The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) exam has 65 questions in 90 minutes, a minimum passing score of 700 out of 1,000, and four domains weighted from 12% to 34%. The most efficient plan is to study from the official exam guide's task statements: Cloud Technology and Services (34%) and Security and Compliance (30%) together account for nearly two thirds of scored content.
This guide is for people new to AWS who want a structured way to prepare, such as career changers, sales and support staff, project managers, and early-career IT staff. By the end you will know exactly what the exam covers, which official free and low-cost resources to use, how to spread your study over four weeks, and what to do in the exam. All exam facts come from AWS's own exam guide and certification page, checked on 31 October 2026. Exams are revised, so confirm details on the official page before you book.
If you are deciding between this and a Microsoft fundamentals exam, read AWS Cloud Practitioner vs AZ-900: which to take first. For the next step up, see the AWS Solutions Architect Associate study guide.
Who this is for and what you will have at the end
You have a few hours a week and no requirement for prior AWS experience. After following this guide you will have a domain-by-domain checklist drawn from the official guide, a four-week schedule, a safe way to practice hands-on without surprise bills, and a clear picture of how the exam behaves.
Exam facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Level | Foundational |
| Questions | 65 (50 scored, 15 unscored) |
| Duration | 90 minutes |
| Question types | Multiple choice (one correct, three distractors) and multiple response (two or more correct from five or more options) |
| Passing score | 700 on a scaled 100 to 1,000 score |
| Cost | 100 USD, plus possible costs such as foreign exchange rates |
| Delivery | Pearson VUE testing center or online proctored |
| Validity | 3 years |
| Prerequisites | None listed |
The exam guide adds that unanswered questions are scored as incorrect and there is no penalty for guessing, so answer everything. Scoring is compensatory: you do not have to pass each section, only the exam as a whole. Section-level feedback on your score report is general information, and the guide advises caution when interpreting it.
For recertification, AWS lists three options: complete the AWS Cloud Quest: Recertify Cloud Practitioner course, pass the latest version of the exam, or pass an Associate or Professional exam. The certification page lists 12 languages, noting that the Italian and German versions will be retired after December 31, 2026.
What the exam covers
The official guide lists four content domains.
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| 1. Cloud Concepts | 24% |
| 2. Security and Compliance | 30% |
| 3. Cloud Technology and Services | 34% |
| 4. Billing, Pricing, and Support | 12% |
The guide says it is not a comprehensive list of exam content, and that coding, designing cloud architecture, troubleshooting, implementation and load testing are out of scope for the target candidate.
Domain 1: Cloud Concepts (24%)
The four task statements are benefits of the AWS Cloud, design principles, migration, and cloud economics. Study:
- The value of global infrastructure, high availability, elasticity and agility.
- The six pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework: operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization and sustainability, and how they differ.
- The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework and migration strategies.
- Fixed versus variable cost, on-premises costs, Bring Your Own License versus included licenses, rightsizing, automation and economies of scale.
Domain 2: Security and Compliance (30%)
- Shared responsibility model: who is responsible for what, and how responsibility shifts depending on the service, with the guide's examples of Amazon RDS, AWS Lambda and Amazon EC2.
- Governance and compliance: where to find compliance information (AWS Artifact), encryption in transit and at rest, and the roles of CloudWatch, CloudTrail and AWS Config. Know what Amazon Inspector, Security Hub, GuardDuty and Shield do.
- Access management: IAM users, groups, roles and policies, least privilege, protecting the root user, tasks only the root user can perform, MFA, IAM Identity Center, federation, and storing credentials with services such as Secrets Manager. See AWS IAM basics.
- Security resources: AWS WAF, Firewall Manager, Shield, GuardDuty, the AWS Marketplace for third-party security products, and Trusted Advisor.
Domain 3: Cloud Technology and Services (34%)
This is the largest domain, with eight task statements:
- Deployment and operating methods: console, API, SDK, CLI and infrastructure as code, plus cloud, hybrid and on-premises models.
- Global infrastructure: Regions, Availability Zones and edge locations, and when to use multiple Regions (disaster recovery, latency, data sovereignty).
- Compute: EC2 instance types, containers (ECS, EKS), serverless (Fargate, Lambda), auto scaling and load balancers.
- Databases: RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, and the migration tools DMS and SCT.
- Networking: VPC components, network ACLs and security groups, Route 53, VPN and Direct Connect.
- Storage: S3 storage classes and lifecycle policies, EBS and instance store, EFS and FSx, Storage Gateway and AWS Backup.
- AI/ML and analytics: SageMaker AI, Lex, Athena, Kinesis, Glue and Amazon Quick.
- Other categories: EventBridge, SNS, SQS, Amazon Connect, SES, developer tools such as CodeBuild, CodePipeline and X-Ray, end-user computing such as WorkSpaces and AppStream 2.0, Amplify, and IoT Core.
