IT & Networking
CompTIA A+ Certification Guide for Beginners
·10 min read
What CompTIA A+ covers, how the 220-1201 and 220-1202 exams work, and a step-by-step plan to earn the certification as a complete beginner.
Continue readingIs CompTIA A+ Still Worth It?
A+ costs $548 across two exams. We weigh what it still buys in entry-level IT hiring, when employers actually care, and the cases where skipping it is smarter.
Liam Anderson · 7 min read
Picture two applicants for the same helpdesk job. One has a CV that says "good with computers, built my own PC, family tech support for years". The other has a CV that says exactly the same — plus CompTIA A+. Neither has professional experience. The recruiter, who will spend under a minute on each CV and cannot test either claim, calls the second one. That, in miniature, is the entire case for A+ in 2026: it converts unverifiable enthusiasm into a verified credential at exactly the career stage where you have nothing else to show.
Short answer: A+ is still worth it for people with zero IT work history who want a support role — and increasingly skippable for everyone else. The nuance worth paying for: A+ is now two exams totalling $548 at US retail, which changes the arithmetic compared with the days when people remembered it as a cheap formality.
This article stays on the value question. How difficult the exams are is covered in how hard the A+ exam is, and the study workflow lives in how to prepare for CompTIA A+.
What you are actually buying in 2026
CompTIA A+ requires passing two exams: Core 1 and Core 2. As of August 2026 the current version is V15 — exam codes 220-1201 and 220-1202, launched in March 2025 — and the previous 220-1101/1102 English exams retired in September 2025, so ignore any advice or materials built around those codes. Both cores must come from the same version, though you may take them in any order and on different days.
The bill:
- $274 per exam at US retail as listed by CompTIA's authorized resellers in June 2026 — $548 for the pair. Prices vary by country, and authorized-reseller vouchers around $238 per exam trim the total meaningfully.
- Each exam runs to a maximum of 90 questions in 90 minutes, mixing multiple-choice, drag-and-drop and performance-based questions. The passing scores differ — 675 for Core 1, 700 for Core 2 on the 100–900 scale — a detail that trips up candidates who assume the two exams are interchangeable.
- The certification is valid for three years, renewable through CompTIA's continuing-education programme (20 CEUs for A+, a CertMaster CE course, or passing any higher-level CompTIA exam, which renews A+ automatically).
No prerequisites are enforced; CompTIA recommends about 12 months in an IT support role, but the certification is explicitly designed for people who do not yet have one. The V15 refresh also nudged the content toward the modern support job — more cloud, virtualisation, IoT security, scripting basics and remote troubleshooting — which quietly answers the "isn't A+ just about fixing printers?" objection.
Do employers actually care about A+?
For entry-level support hiring, yes — with caveats. CompTIA itself states that A+ appears in more tech-support job listings than any other IT credential; that is the vendor's own marketing claim, so weigh it accordingly, but it is consistent with what you will see scrolling helpdesk and desktop-support postings: A+ is routinely listed as "required or preferred". Managed service providers (MSPs), school districts, hospitals and large corporate IT departments — organisations that hire support staff in volume and filter applications mechanically — are where the credential does its heaviest lifting.
Where employers care less: startups and small companies that hire on demonstrated skill, any role above tier-1 support, and every specialised track (networking, cloud, security, development), where A+ reads as background noise rather than qualification. Nobody hiring a junior cloud engineer is looking for A+.
The fair summary: A+ does not impress anyone. It qualifies you. Those are different jobs, and at the bottom of the ladder, qualification is the one that matters.
The ROI framework: cost vs the problem it solves
Treat the decision as buying a solution to one specific problem — "no employer will take a chance on me" — and the analysis becomes clean.
The cost side: roughly $476–548 in exam fees depending on voucher sourcing, plus study materials and study time across two syllabuses. CompTIA publishes no official study-hours figure, so be sceptical of anyone quoting one; the realistic driver is how much of the hardware/OS/troubleshooting content you already know.
