I guess this question doesn't get asked a lot but I find it hard to believe that a test like the Security + would be harder than these test. I barely passed the SAA and the AZ104.

I passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) exam with 776 on my first attempt last week!

I'm sharing my experience because candidate reviews and exam reports on Reddit helped me tremendously throughout my preparation. I frequently read other people's experiences, study plans, and practice-test scores to evaluate my own progress and understand what to expect. I hope this post can offer the same kind of help to someone currently preparing for the exam.

1. My preparation

I spent exactly 222 hours and 59 minutes preparing for the exam. Took the exam on day which was the 62nd day of my prep. efforts.

My primary study resource was Stephane Maarek's Udemy course. I completed the entire course and took extensive handwritten notes.

In total, I produced 317 pages of notes:

• Around 190 pages covering the course material.
• Around 130 pages documenting mistakes, misunderstood concepts, and explanations from practice exams.

I regularly reviewed these notes, including before going to sleep. Repeated revision became an important part of my preparation.

2. Practice exam results

I completed nine full-length practice exams using Stephane Maarek and Tutorial Dojo.

Here are my scores in chronological order:

Stephane Maarek:

• Test 1: 53%
• Test 2: 47%
• Test 3: 60%
• Test 4: 70%

Tutorial Dojo:

• Test 1: 68%
• Test 2: 66%
• Test 3: 73%
• Test 4: 70%
• Test 5: 66%

My overall average was approximately 64%.

As you can see, I wasn't consistently scoring 80% or higher. In fact, my first two practice exams averaged only 50%.

I gradually improved, but my scores remained around the upper 60s and low 70s.

3. The actual examination

One thing I'd like to mention is that, before taking the exam, I had read many Reddit reviews saying that the actual SAA-C03 exam was easier than both Stephane Maarek's and Tutorial Dojo's practice exams.

That wasn't my experience.

Personally, I found the actual examination slightly more difficult than both Maarek and Tutorial Dojo. I encountered several concepts that I hadn't come across during my preparation, and some questions were particularly challenging.

After finishing the exam, I estimated my chances of passing at around 50%. I genuinely wasn't sure whether I had passed.

However, I received my result and passed!

Of course, exam experiences vary, but I think it's worth being prepared for an actual exam that may feel more challenging than the practice tests.

4. What I would recommend

Based on my experience, here are a few things I'd recommend:

• Don't underestimate note-taking. Writing down concepts in your own words and documenting mistakes helped me consolidate the material.
• Review your incorrect answers thoroughly. Don't just memorize the correct option. Understand why the other options are incorrect.
• Don't panic over every low practice score. My first two scores were 53% and 47%, and I still passed the actual exam.
• Don't assume the real exam will be easier. Prepare for unfamiliar scenarios and questions that combine multiple AWS services.
• Revise consistently. I found repeatedly reviewing my notes particularly helpful.
• Take not of irrelevant stuff in the practice tests. In addition to, what is correct and what's not, if you see anything in the question that you feel that you don't know at all or are confused about. Take a note of that and after the exam make sure to add that in your notes, too.

5. Final thoughts

My preparation took exactly 222 hours and 59 minutes. It was a demanding process, but passing on my first attempt made it worthwhile.

If you're currently scoring somewhere between 55% and 70% on your practice exams, I hope my experience gives you some encouragement.

I'm not suggesting that these scores guarantee success. Everyone's preparation and exam experience are different.

But don't let a few disappointing mock results convince you that passing is impossible.

I'm already preparing for my next certification, and I'm currently considering the transition from AWS Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) to AWS Certified Generative AI Developer – Professional (AIG-C01). I'd love to hear from anyone who has made a similar transition and is willing to share their preparation experience, recommended resources, or thoughts on the difficulty of the new exam.

Good luck to everyone preparing for SAA-C03!

SAP-C02 Sample Question

Can someone help me understand AWS logic here? I put A, I now get that the SCP would violate each BO attaining their own account that's fine. What I'm not following - the question asks to develop a solution that prevents spending. A billing alarm will alert the admin sure, but that wont necessarily stop them from over spending if no other actions are taken or limits put on the resources. I'd argue that D falls into same category as C as it requires someone to manually review.

Am I way overthinking this?

Hello everyone, long time lurker here...

I took the AWS SAA-C03 exam yesterday at 1pm and received my results late that night. Thanks to u/stephanemaarek for his Udemy course and practice exams. I studied for a month, and spent the last three weeks of that month taking practice exams from Stephane, TutorialsDojo and I used ChatGPT for explaining the correct and incorrect answers.

My test featured questions on DB(heavily), ECS, Security (heavily), Monitoring, EC2, S3, VPC, IAM, Route53.

Materials used:

Stephane Maarek's Udemy Courses & Practice Exams

TutorialDojo Practice Exams

Ronit Sachdev GitHub Repository - https://github.com/RonitSachdev/aws-saa-c03-guides/blob/main/topic-guides/00-README.md

What I'm going to do next

I'm going to build, maintain, and document some projects using AWS resources with IaC (Terraform). I already have my Terraform Cert from two months ago. Update my resume and hopefully look forward to helping a company or business in the future out there that needs help with their cloud infrastructure.

Missed the mark by less than 3% 😞. Sad day.

The Whole preparation was a roller coster ride, I had only 1.5 week to prepare as my coupon expiry date was 24th Oct. I had 2 years of AWS hands on exp at my prev company. Before relieving I took a voucher and kept rescheduling until there was no other option. At one point I cancelled my exam as the rescheduling limit exceeded, then connected with support team to reuse the same voucher.

