You prepare for your exam by reviewing certification requirements, checking out exam topics and making your study plan. But how do you plan for how much you will spend on certification? What does Oracle Certification cost? 

This is a fair question, let’s see. Oracle University offers three pillars for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure certifications: 

  • Core Cloud Infrastructure 

  • Data Platform 

  • Artificial Intelligence  

FOUDATION LEVEL CERTIFICATION

The good news is that there are three Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) certifications that are completely free. Yes, Completely Free! This includes the learning path, which includes getting access to the lessons; skill checks; and practice exams, and the certification test attempt. Completely free. These free certifications include the foundational level certification for each one of the three pillars: 

These certifications require no prior technical background, and you can schedule as many attempts as you need to earn these certifications.  

And these three certifications can also be taken in either Spanish or Portuguese. And for the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations Associate certification both the learning path and test attempt is available in Japanese! 

ASSOCIATE AND PROFESSIONAL LEVEL CERTIFICATIONS 

The rest of the core Oracle Cloud Infrastructure certifications, the exam attempt costs $245.00 USD. The learning path is completely free! Yes, all the lessons and practice tests are free of charge. And the lessons are deep dives into the topics from all three pillars, at the associate and professional level. 

The Certifications are: 

Core Cloud Infrastructure pillar 

Database Platform pillar 

Artificial Intelligence Pillar 

OCI SELF-PACED LAB SUBSCRIPTIONS 

Most of these certifications require deep technical learning and hands-on experience. And the hands-on experience is only obtained by doing just that, getting your hands dirty and building, designing, coding multi-tier OCI solutions.  

Having access to your own tenancy and following the instructors’ solution demonstrations or working on the labs provides an unmeasurable wealth of experience that complements all the theoretical knowledge you can learn from the lessons. This is perfect for the professional level certifications, especially for the Enhanced Hands-on Performance Exams (HPE). These exams include scenarios that you will be required to solve by performing several tasks on an Oracle University provided OCI account during the certification test.  

If you do not have access to an OCI Tenancy, Oracle offers a 30 day/$300.00 USD OCI trial account with limited services, including the always free services that remain available and always free past the 30-day trial period. The trail account can be used as a tool for your hands-on preparation, but the services included are limited, especially for building complex architectures that are needed at the professional level certifications. 

Oracle University (OU) offers Self-paced Lab Environments where learners are assigned a user with pre-configured identity and quota policies specific to the course, and a dedicated compartment. This setup ensures that a user can focus on the labs that are included as part of the learning paths without worrying about account configurations or unexpected costs. Plus, Oracle support is available to assist you with any possible issues during the lab sessions. 

There are two options for purchasing the OU Self-paced Lab Environments: a one-month subscription for $29.00 USD. And the best option is a 12-month subscription for $299.00.  You can learn more about the Oracle University Self-Paced Lab Environments here.