Because the exam asks you to identify the right service for a use case, build a one-line "what it is for" note for every in-scope service. The guide links the in-scope and out-of-scope AWS services lists, which tell you which services you can safely ignore.
Domain 4: Billing, Pricing, and Support (12%)
- Compute purchasing options: On-Demand, Reserved Instances, Spot, Savings Plans, Dedicated Hosts, Dedicated Instances and Capacity Reservations, and when to use each. See AWS EC2 pricing explained.
- Data transfer costs: incoming versus outgoing, between Regions and within a Region.
- Storage options and tiers.
- AWS Budgets, Cost Explorer, Pricing Calculator, Organizations consolidated billing and cost allocation tags. See AWS Budgets and billing alerts setup.
- Support plans, Trusted Advisor, the AWS Health Dashboard, AWS Partner Network and technical resources such as re:Post and the Knowledge Center.
Official free and low-cost resources
AWS's certification page links these preparation resources:
- Exam Prep Plan on AWS Skill Builder, a four-step plan.
- Official Practice Question Set, Official Pretest and Official Practice Exam.
- The exam guide itself in AWS documentation.
- Hands-on practice: AWS Builder Labs, AWS Cloud Quest, AWS Jam, AWS SimuLearn and AWS Escape Room.
- Digital courses to fill knowledge gaps.
- AWS Training Live on Twitch for free live and on-demand training.
The certification page does not say which of these are free, so check the Skill Builder page for what your account includes before you plan around a particular resource. This article does not quote Skill Builder prices or subscription contents.
Practice safely in your own AWS account
For hands-on practice outside guided labs, AWS's Free Tier page describes a Free plan for new customers: $100 in credits immediately, with up to $100 more by exploring key services, for up to $200. On the Free plan you are not billed unless you upgrade or activate paid-only services. More than 30 services stay free within monthly usage limits. The page states that the account "closes on its own 6 months after you open it or when your credits run out, whichever comes first." Because the account closes, do not put anything you want to keep in a Free plan account. Set a budget alert if you use the paid plan.
A four-week study plan
This assumes 4 to 6 hours a week. Adjust to your schedule.
Week 1: Cloud concepts and billing. Read Domain 1 and Domain 4 task statements. Make notes on the Well-Architected pillars and the compute purchasing options. Take the official Pretest to see where you stand.
Week 2: Security. Study Domain 2. Draw the shared responsibility model for EC2, RDS and Lambda from memory. Complete a hands-on lab on IAM users, MFA and the root user.
Week 3: Services. Work through Domain 3 by category: compute, storage, databases, networking, then the rest. For each, write what it is, when to choose it, and its closest alternative.
Week 4: Practice and review. Take the Official Practice Exam under timed conditions: 65 questions in 90 minutes is about 83 seconds per question. Review every wrong answer and also the right ones you guessed. Revisit your weakest domain and re-read the in-scope services list.
Exam tips
- Answer every question. Unanswered ones are scored wrong and guessing has no penalty.
- Treat each question as scored. The 15 unscored questions are not marked.
- Read multiple-response questions for how many answers they ask for.
- Eliminate distractors. The guide notes they are plausible responses that match the content area, so look for the option that fits the scenario's exact requirement (cost, availability, security or ease).
- Flag long questions and return to them, keeping time for a final pass.
- If you test online, check the proctoring requirements and test your equipment ahead of time on the booking site.
Troubleshooting your preparation
You keep mixing up similar services
Make comparison tables: S3 versus EBS versus EFS; Security Groups versus network ACLs; SQS versus SNS versus EventBridge; GuardDuty versus Inspector versus Shield. Questions often turn on one distinguishing feature.
Practice scores are not improving
Review why distractors are wrong rather than memorizing answers. Then return to the task statement behind the question in the exam guide.
You are unsure whether a service is in scope
Check the in-scope and out-of-scope lists linked from the exam guide.
Unexpected charges on your AWS account
Check Billing and Cost Management, shut down any resources you created, and keep a budget alert active.
Checklist
- Read the official exam guide and the in-scope services list.
- Book a date to create a deadline.
- Complete the four-week plan.
- Take the Official Pretest first and the Official Practice Exam last.
- Practice hands-on in a guided lab or a Free plan account with budget alerts.
- On exam day, answer every question and manage the clock.
References
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) exam guide
- Domain 1: Cloud Concepts
- Domain 2: Security and Compliance
- Domain 3: Cloud Technology and Services
- Domain 4: Billing, Pricing, and Support
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification page
- AWS Free Tier
This guide was researched and drafted with AI assistance and checked against the vendor documentation listed in its References. Read the maintained version and related guides on EpiFive.
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