PMI-ACP is one of the certifications that has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. It was once considered suitable only for the IT industry but now all the other industries have started to Agile practices too. Once you have earned your PMI-ACP credential, to keep it active, PMI requires you to maintain and renew it every three years. There are certain PMI-ACP PDU renewal requirements and a PMI-ACP renewal fee. Once you fulfill these requirements and pay the fee you can then renew your certification. If you do not maintain and renew it, it will expire and you will need to retake the PMI-ACP exam.
How Much Is the PMI-ACP Renewal Fee?
The PMI-ACP renewal fee varies for active PMI members and non-members
- PMI Members: For PMI members the PMI-ACP renewal fee is US$ 60.
- Non-PMI members: The non-members have to pay US$ 150 to renew their certification.
We will go through the PMI-ACP renewal fee in detail throughout the post.
How Can You Renew Your PMI-ACP Certification?
Certification maintenance involves doing different activities where you learn or contribute. There are many such things which you can do. You can read more about PMI-ACP PDU requirements. For example:
- You can read a book or article on Agile or project management.
- Or you can attend a PMI ACP PDU course or a seminar or workshop related to project or Agile management.
- To contribute, you can volunteer to help someone in project management.
- Or you can mentor a friend or a colleague.
- If you get a chance, you can give a lecture or participate in online forums to contribute in that way.
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You can do a whole lot of other things to learn or contribute. It is up to you how you want to be involved in such activities. PMI wants to ensure that you stay attached to the Agile knowledge that you have received from your certification. Hence, they made these certification maintenance requirements. So, by doing these activities you will get the opportunities to enhance your knowledge and also renew it lest it is faded.
When you participate in the learn or contribute activities, you earn Professional Development Units or PDUs. These are basically hours and each PDU equals one hour of activity. The PMI-ACP certification requires you to do 30 PDU activities over a period of three years in order to maintain it. Once the three-year period is nearly over, you can then submit the earned PDUs to PMI, at their website and pay the PMI-ACP renewal fee.
We will go through the PMI-ACP renewal fee details, thoroughly in this post.
PMI-ACP Renewal Fee
The current PMI-ACP renewal fee for the PMI members and non-members is mentioned above. What is the cost to obtain PMI membership and is it really worth it, you may ask? The membership is currently US$ 139 a year for the new members. Once you become a member, then you will pay US$ 129 for the subsequent years to renew your membership.
Will the PMP membership save you money when renewing your PMI-ACP certification? Well, if you purchase the PMI membership at the time of the PMI-ACP renewal and also pay the certification renewal fee, the whole package will cost you much more. US$ 139 PMI membership fee and the US$60 certification renewal fee will add up to US$ 199. It is US$ 49 costlier than the non-member PMI-ACP renewal fee, which is US$ 150.
You will only actually be able to save on your certification renewal fee if you already had the PMI membership. In that case, if you already had the membership, then at the time of PMI-ACP renewal, you will only be paying US$60 for your certification renewal.
How the PMI-ACP renewal fee is paid? Well, it is a simple procedure and it is paid on the PMI’s website. There is a section on the PMI website where you submit your PDUs. And once you have done that, there you will see the option to pay the PMI-ACP renewal fee. You can pay the renewal fee by credit card.
What Are the Other Advantages of PMI Membership?
Becoming a PMI member has some other benefits too other than saving on the certification renewal fee. The membership gives you free access to the PMBOK guide. This is another good saving as you will not need to buy PMBOK which costs around US$60.
In addition to that, the membership also gives you access to a whole lot of free useful resources. For example, you will be able to access PMI publications Practice Standards, research papers, case studies, and more. So, you may want to consider becoming a PMI member and save on many purchases at the PMI store as well as on your PMI-ACP renewal fee.
In case, if you are have retired from your employment, the retiree membership fee is US$65 per year. Being a student will also save you on the membership fee. If you are currently studying, you will only pay US$42 to become a PMI member. So, being a retiree or student can actually save you a lot of money on the PMI-ACP renewal fee.
Summary
Renewal of the PMI-ACP certification is the mandatory requirement of PMI. When you maintain and renew your PMI-ACP certification, it shows your commitment to retaining what you have already achieved. Doing so also shows to your employer your ongoing enhancement of the knowledge that you have gained from the certification.
We would like to give you an important tip regarding your PDU earning activities. Always keep proof of the PDU’s earned. This is to avoid any problem in case your PDU submission is selected for audit. The proof could be in the form of a course attending certificate, a letter of attendance in the course, or a workshop. If you published an article on the Internet, you can provide a copy of the article and the link where it is published. For the work experience gained, you can get a letter from your employer about the work you have done. So, keep documented proof ready wherever possible. Most of the time, PDU submissions are not audited but preparing for the audit beforehand is always better.
In this post, we explained the PMI-ACP renewal fee. Remember that you do not necessarily have to wait for the three years to complete before you can submit the PDUs and pay the renewal fee. If you have fulfilled the PDU requirement in one year or two years, you do not need to wait for the three-year maintenance cycle to complete. PMI permits you to renew your certification whenever your PDUs are complete.