an online exam, run Pearson's system test and give your IT team Pearson's list of OnVUE domains if you're on a company network.
6. Match your ID. Your Pearson profile name must match your government ID exactly. Ask certifications-support@anthropic.com for corrections at least 24 hours before the exam, in Latin characters.

Where other Claude certification guides go wrong

Many pages that rank for this topic were written before the June 30 move to Pearson, and some never matched Anthropic's pages. Where they disagree, Anthropic's pages win:

• Exam codes. One training company lists the Associate exam as CCA-F, while many posts use CCA-F for Architect Foundations. The official codes are CCAO-F, CCDV-F, CCAR-F and CCAR-P.
• Validity. Certifications used to last 6 months. Since June 30, 2026 they last 12, and ones earned earlier were extended to 12 months automatically.
• Practice exam. It was retired in the move to Pearson; the sample questions in each exam guide are the official practice now.
• Who can register. Some prep sellers' pages imply anyone can apply for the exam. Anthropic's FAQ limits it to partner organizations; only the courses are open to all.

Where our own course fits

We teach Claude Code to people who don't code, in a course that is in early access (pre-order). ai school is not affiliated with Anthropic or Pearson VUE, our course is not an exam prep course, and it does not lead to a Claude certification. If your company isn't a partner, the closest thing to proof is work you can show: start with how to use Claude Code, or see what our Claude Code course covers.

?Quick check0 of 2 correct

You run marketing at a company that is a Claude Partner Network member, and you don't code. Which exam fits best?

AClaude Certified Developer, FoundationsBClaude Certified Associate, FoundationsCClaude Certified Architect, Professional

Your Claude certification expires next month. What does Anthropic ask you to do?

ARetake the full proctored exam at the full feeBPass a free, open-book online assessment on Anthropic Partner AcademyCNothing, certifications don't expire

What to do next

First check whether your employer is in the Claude Partner Network: ask your manager or sign in to Anthropic Partner Academy with your work email. If it is, download the exam guide for your role and book a date four to six weeks out. If it isn't, start a free Claude Academy course this week and build one real project with Claude, which shows a client more than a badge would.