The return side: eligibility for a first IT role. That is the entire return, and it is substantial — a first support job starts the experience clock that every later role builds on. On pay: no reliable named salary source was verified for this article, and entry-level support wages vary widely by country and region, so treat any specific "A+ salary" figure you encounter online with suspicion. The financial return of A+ is getting into IT employment at all, not a premium on top of it.
The break-even test: if A+ shortens your job search by even a few weeks of employed-versus-unemployed time, it has paid for itself. If you could plausibly get the same job without it — see the skip list below — the same $548 buys most of the way toward a more differentiating exam.
When skipping A+ is the smarter move
A+ scepticism is not baseless; it is just usually misapplied. Skipping is defensible when:
- You already have IT work experience. Even six months of paid helpdesk work outweighs the certificate that signals readiness for helpdesk work. Certify at the level you are heading to, not the level you have left.
- You are targeting a specialised track from day one. Aspiring network engineers often start at Network+ — the full sequencing argument is in A+ vs Network+: which comes first — and security-focused starters sometimes go straight toward Security+. A single sharper credential can beat two generalist exams.
- You have a strong adjacent signal. A computing degree, demonstrable homelab projects or real freelance IT work can carry an entry-level application on their own in skills-first hiring environments.
- Your budget only covers one exam. With A+ split across two paid exams, a constrained budget may be better spent on the single exam nearest your target role.
Conversely, "I watched a lot of YouTube about computers" is not an adjacent signal. If your CV genuinely contains no verifiable technical evidence, you are the person A+ was built for.
A decision in three questions
- Do you have any paid IT experience or a technical degree? No → A+ is worth it. Yes → probably skip.
- Is your first target role general IT support? Yes → A+ matches, take it. No, a specialised track → start with that track's entry cert instead; our guide to which CompTIA certification to start with maps backgrounds to starting points.
- Can you afford both cores within a few months of each other? The credential requires both; a lone Core 1 pass earns nothing you can put after your name. Budget for the pair or wait until you can.
If you land on "take it", validate before you book either core. Working through the free 220-1201 Core 1 practice questions and 220-1102-era Core 2 questions will show you which of the two cores you are closer to passing — most self-taught candidates discover they are much stronger on hardware than on the operating-system and security material, which usefully decides which exam to sit first. Check any question set against the current 220-1201/1202 objectives (downloadable free from comptia.org), since older-code materials still circulate.
Frequently asked questions
Is A+ worth it if I never plan to work in support?
Generally no. Its value is concentrated at the support entry point. If your destination is networking, cloud or security and you can credibly start there, invest in that track's certification instead.
Do the exams have to be taken in order?
No — Core 1 and Core 2 can be taken in any order and on different days, but both must be from the same version (both 220-1201/1202; you cannot mix versions), and you hold no certification until both are passed.
Will the A+ credential say which exam version I took?
No. Passing either version's pair grants the identical "CompTIA A+" credential — version codes matter only when choosing study materials.
Does A+ expire?
Yes, three years from certification. It renews via 20 CEUs, a CertMaster CE course, or automatically when you pass a higher-level CompTIA exam — which, if you follow the usual A+ → Network+ → Security+ progression, means you may never renew A+ directly at all.
Where that leaves you
A+ in 2026 is neither the obsolete relic its critics describe nor the universal first step its marketing implies. It is a $548, two-exam entry ticket that still reliably does one job: getting a candidate with no professional track record past the first filter for support roles — the most common door into IT. Buy it if that filter is your problem. Skip it if you have experience, a degree, or a credible path straight into a specialised track — and put the money one rung higher. Either way, decide from your CV's weakest point, because that is exactly what the recruiter will look at.
Exam facts in this guide were checked against official certification-provider pages on . Fees, exam codes and policies change — confirm on the provider’s own site before you book.
Put it into practice
Test what you have just read
Reading about an exam only takes you so far. Work through practice questions for your certification and find the gaps before exam day does.
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