Somebody asked me last week how much I'd spent on certifications that turned out to be useless. I did the math in my head and winced. Roughly $800 over two years, spread across three exams that never appeared in a single job interview.
That's not a reason to skip certifications entirely. It's a reason to pick them like you're spending your own money, because you are. The top IT certifications worth pursuing for beginners aren't the ones with the loudest marketing. They're the ones that unlock a specific job title, cost a predictable amount, and don't expire before you've had time to use them.
Here's what I wish someone had told me before I started buying exam vouchers.
Key Takeaways
- Start with vendor-neutral certifications (CompTIA) before vendor-specific ones (Cisco, Microsoft, AWS). They transfer across employers.
- CompTIA A+ requires two exams, each costing around $250, and renews every three years through continuing education units.
- The Google IT Support Professional Certificate is the cheapest realistic entry point and takes most beginners two to four months.
- Certifications don't get you hired on their own. They get your résumé past the filter so a human reads it.
- Avoid any certification that requires you to already have a job to earn it. That's backwards for a beginner.
- Budget for renewal, not just the first exam. A lapsed certification is worth exactly nothing.
Which IT certifications are actually worth your money?
The honest answer depends on one question: what job are you trying to get in the next twelve months?
If you don't have an answer, stop shopping for certifications. You'll buy the wrong one. I watched a friend spend $400 on a cloud certification before he'd ever opened a terminal, and he couldn't explain what a subnet was when the interviewer asked.
The certifications that open real doors
Four names come up again and again in entry-level job postings, and they come up for a reason.
- CompTIA ITF+ — a single exam, no prerequisites, designed for people who have never touched enterprise IT. It's a warm-up, not a credential employers chase.
- CompTIA A+ — the standard for help desk and desktop support roles. Two exams, roughly $250 each.
- CompTIA Network+ — networking fundamentals. Useful after A+, not before.
- Google IT Support Professional Certificate — a course-based certificate, not a proctored certification, but it's what a lot of career-changers list on their first résumé.
Notice what's missing from that list. No Security+, no CCNA, no AWS. Those are excellent credentials, and I'll get to them, but they assume a foundation you probably don't have yet.
The certificates nobody warns you about
Some credentials look like certifications and behave like loyalty programs. They require you to be employed by a specific company, or they're issued by a vendor whose product only exists inside one organization.
Read the fine print before you pay. If a certification requires sponsorship from an employer, or if you can't find it mentioned in job listings outside one industry, it's not a career investment. It's a badge.
How much do these certifications cost, and how long do they take?
Cost is where most beginner guides go quiet, which is strange, because cost is the first thing you'll notice.
The real numbers
CompTIA exams run around $250 per exam. A+ is two exams, so budget $500 for the certification itself, plus study materials, which can add another $100 to $300 depending on whether you buy a course, a book, or both.
The Google IT Support Professional Certificate costs a monthly subscription fee on Coursera, which works out far cheaper than A+ if you move quickly. Most people I've talked to finish it in two to four months at a few hours a week.
Preparation time for A+ is the part nobody estimates correctly. Six to twelve weeks of consistent study is realistic for someone with no background. I took eleven weeks myself, and I failed my first practice exam at week six by a wide margin.
Renewal is the cost nobody mentions
CompTIA certifications expire after three years. You renew by earning continuing education units, which usually means paying for additional training or higher-level exams.
This catches people off guard. You pass A+, you get a job, you forget about it, and three years later your certification is dead on arrival at your next interview.
| Certification | Exams required | Approximate cost | Typical prep time (no experience) | Renewal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google IT Support Certificate | Course-based | Monthly subscription | 2–4 months | None |
| CompTIA ITF+ | 1 | ~$130–$150 | 4–8 weeks | No expiration |
| CompTIA A+ | 2 | ~$500 | 6–12 weeks | 3 years |
| CompTIA Network+ | 1 | ~$250–$350 | 8–12 weeks | 3 years |
The pattern is hard to miss. The cheaper the certification, the less it's worth on a résumé. The more expensive, the more it assumes you already know.
Which IT certification should a beginner start with?
Start with the cheapest one that gets you a real interview. For most people, that's either the Google IT Support Certificate or CompTIA A+.
The cheap path
If money is tight, take the Google certificate first. It costs a fraction of A+, it teaches you the vocabulary, and it gives you something concrete to talk about in an interview. If you finish it and decide IT isn't for you, you've lost a few months of subscription fees instead of $500 in exam vouchers.