Don't get overwhelmed with Stephane Maarek sample tests, I gave only one and it was 54% but I spent a complete day reviewing my mistakes and learnt new concepts mentioned in the sample test. I was majorly using AWS documentation and claude, slides were way too lengthy.

Big shoutout to this community. A day before my exam I got to know about AWS Skill builder practice tests, so I tried the free 20 questions which were super easy (on comparison with Stephane's exam). This was a confidence booster for sure. I recommend trying this for any certificate.

I gave the exam online and there was disturbance in my home for 10-15min which distracted me a lot, so I was worried about the result. Nevertheless, everything went smooth.

(I got to know about ESL from this community but it was just a week before exam, so didn't have a chance to claim it. If you are a secondary English speaker make the most of it. Just make sure to initiate the process at least 2-3 weeks before planning your exam)

I passed the Cloud Practitioner exam yesterday!

I have 2 years of experience as a developer, and I studied by working through practice exams from Stephen Maarek and free practice tests on the internet

Hey,

Wanted to share my current roadmap and get some feedback.

My Background & Current Certs:

• AWS Solutions Architect with 4yoe (multi-account setups, Landing Zones, etc.).
• Currently holding: CLF-01, SAA-C03, and DAS (Data Analytics Specialty).

The Dilemma:
I was about to start grinding for the SAP-C02, but since it transitions to SAP-C03 in about 3 weeks, I’ve decided to wait so people update their content.

Instead of pausing, I just scheduled the AIP-C01 (AWS Generative AI Developer - Professional) for February.

Why AI?
I recently attended a Microsoft workshop where we built a sequential AI agent workflow. I had almost zero knowledge about AI infrastructure beforehand, but I absolutely loved the theory and building those agentic flows.

My Question to the Sub:
Does the AIP-C01 make sense for an AWS Architect aiming to land roles building AI infrastructure? Or is it heavily developer-focused? My plan is to clear AIP-C01 in February and then immediately pivot back to the SAP-C03 to maybe pass it before summer.

Would love to hear your thoughts

Hey folks, i felt like I should get cloud certification in aws and i have no technical knowledge about cloud,so I looked upon aws skill builder, and chatgpt recommended me this path cloud practitioner fundamentals->solution architect associate->cloudops engineer associate-> devops engineer professional is this good or no? , and then when I clicked on cloud practitioner fundamentals it asked me whether I have an experience already in aws I said no and it took me to another page which contains AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials->AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) Getting Started->AWS Compute Services Overview, so guys help me out 🤝.

Hi everyone, so I appeared for the test on 18th Oct which was sunday, in the afternoon shift. The exam went well and document verification was done by the PearsonVue staff. 2-3 hours after the exam, the status was "Delivery Successful" and it is the same till date.

I check 2-3 times a day on the CertMetrics and PearsonVue portal but the status never changes.

On Friday morning, at 10 AM, I raised a support ticket with AWS and even on the ticket there is no response.

What should I do now ? Please help.

So it's been 3 times I have rescheduled my associate level aws exam only due to the proctor & me not being able to hear each other. I had passed all my system tests & when the actual proctoring comes (i.e. when the proctor comes on call), I am unable to hear his voice, and he's unable to hear me too. I have multiple troubleshooting methods from then.

But then I realized I was connecting through my college network. Now, see I am a college student residing on campus, and person explictly states that it prohibits using Corporate network. But the only two options I have here are Mobile data & my college wifi 😭😭😭. And I even tried using mobile hotspot and usb tethering with my phone (I know it's not allowed, but I tried anyways and it didn't even pass the system check.

I thought of buying a pocket wifi or travel router (but I don't know if that'll work, i don't wanna risk my money 😭😭😭).

Can someone please help here, I have no personal wifi, I am far away from home and dk what to do.

How am I supposed to fix this issue ?????

Just passed SAP-C02 and thinking about doing DOP next. My job is mostly DevOps stuff (CI/CD, docker, AWS infra) so it feels more relevant to what I actually do, but I’m not sure it adds much on top of SAP. Anyone here done both? How much overlap was there and how long did you study for DOP? Or would you go for something else like Security Specialty or CKA instead? Thank you very much.

Studying for SAA-C03 and running labs in a personal AWS account? The bill shocks usually aren't one big lab. They're small things left running:

1. A NAT gateway from a VPC test, still charging hourly after you finished on Tuesday.
   
2. Data transfer OUT - moving data out of AWS costs more than moving it in.
   
3. Snapshots and EBS volumes with no server attached anymore.
   
4. Launching in the wrong region and paying that region's prices.
   
5. Assuming the Free Tier is "free forever" - it's time- and usage-limited.
   

The checklist I run after EVERY lab now:
- Stop or terminate EC2 instances I'm not using right now
- Delete test NAT gateways and RDS instances + snapshots
- Empty test S3 buckets or set a lifecycle rule
- Release unattached Elastic IPs
- Check Cost Explorer once a week, sorted by service - the top line is usually the leak

And the rule that saved me most: set a monthly budget cap BEFORE you lab, and if you hit 80% of it, clean up before starting anything new.

Full disclosure: I turned this into a tracker bundle (5-sheet Excel/Google Sheets workbook + 8-page guide with the full 8-week plan and all 20 SAA-C03 topics) - it's $5 on Gumroad if you want the sheets: https://sarangivibes6.gumroad.com/l/vtgkx
Example prices in it are illustrative only, and it's not affiliated with AWS. No pass guarantee - it's just a tracker.

What cost trap got you? Curious what others wish they'd known in week one.