AZ-900 study plan: put your hours where the questions are, and practise in Azure without a surprise bill

Candidates often plan AZ-900 loosely because it is a Fundamentals exam. Many spend most of their hours on cloud concepts, although Azure architecture and services carries the largest share. Others open a free Azure account to practise, forget a virtual machine and meet a bill when the credit ends.

This page gives you the hours, the split by skill group, the weeks and a practice subscription set up in the order that keeps it safe. Microsoft's figures were checked against Microsoft Learn's documents in October 2026.

How many hours does AZ-900 take?

Microsoft does not publish a study-hour figure for AZ-900. CredenTrek uses 20 to 40 hours as a working assumption.

Move towards 20 if you already work in IT or with Microsoft 365. Move towards 40 if the cloud is new to you. The exam has no prerequisites, but the study guide expects some experience in an area of IT, such as infrastructure, databases or software development. Without it, plan near the top.

Your first attempt at Microsoft's free practice assessment tells you where you stand. Take it in week one, before the number hardens into a plan.

How should you split the hours across the three skill groups?

Start in proportion to the weights in the AZ-900 study guide, skills measured as of 20 July 2026. For a 30-hour plan, the starting split looks like this.

Then move hours towards your weak points. Rate yourself from 1 to 5 on each of the 11 skill areas Microsoft lists under the three groups. Your three lowest scores become your first targets.

The AZ-900 exam map explains every skill area in plain English. Your material must also use current names, such as Microsoft Entra ID; what has changed in AZ-900 lists the renames.

With the split settled, the length of the plan depends on your week.

How many weeks will your plan take?

Pick the track that matches an ordinary week, not your best one.

Divide total hours by weekly hours, then add one buffer week for every eight weeks of plan. A 10-week light plan therefore becomes 11. The buffer absorbs the month-end close, the sick child and the week your course will not load.

Divide the weeks into four stages. AZ-900 rewards understanding over memory, so practice and simulation take almost half the plan.

• Stage A, foundation (about 10 per cent): rate yourself on every skill area, take the free practice assessment once and set up your safe subscription.
• Stage B, first coverage (about 45 per cent): work through the Microsoft Learn path once, with a short portal task for each group.
• Stage C, practice (about 30 per cent): question sets by skill group, the commonly confused services learnt as contrasts and a review of every wrong answer.
• Stage D, simulation (about 15 per cent): timed practice in 45-minute blocks, the free exam sandbox and light revision.

Stage A ends with the subscription. Its set-up order matters more than anything you build in it.

How do you set up a practice subscription that cannot surprise you?

The exam does not test building skills. A little time in the Azure portal, Microsoft's web console for Azure, still makes services easier to tell apart. Microsoft's free account currently offers credit for the first 30 days and some services free for 12 months. Set it up in this order:

1. Create the account with your personal Microsoft account and turn on multifactor authentication, a second check such as a code on your phone.
2. In Cost Management, create a budget at a small amount with an email alert.
3. Create one resource group, a container for related resources, for all practice work. Add a tag, a label such as "purpose: study".
4. After each session, delete the resource group, which removes everything inside it.
5. Before the free period ends, decide on purpose whether to move to pay as you go.

Pay as you go means you are billed for what you use. Step 5 makes that a decision rather than an accident.

What should you practise, and with which material?

With the subscription protected, try five short tasks. Each links to a skill area.

• Create a storage account.
• Apply a resource lock, which protects a resource against deletion or change, then try to delete the storage account.
• Assign a built-in Azure Policy, which sets rules for what resources may be like.
• Read Azure Advisor, which recommends improvements.
• Price a small virtual machine in the pricing calculator.

The lock test teaches more than a page of notes. Once Azure has refused your own deletion, the difference between a lock and a policy stays with you. The Azure services candidates confuse sets out the rest of those contrasts.

For everything else, choose one route and stop buying.

• The official route: Microsoft Learn's free, self-paced AZ-900 paths, the free practice assessment and the sandbox. It costs nothing beyond the exam fee.
• An instructor-led course: Microsoft and its training partners give you structure, deadlines and someone to answer questions.
• The limited-time route: for three hours a week or less. Use the free Learn path, the practice assessment and the safe subscription, lowest-rated skill areas first.

Before you pay for anything, confirm four things. It names AZ-900 and the skills measured as of 20 July 2026. It follows the 11 skill areas. It uses current names such as Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Its refund policy is in writing.

When are you ready to book?

Readiness is a pattern, not a single score. Look for three things together:

1. Consistent results across two or three attempts at practice questions
2. No skill group far behind the others
3. The ability to explain each commonly confused group of services aloud, without notes

The third test catches candidates who recognise questions they have seen before. If you cannot say in one sentence how Azure Advisor differs from Azure Service Health, you are not ready.

Run the free exam sandbox, Microsoft's demonstration of the exam screens, at least once in Stage D. Drag-and-drop and hot-area questions should hold no surprises on the day.

Once you are ready, you can book up to 90 days ahead. Read AZ-900 exam cost and booking before you choose a date, because a change with less than 24 hours' notice forfeits the fee.

What to do this week

Do the four steps in the box below this week, starting with the practice assessment.

Chapter 7 of the book sets out the whole method. The weekly plan template in Appendix B puts your track, hours, budget alert and stage dates on one page. When your first scores arrive, test yourself with AZ-900 practice questions.