AWS vs Azure Certification: Which Fits Your Stack?
AWS certifications last three years, whereas Microsoft's expire every 12 months. For a managed service practice, that renewal calendar matters more than the exam fee. This guide compares the two programmes, matches certifications to the estates you bill against, and shows how to keep your partner status from slipping.
Before you allocate next year’s training budget based on who’s winning the "cloud wars", look at your clients’ infrastructure instead.
This question almost always pops up the week a client signs off on a migration. Suddenly, you’re looking at an Azure landing zone, a team full of AWS-certified engineers, and a practice lead who needs a clear decision. It’s rarely about whether your team can pass the test—it’s about balancing certification maintenance against what your clients are actually paying you to build.
This guide walks you through what each programme asks of you, and how you can keep your bench certified through comprehensive cloud training.
Written by
Based in our Johannesburg office, Jeanne is Learning People's expert in B2B technical training, professional certifications and workforce capability operations across the UK, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Having worked in certification training for over a decade, she is our resident expert on workforce empowerment and transformation, helping organisations identify the right learning pathways across our B2B offering.
AWS held 28% of global cloud infrastructure spend in Q2 2026, and Microsoft Azure held 20%. Most managed service practices end up carrying both, at different depths.
The programmes split on the point that hits a practice budget hardest. AWS exams cost $100 to $300 and stay valid for three years. Microsoft role-based certifications expire after 12 months and renew for free through an online assessment.
AWS vs Azure certification: what each programme asks for
|
AWS |
Microsoft Azure |
|
|
Entry certification |
||
|
Core associate |
Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) |
|
|
Exam fee |
$100 foundational, $150 associate, $300 professional and specialty |
Regional pricing via Pearson VUE |
|
Valid for |
3 years |
12 months |
| Renewal | Paid retake at 50% off, or pass a higher exam |
Free online assessment on Microsoft Learn |
| Retake wait | Set at booking |
24 hours, then 14 days per attempt |
One scheduling note before you plan anyone's year: AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty retires on 31 December 2026, so don't start a new candidate on it now.
Match the certification to the estate you bill against
Certify against the cloud your clients actually run, that's the capability your SLAs depend on.
If your client estates run on Entra ID, Microsoft 365 and Azure landing zones, the order is:
- AZ-900 for a shared baseline
- AZ-104 for the engineers
- AZ-305 for whoever signs off designs
If you build cloud-native on AWS, the order is:
- Cloud Practitioner
- Solutions Architect – Associate
- Security – Specialty for the people who sit in client security reviews
AWS has also widened its Associate tier since 2025. Data Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer and CloudOps Engineer now sit alongside Solutions Architect and Developer. This means more of what a managed service actually delivers is covered at a $150 exam fee rather than $300.
Renewal Cycles Cost More Than the Exams Do
Exam fees are the small number in either programme; the higher costs are study time taken out of billable hours and the effort of keeping every certification current.
Microsoft: free, but relentless. Renewal runs as an unproctored assessment on Microsoft Learn. It costs nothing, but somebody has to chase every certified engineer through it, every year. If they don't, the count on your Solutions Partner scorecard drops.
AWS: less often, but paid. You get three years of validity, then a paid retake using the 50% discount voucher in the engineer's certification account, or a pass at a higher level. Passing an AWS Professional exam renews the Associate certifications underneath it, which is the cheapest route to keeping a senior engineer current.
Remember, certifications only count while they're current. Your register needs to show who holds what, on which cloud, and when each certification expires.
Here to Help Your Business Build Cloud Capability
The practices that hold their partner status treat certification as a rota, not a reaction to a migration. Pick the cloud each client estate runs on, certify to associate level there, and keep one renewal owner per vendor so nothing lapses in the month a contract comes up for renewal.
If you can't currently say which of your engineers is certified on which cloud, or when each certification expires, book a free consultation. We'll benchmark your practice against the AWS and Microsoft pathways your client estates actually need, then map who sits which exam and when.
FAQs About AWS vs Azure Certification
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