- The Exam Fee at a Glance
- What the US$49 Actually Buys
- The Costs the Fee Does Not Include
- Training Spend: Paid Course vs. Self-Study
- Retake Math: Credits and the 14-Day Wait
- Three Realistic Budget Scenarios
- Where Your Prep Money Should Go, Domain by Domain
- Judging Return on Investment
- Frequently Asked Questions
- The CSWP-API exam fee is US$49 per attempt in North America, covering the exam only, not software or training.
- You need SOLIDWORKS 2017 or later on your own machine; the exam is non-proctored and uses your own license.
- A failed attempt means buying a new CSWP-API credit and waiting at least 14 days before retaking.
- The three-day API Fundamentals course is recommended preparation, not an admission requirement, so training spend is optional.
The Exam Fee at a Glance
The headline number for the Certified SOLIDWORKS Professional API (CSWP-API) is simple: US$49 for one North American attempt. That figure is published on the SOLIDWORKS Certification Program page and applies to a single sitting of the exam. It does not include SOLIDWORKS software, training courses, or practice materials. If you are outside North America, check the current regional listing, because this article only states the North American price.
The low sticker price is deliberate. Unlike many IT credentials that run into the hundreds of dollars, the CSWP-API is priced so that an individual can fund it without employer approval. The real budgeting question is not the exam fee. It is how much you spend getting yourself to the point where a 120-minute VBA exam is a reasonable bet.
| Cost Item | Amount | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| CSWP-API exam attempt (North America) | US$49 per attempt | Yes |
| SOLIDWORKS 2017 or later | Varies (commercial or student license) | Yes, you supply it |
| Stable Internet connection | Your existing service | Yes |
| SOLIDWORKS API Fundamentals course | Varies by reseller | No, recommended only |
| Retake (new CSWP-API credit) | US$49 per additional attempt | Only if needed |
| Certificate renewal | None stated by issuer | No |
What the US$49 Actually Buys
The fee purchases one exam credit delivered through the SOLIDWORKS testing platform, operated through Tangix/VirtualTester. You follow the current VirtualTester Web Client instructions to launch and complete the exam. The issuer-linked SOLIDWORKS Certification Exam Guide & Practice Test, CSWP-API describes the format you are paying to sit:
- 28 questions total: 18 hands-on automation tasks and 10 multiple-choice questions.
- 100 total points, with 70 points required to pass.
- 120 minutes, with no ability to pause once you begin.
- Non-proctored, online, using your own working SOLIDWORKS installation and Internet connection.
- Focus on Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), confirmed on the exact exam page.
Notice what is not in that list: a training bundle, a practice exam, or a study guide. The guide's practice sample contains only four multiple-choice questions, not a full 28-question mock, so the fee buys you a real attempt but no meaningful rehearsal. If you want to understand how the 70-point threshold plays out across the task and multiple-choice mix, see our breakdown of the CSWP-API passing score.
The Costs the Fee Does Not Include
SOLIDWORKS software
The minimum software requirement is SOLIDWORKS 2017 or later. Because the exam is non-proctored and uses the candidate's own installation, you need a working commercial or student license. Many candidates already have access through an employer, a reseller seat, or an academic program, which makes this effectively zero marginal cost. If you do not have a license, this becomes the largest line item in your budget by a wide margin, so confirm access before paying for anything else.
Your time
The CSWP-API is not a memorization exam. Eighteen of the 28 questions are hands-on automation tasks, so your real investment is hours of writing and debugging macros. Candidates coming from a pure CAD background, with no programming experience, should budget more time than working developers. Our guide on how hard the CSWP-API exam is explains where non-programmers typically lose points.
Reference material
Much of the best API learning material is free. The SOLIDWORKS API Help, the object model documentation, and community tutorial sites such as CodeStack cover VBA macro examples, custom properties, and drawing automation at no cost. Paid material is optional, and you should spend on it only after you have tried the free route.
Training Spend: Paid Course vs. Self-Study
SOLIDWORKS recommends two courses as preparation: SOLIDWORKS Design Essentials and API Fundamentals. Recommended is not required. The guide is explicit that training-course prerequisites are not exam admission requirements, and no prior certification is needed to register. Details are in our CSWP-API requirements guide.
The public API Fundamentals course page (PMT2615-ENG, copyright 2025) lists a three-day course. That duration is unrelated to the two-hour exam and is not a mandatory training-hours requirement. Pricing for the course is set through resellers and varies, so we do not quote a figure here.
| Path | Cost Profile | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Exam only, self-study | US$49 plus free resources | Working macro writers or CAD users comfortable with VBA basics |
| Self-study plus targeted paid tutorials | US$49 plus modest material spend | CAD users learning VBA from scratch who want structure |
| Instructor-led API Fundamentals | US$49 plus reseller course fee | Candidates whose employer funds training or who want guided practice |
Retake Math: Credits and the 14-Day Wait
This is the cost factor most candidates underestimate. Per the exam guide, retakes require a new CSWP-API credit and at least a 14-day wait. A second attempt therefore costs a second US$49 and two weeks of calendar time. A third repeats the cycle.
