Getting CDPSE certified costs US$810 if you are not an ISACA member and you pass on the first attempt. That is the US$760 exam registration fee plus the US$50 application processing fee you pay after you pass, when you submit your experience for review. As an ISACA member the same pair comes to US$625: US$575 for the exam and the same US$50 application fee, plus whatever your membership dues work out to.
Those numbers are the floor, not the total. The exam fee buys you one sitting and nothing else. It is nonrefundable and nontransferable, so a missed appointment or an expired eligibility period is money gone. It does not cover a retake, an extension of your six-month window, a rescore, study material, or the annual maintenance fee that starts once you are certified. Below is every line item, the arithmetic on whether ISACA membership actually pays for itself, and what the 3.5-hour sitting is like when you get there.
What does the CDPSE exam cost in 2026?
| Item | Member | Nonmember | One-off or ongoing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exam registration, one attempt | US$575 | US$760 | One-off, per attempt |
| Application processing fee | US$50 | US$50 | One-off |
| Six-month eligibility extension | US$75 | US$75 | Optional, one only |
| Rescore request | US$75 | US$75 | Optional, within 30 days |
| Each retake | US$575 | US$760 | Only if you need one |
| Annual maintenance fee | US$45 | US$85 | Every year, due 1 January |
| Annual maintenance, third ISACA credential or later | US$25 | US$50 | Every year |
The clean path, pass once and apply once, is US$625 plus dues as a member, or US$810 as a nonmember. Everything else in that table is a contingency, and most of the contingencies are avoidable.
One thing worth flagging early: the exam fee is charged per attempt, not per candidate. If you sit twice, you pay twice in full. There is no discounted retake price, which makes the difference between a prepared first attempt and an exploratory one worth several hundred dollars.
Does ISACA membership pay for itself for a CDPSE candidate?
This is the question the fee table is really asking, and it is worth doing the arithmetic properly rather than assuming the answer.
The member and nonmember exam fees differ by US$185. The member and nonmember annual maintenance fees differ by US$40. So membership returns US$185 the moment you register for the exam, and another US$40 for every year you stay certified afterward.
That gives you a clean test. Check ISACA's current international dues plus your local chapter dues before you register, and compare the first-year total against US$185. If dues land below that line, membership has already paid for itself on the exam registration alone, before you count any other benefit, and every renewal year after that is US$40 ahead. If dues land above US$185, the payback depends on how long you plan to hold the credential, because each certified year narrows the gap by US$40.
For most people intending to stay certified rather than collect the letters and let them lapse, the math lands on the membership side. Do the check yourself, though, since chapter dues vary by location and the figures above are the only two that are fixed.
One caution on timing. The fee you pay is set by your membership status at the time of exam registration, not at the time you sit. Joining the week after you register does not retroactively get you the member rate.
One-off cost versus ongoing cost
People lump these together and then get surprised in January. Keep them separate.
The one-off costs are the exam fee and the US$50 application processing fee. You pay the exam fee to register, and the application fee later, when you submit your three years of privacy experience for verification. You have five years from passing the exam to apply, so the two payments can be months or years apart. The detail of what counts as qualifying experience is its own topic, covered in the CDPSE experience requirements.
The ongoing cost is the annual maintenance fee, which runs US$45 for members and US$85 for nonmembers and is due on 1 January. If CDPSE is your third or later ISACA credential, that drops to US$25 and US$50 respectively. Alongside the fee you owe continuing professional education: 20 hours a year, and 120 hours across each three-year reporting period. The CPE hours are not billed by ISACA, but free hours are not the same as no hours, and paid training is where the real ongoing cost of an ISACA credential tends to live.
Note the calendar rather than a first-year total. If you certify in November, the first maintenance fee arrives about six weeks later. If you certify in February, you get most of a year before the first bill. Neither is better or worse, but the November case catches people who mentally closed the ledger after the application fee.
The six-month clock, extensions, and forfeited fees
When you register, a six-month eligibility period starts. You can schedule a testing appointment as early as 48 hours after your fee clears, and you can reschedule without penalty any time up to 48 hours before an appointment.
What you cannot do is let the window close. If you do not sit within six months, miss your appointment, or arrive more than 15 minutes late, the eligibility and the registration fee are both forfeited. You start again at full price.
There is one release valve. You can buy a single six-month extension for US$75, and the option appears on your ISACA dashboard in a window running from 30 days before your eligibility expires to 30 days after. If you already have an appointment booked, you have to cancel it at least 48 hours ahead for the extension to apply. One extension is the maximum, so it is a single reprieve rather than a rolling one.
What does a CDPSE retake cost?
A retake costs a full registration: US$575 or US$760 again, with no discount for having sat before. You get four attempts within a rolling 12-month period, and the waits between them stretch out. After a first unsuccessful attempt you wait 30 days, then 90 days after the second, then 90 days after the third.
If you do not pass, you can request a rescore for US$75. The request goes through the ISACA support page in writing within 30 days of the official results being released, and PSI performs the rescore. It checks the scoring of your existing answers. It is not a second opinion on the questions, and it is a long shot rather than a plan. If your scaled score was well under the 450 pass mark, that US$75 is better spent on another month of study. For what the scoring scale means and why 450 of 800 is not a percentage, see how hard the CDPSE exam is.
