You can sit the OSCP+ exam without ever opening the PEN-200 course. OffSec sells a Standalone Certification Exam for $1,699 that ships with no course material, no labs, and two chances at a 24-hour proctored exam. This guide walks through what the OSCP+ standalone exam price actually buys, the 120-day validity window, the cooling-off penalties that punish a rushed retake, and the profile of candidate the product genuinely fits — because for many buyers the PEN-200 bundle is still the smarter spend.
What the $1,699 buys
The standalone product is exactly one thing: exam access. OffSec positions it for people who are already confident in penetration testing fundamentals and familiar with the published body of knowledge, described on the official PEN-200 and OSCP+ product page. You get the scheduling portal, the proctored exam environment, and grading of your report — nothing else.
Crucially, the exam content is identical to what subscribers face. OffSec states plainly that the exam delivered through the standalone purchase is the same exam given to learners in the Course & Certification bundle and Learn One subscriptions. There is no discount version of the test and no shortcut grading. What you save is the training cost; what you give up is every hour of guided lab time, the 20+ PEN-200 modules, and the nine challenge labs that most candidates use to build exam-day speed. If your hands-on reps come from elsewhere — a home lab, prior pentest work, platforms like HackTheBox — that trade can make sense.
Two attempts inside 120 days
The core mechanic of the product is bundled risk. Per OffSec’s standalone exam FAQ, the purchase includes two OSCP+ exam attempts, valid for 120 days from the date of purchase. Both attempts must be completed inside that window, which is the detail candidates misjudge.
Do the arithmetic before you schedule. If you fail attempt one and trigger a four-week cooldown, you still need a free weekend — the exam is a 24-hour sprint plus a full day of report writing — inside the remaining validity period. Book attempt one early in the window, around week two or three, so the second attempt lands around week eight with margin to spare. Wait until day 90 to sit the exam first and you have effectively bought a single-attempt product.
One more asymmetry to price in: if you pass on the first try, the second attempt is forfeited. There is no refund and no credit toward another OffSec certification, so the safety net only pays out in the failure scenario it insures against.
Cooling-off periods after a fail
Retake discipline is where planning wins or loses. Candidates must wait 4 weeks after a failed first attempt, 8 weeks after the second, and 12 weeks from the third attempt onward before sitting the exam again. The escalating ladder exists to force genuine remediation, not a quick rerun with a tweaked command list.
Treat each cooldown as a scheduled study block, not dead time. A four-week gap after attempt one is enough to rebuild one weak area — usually Active Directory set completion or report quality — if you diagnose the failure honestly from the score email. OffSec does provide feedback, but only to candidates who submitted a report and fell short of the 70-point pass threshold, so a zero-report abandon teaches you nothing. And note the edge case: a cancelled or missed exam date does not reset the cooling-off clock, but it does burn an attempt if you cannot reschedule inside the validity window.
Retakes cost $249 extra
If both bundled attempts are spent or expire unused, you can purchase a regular exam retake at $249 through the Buy More page, and it carries its own 120-day scheduling validity from the purchase date. That makes the real worst-case budget for the standalone path roughly $1,948 across three attempts — still cheaper than a year of Learn One, but no longer cheaper than the 90-day bundle.
Refund rules are equally unforgiving: no money back once an attempt has been scheduled or attempted, or once three months have passed since purchase. Decide before you buy, not after.
OSCP+ expires, OSCP does not
The credential you are buying is two certifications in one, and they age differently. The OSCP+ designation expires three (3) years from issuance, while the underlying OSCP certification has no expiration date and remains valid indefinitely. OffSec’s changes-to-OSCP announcement describes three maintenance paths for the plus: a recertification exam, passing another qualifying OffSec exam such as OSEP or OSEE, or completing the CPE program. Let the plus lapse and you keep the OSCP — so the standalone purchase is really a lifetime credential plus an optional three-year freshness badge on top.
Standalone versus PEN-200 bundles
Compare the money honestly before committing:
| Option | Price | Exam attempts | What else you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standalone exam | $1,699 once | 2 | No course or labs; exam only |
| Course & Cert bundle | $1,749 once | 1 | 90 days of PEN-200, labs, challenges |
| Learn One | $2,749 per year | 2 | Full course, labs, one cert retake coverage |
| Extra retake | $249 | 1 | Exam only, 120-day validity |
The gap between $1,699 and $1,749 is fifty dollars. That is why the standalone product is a specialist tool: paying $50 less than the bundle only makes sense when the training genuinely has zero marginal value to you. Everyone hesitating between the two rows is answering their own question.
Who should buy it
Run this checklist before you click purchase:
- You have completed comparable training or hold a sibling credential — see our comparison in CEH vs OSCP: which certification to choose.
- You can consistently root intermediate boxes and finish a full AD set without walkthroughs.
- You have written at least one full practice report and can produce one under post-exam fatigue.
- You can commit two exam weekends inside the next four months.
- You accept that a first-attempt pass forfeits the second attempt with no refund.
Five confident yeses and the standalone purchase is defensible. Any hesitation, and the bundle — or a structured runway like the approach in our 5-day PNPT exam guide with its free retake — de-risks the same goal for similar money. Whatever route you choose, schedule attempt one early, respect the cooldown ladder, and never let the report be the reason a passing score becomes a fail.
Sources
- OffSec — PEN-200 and OSCP+ product pricing page
- OffSec Support Portal — Standalone OffSec Certification Exam FAQ
- OffSec Support Portal — Changes to the OSCP