I've recommended this path to four people. Two finished it and got help desk jobs. Two quit, which is exactly the outcome the cheap path is designed to produce gracefully.
The standard path
If you're committed and can afford it, go straight to A+. It's the credential that appears most often in entry-level listings, and it signals that you've done the work rather than watched a video series.
Do not jump to Network+, Security+, or CCNA before A+. Those certifications assume you understand how operating systems, permissions, and basic troubleshooting work. Skipping the foundation is the single most common mistake I see, and I made it myself with a networking exam I had no business taking.
Where does ITF+ fit?
ITF+ is a genuine starting point if you've never worked with computers professionally and want a low-stakes first exam. It won't get you hired on its own, but it's a cheap way to prove to yourself that you can study, schedule, and pass a proctored test.
Think of it as a rehearsal. Nobody hires the understudy, but the understudy learns the lines.
What about Security+ and cloud certifications?
These are the ones that pay well later. They are not beginner certifications, regardless of what a bootcamp ad tells you.
CompTIA Security+ is the baseline for cybersecurity roles, and it's genuinely valuable. It also assumes networking knowledge, which is why Network+ comes first in the sequence. Trying Security+ with no networking background is how people end up failing a $400 exam twice.
CCNA is Cisco's networking certification. It's respected, it's harder than Network+, and it's vendor-specific. If you want to work in network operations, it's worth it. If you want general IT support, it isn't yet.
AWS and Azure certifications are where the money is long-term, but cloud roles rarely go to people with zero IT experience. The usual path is help desk first, cloud second, and the certifications follow the job rather than the other way around.
In my opinion, the sequence matters more than any single certification. A+ then Network+ then Security+ is a ladder. Security+ alone, with nothing underneath it, is a door with no frame.
What is the easiest IT job to get with no experience?
Help desk and IT support. That's the answer, and it's been the answer for years.
These roles hire for attitude, basic troubleshooting, and the willingness to be patient with frustrated people. A certification helps you get the interview, but the interview itself is usually about how you'd handle a user who can't log in and is already angry.
Pay at the entry level is modest in most markets, and the work can be repetitive. What you're buying is exposure. You'll touch ticketing systems, Active Directory, password resets, network printers, and the internal politics of an IT department. All of that is experience you can put on a résumé six months later.
I know several people who moved from help desk into sysadmin, cybersecurity, and cloud roles. Every one of them spent at least a year at the desk first. Nobody skipped it.
What are the most in-demand IT certifications?
Demand shifts, but the shape of it doesn't. Employers consistently prioritize three things: cloud platforms, security, and networking.
- Cloud certifications from AWS, Microsoft, and Google top most hiring lists for mid-level roles.
- Security+ and CISSP appear constantly in security postings, at very different experience levels.
- CCNA remains a fixture in networking and infrastructure listings.
- A+ stays the standard for support roles, which is where most beginners actually enter.
The trap is reading "most in-demand" as "start here." A certification can be in high demand and still be wrong for someone with no experience. CISSP, for instance, is in demand and requires years of professional security work before you can even sit the exam.
Match the certification to where you are, not to where the market is. The market will still be there in a year.
The certifications to avoid
Some credentials exist mainly to separate you from your money.
Be cautious with any certification that requires you to already hold a job at a specific company. Be cautious with certifications from vendors so small that no hiring manager has heard of them. And be very cautious with any "bootcamp plus certification" package that costs thousands and promises a job guarantee, because those guarantees usually have conditions that are nearly impossible to meet.
One more thing. If a certification has no renewal requirement and no exam, it isn't a certification. It's a certificate of attendance with better typography.
A realistic plan
If you're starting from zero, here's the sequence I'd follow.
- Spend a month on free fundamentals: how operating systems work, what a network is, what troubleshooting means.
- Enroll in the Google IT Support Certificate or start studying for A+. Pick one. Don't do both at once; I tried and the material overlaps just enough to confuse you.
- Pass it. Apply for help desk roles while you study for the next certification, not after.
- Add Network+ once you're working. Your employer may even pay for it.
- Choose a direction after a year on the job, based on what you actually enjoyed, and pursue the certification that fits it.
The order matters more than the brand names. Every person I know who built a stable IT career did it in roughly this shape, and none of them did it in the order the certification vendors recommend.
The real question isn't which certification is best. It's which one you'll actually finish, and what job it gets you. Pick the cheapest one that answers both, and start there. You can always buy another exam voucher later, once you know what you're buying.