The financial penalty is small. The scheduling penalty is not. If you are chasing a job application deadline, a performance review, or a bid that requires certified staff, a failed first attempt pushes your earliest valid result out by at least 14 days plus the time to prepare again. Plan your first attempt as if it were your only one. For scheduling context, see our guide to CSWP-API exam dates and scheduling.
| Scenario | Exam Fees | Minimum Elapsed Wait |
|---|---|---|
| Pass on first attempt | US$49 | None |
| Pass on second attempt | US$98 | At least 14 days |
| Pass on third attempt | US$147 | At least 28 days across two waits |
These totals simply multiply the published US$49 fee. They are arithmetic, not statistics, and they say nothing about how likely a retake is. The issuer's pass rate was not verified, and the 70% passing grade is a score threshold, not a population pass rate. Our CSWP-API pass rate analysis covers what can and cannot be said about outcomes.
Three Realistic Budget Scenarios
Scenario A: The Experienced Macro Writer
You already automate parts and drawings with VBA at work and have a licensed SOLIDWORKS seat.
- Exam fee: US$49
- Software: already covered
- Training: none, beyond reviewing API Help and the exam objectives
- Risk: overconfidence in areas you rarely touch, such as BOM insertion or alternate drawing export formats
Scenario B: The CAD User Learning VBA
You model daily but have never written a macro beyond the recorder.
- Exam fee: US$49
- Software: your existing license
- Training: free tutorials first, then optional paid structured instruction
- Risk: relying on the macro recorder, which produces code that often needs editing before it works reliably
Scenario C: The Employer-Sponsored Candidate
Your company pays for the course and the exam as part of a skills program.
- Exam fee: US$49, reimbursed or prepaid
- Training: API Fundamentals through a reseller
- Risk: treating the course as a substitute for hands-on practice, when the exam rewards working code under time pressure
Where Your Prep Money Should Go, Domain by Domain
The issuer lists 15 unweighted exam objectives, and the task list is explicitly non-exhaustive. Since no percentage weights are published, avoid assuming any area is worth more points. Instead, allocate your effort based on where your own skills are thinnest. A rough spending logic by domain family:
Foundation: object model and troubleshooting
Domain 1 (Understanding the API Object Model) and Domain 2 (Troubleshooting) underpin everything else. These are mostly free to learn: read the API Help, walk the hierarchy from the application object down to documents, features, and entities, and practice reading error behavior when a call returns nothing. Money rarely helps here; deliberate practice does. Our complete domains guide expands on each area.
Model-building domains
Domains 3, 6, and 7 (Part design automation, Adding sketch entities and dimensions, Feature creations such as extrudes and cuts) are where the hands-on tasks live. Practice creating sketches, adding dimensions, and building extrudes and cuts from code. Write your own small fixtures: a few reference parts you can regenerate and verify programmatically.
Assembly and selection domains
Domain 5 (Assembly automation), Domain 8 (Selection and traversal techniques), and Domain 9 (Hide/Suppress/Resolve components) reward candidates who understand how to traverse a feature tree or component list and change states. Selection is a common stumbling point because it depends on the right method, the right type constant, and the right mark parameters.
Drawing and documentation domains
Domains 4, 10, 11, 12, and 13 (Drawing Automation, Creation of drawings, Insert drawing views, Insert a BOM, Save drawings in different file formats) cluster around drawings. The issuer retains overlapping drawing headings as written, so expect related skills to appear in different framings. Practice creating a drawing from a template, inserting standard views, adding a BOM, and exporting to multiple formats.
Housekeeping domains
Domain 14 (Add custom properties) and Domain 15 (Save and close documents) are quick wins if you drill them, and they are easy to lose points on if you skip them. Custom properties and clean save-and-close sequences also show up as supporting steps inside larger tasks.
Key Takeaway
Because the exam has no published domain weights, your cheapest insurance is breadth: build and verify at least one small working macro for each of the 15 objectives before you spend your US$49 credit. The structured plan in our CSWP-API study guide sequences these by difficulty.
Judging Return on Investment
With an exam fee this low, the financial question is rarely whether US$49 is worth it. The better question is whether the preparation hours convert into skills your employer or clients value. We do not cite certification salary uplift figures here, because published, verified numbers specific to this credential were not established in our research. The more defensible argument for ROI rests on demonstrated automation value: macros that cut repetitive modeling, drawing, or property-entry work.
Where the certificate can help is as a clear, verifiable signal. It shows that you can work in the SOLIDWORKS object model with VBA under time pressure, which matters for roles in design automation, configurators, and internal tooling. Explore how that plays out in our worth-it analysis, the salary guide, and the overview of CSWP-API jobs.
One more cost point in your favor: per the issuer's 2020 Certification Program Q&A, customer and student certifications do not expire. That means no recurring renewal fee, so the total cost of ownership is the one-time exam spend plus whatever preparation you chose to buy.
Before you pay, it helps to run your skills against realistic exercises. Our CSWP-API practice test resources are built to help you find weak objectives before they cost you a credit, and you can compare your results against the at-a-glance facts in the CSWP-API cheat sheet.
Frequently Asked Questions
The published North American fee is US$49 for one attempt. This covers the exam only and excludes SOLIDWORKS software and any training. Check the SOLIDWORKS Certification Program page for pricing outside North America.
No. SOLIDWORKS Design Essentials and API Fundamentals are recommended preparation, but training-course prerequisites are not exam admission requirements, and no prior certification is required. See our CSWP-API training overview for options.
You must purchase a new CSWP-API credit and wait at least 14 days before the next attempt. At the published fee, each additional attempt costs another US$49.
The issuer's 2020 Certification Program Q&A states that customer and student certifications do not expire, so no renewal fee applies based on that source. Always confirm against the current SOLIDWORKS certification pages.
You need SOLIDWORKS 2017 or later, either a commercial or student license, installed on your own computer with a working Internet connection. Software is not included in the US$49 exam fee.