Booking the exam and what exam day is like
Registration is continuous, so there are no testing windows to wait for. You register through your ISACA account, pay in full, and then schedule the appointment.
Two delivery options exist, and for CDPSE both are open everywhere. You can sit at an authorized PSI test center or take the exam remote proctored at home, with no country excluded from either option. Before you register, check that a PSI site near you actually has availability, or run PSI's device compatibility check if you plan to test from home. A company laptop often needs IT approval before the secure browser will install, which is a slow problem to discover the night before.
The exam is English only. CISA offers seven languages and CRISC three, but the Candidate Guide lists English alone for CDPSE. Remote proctor chat is English regardless.
Whichever route you pick, the name on your ISACA account has to match the name on your ID exactly. You need a single, current, original government-issued ID carrying your name, signature, and photograph: a driver's license, passport, passport card, state ID, national ID card, green card, or permanent resident card. Photocopies and digital IDs are refused, and a refused ID means a forfeited fee.
At a test center, plan to arrive at least 30 minutes early and expect to store everything you brought. Your workspace has to be clear. No notes, no calculator, no second monitor, no phone or smart watch, no bag, and no food or drink, water included. That last rule applies to remote sittings too.
Remote proctoring adds a check-in. You complete a 360-degree room scan showing all four walls, a desk scan including under the keyboard, and a floor-to-ceiling scan of your test space, using an external webcam, a mirror held up to your laptop camera, or your phone via a QR code. If you use the phone, it leaves the room afterward. During the exam you stay in camera view and facing the screen. Proctors will warn you for small movements out of frame.
Then the sitting itself: 120 multiple-choice questions in 3.5 hours, which is 210 minutes. This is the detail most candidates get wrong, because the rest of the ISACA line runs 150 questions in 4 hours and secondhand advice borrows those numbers. Your real budget is 105 seconds per question. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so leave nothing blank. Two breaks of up to ten minutes each are allowed with the proctor's permission, and the exam pauses but the clock does not stop, so a break costs you real answering time.
You see a preliminary pass or fail on screen as soon as you finish. The official scaled score arrives by email and in MyISACA within 10 working days. Domain-level results come with it, but they are informational only, since the score is based on total items answered correctly regardless of domain. If you want to know which domains deserve the most preparation time, the CDPSE domain breakdown has the weights.
The thing candidates waste the most money on
Registering before they are ready to study.
It feels like commitment. You pay the US$760, the clock starts, and now you are accountable. Then work happens, the six months compress into a panicked final three weeks, and you either buy the US$75 extension or you forfeit the whole fee. The extension is the cheap version of that mistake. The forfeited registration is the expensive one, and it is the single largest avoidable cost in this entire post.
Register when you have a study plan you have already started and a realistic sitting date inside the window. Work backward from that date rather than forward from your payment. Our 12-week CDPSE study plan exists partly for this reason: it tells you where in the calendar registration belongs.
The runner-up waste is paying the nonmember rate without spending five minutes on the dues arithmetic above. US$185 is a lot to leave on the table for want of a quick check.
If you want the material itself to be a fixed, one-time cost rather than a subscription, the Simply Certified CDPSE study guide is written to the current 2025 four-domain outline, with the page budget weighted the way the exam is.
For the wider picture of what the credential is and who it suits, start with what the CDPSE certification is.
FAQ
How much is the CDPSE exam in total?
US$810 for a nonmember who passes on the first attempt: US$760 for the exam registration and US$50 for the application processing fee. ISACA members pay US$625 for the same two items, plus their membership dues. After certification you also owe an annual maintenance fee of US$45 for members or US$85 for nonmembers.
Is the CDPSE exam fee refundable?
No. ISACA states that exam registration fees are nonrefundable and nontransferable. You can reschedule an appointment without penalty up to 48 hours beforehand, and you can buy one six-month extension for US$75, but you cannot get the registration fee back.
Do I have to pay again if I fail the CDPSE?
Yes, in full. Each attempt requires a separate registration at US$575 for members or US$760 for nonmembers. You get four attempts in a rolling 12-month period, with waits of 30 days, then 90, then 90 between them.
Does ISACA membership save money on the CDPSE?
The member exam fee is US$185 lower and the annual maintenance fee is US$40 lower. Compare ISACA's current dues plus your chapter dues against that US$185: if they come to less, membership pays for itself at registration, and every certified year afterward saves another US$40.
How long is the CDPSE exam and how many questions?
120 multiple-choice questions in 3.5 hours, which is 210 minutes. That is different from CISA, CRISC, CISM, and CGEIT, which all run 150 questions in 4 hours. Budget roughly 105 seconds per question.
Studying for CDPSE? ISACA CDPSE: Simply Certified Study Guide covers all four domains of the 2025 exam content outline with two full-length practice exams, every answer explained.
Simply Certified is an independent publisher. CDPSE and ISACA are trademarks of ISACA. Our books are independent study material and are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by ISACA.