- The CEG Fee Schedule at a Glance
- What Each Exam Fee Actually Covers
- Which Route Are You? Student, Professional, or Institution
- Retake Costs and the No-Waiting-Period Rule
- Annual Dues After You Pass
- A Three-Year Cost View by Candidate Type
- Costs That Are Not on the Fee Page
- Spending Your Prep Money Where the Exam Points Are
- Eligibility Mistakes That Waste Fees
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Individual exam fees range from $25 for student members to $150 for professional non-members, and include membership plus certification upon passing.
- Retakes cost $25 per attempt, and the current FAQ lists no waiting period between attempts.
- Annual dues continue after passing: students pay $25 membership plus $25 per certification; professionals pay $100 plus $35.
- Initial CEG status requires no continuing education; the 30-PDU rule belongs to the separate CSEG credential.
The CEG Fee Schedule at a Glance
The Certified in Engineering Graphics (CEG) credential is administered by the Association of Technology, Management, and Applied Engineering (ATMAE). Its pricing is unusually simple compared with many professional certifications: there is no separate application fee, no mandatory training purchase, and no long list of add-on charges. What you pay depends almost entirely on one question: are you a student or a working professional, and are you an ATMAE member?
The current individual exam fees, per the ATMAE fee page (updated May 21, 2026), are:
| Candidate Category | Individual Exam Fee (USD) |
|---|---|
| Student member | $25 |
| Student non-member | $50 |
| Professional member | $50 |
| Professional non-member | $150 |
Two group-testing figures also exist for institutions: assessment-only testing at $25 per student, and group certification testing at $75 per student. We explain the difference below, because choosing the wrong one is the most common way candidates misjudge their total cost.
If you want the full eligibility picture before you budget, read our guide to CEG requirements, eligibility, and prerequisites. If you are still deciding whether the credential suits you, the overview of what CEG certification is is a good starting point.
What Each Exam Fee Actually Covers
The individual routes are bundled. According to the fee schedule, the individual exam fee includes the applicable membership and the certification itself upon passing. In other words, the $25 a student member pays is not just a seat at the exam; it is the exam plus the pathway to holding the credential if the score is high enough.
Assessment-only institutional testing is different. At $25 per student, it covers the test but does not itself include membership or certification. A program that uses assessment-only testing as an outcomes-measurement tool is buying data about its students' engineering-graphics knowledge, not credentials. A student who later wants the actual CEG would need to go through a certification route.
Which Route Are You? Student, Professional, or Institution
Students in an eligible program
Eligibility for the student category follows the credential's published requirements: the last year of an eligible four-year technical, technology, technology-management, or engineering-related BA/BS program, or the second year of an eligible two-year AA/AS/AAS program, or ATMAE-approved equivalency. If you qualify, the student rates ($25 for members, $50 for non-members) are by far the cheapest way into the credential. Many students are also part of a program where the department coordinates testing, so check with your instructor before registering independently.
Working professionals
Professionals pay $50 as ATMAE members and $150 as non-members on the individual route. Because the individual fee includes applicable membership, the $150 non-member price is not a penalty on top of membership costs; it is the all-in price of entry for someone not already affiliated. The professional member rate is lower because you have already paid for membership.
Programs and institutions
Departments choose between two models. Assessment-only testing at $25 per student suits programs that want to benchmark student knowledge across the sixteen content areas. Group certification testing at $75 per student suits programs where students will actually earn the credential. If your department is considering a group route, ask which model it is using so you know whether certification is part of the deal.
Key Takeaway
Before you register, identify your category (student or professional, member or non-member, individual or group) and match it to the exact line on the fee page. The same exam can cost $25 or $150 depending on that single decision.
Retake Costs and the No-Waiting-Period Rule
A retake costs $25 per attempt. The current certification FAQ states no waiting period between attempts, which changes the economics of a first-attempt failure. On many credentials a retake means weeks of delay and a full second fee. Here, a miss costs a modest amount and does not force you onto a long calendar detour.
That said, a low retake price is not a reason to treat the first attempt casually. The exam is a 142-question multiple-choice test delivered online with an approved proctor, with two hours allowed. Passing requires a cumulative score of 70 points or higher, which is a score threshold and not a simple 70% of questions. For a closer look at how that threshold works, see our explainer on the CEG passing score, and for realistic expectations on difficulty, our guide on how hard the CEG exam is.
A practical way to think about it: the retake fee is cheap insurance, but your real cost of a failed attempt is time and momentum. Candidates who plan to test during a narrow window, such as the end of a semester, should check CEG exam dates, testing windows, and scheduling so a miss does not collide with graduation deadlines.
Annual Dues After You Pass
This is the part of the cost story that candidates most often overlook. Initial CEG status continues with annual dues, and it does not require continuing education. The dues are:
| Status | Annual Membership | Per Certification |
|---|---|---|
| Student | $25 | $25 |
| Professional | $100 | $35 |
Because dues are charged per certification, a candidate holding only the CEG pays one certification line. A professional holding just the CEG pays $100 in membership plus $35 for the certification, or $135 per year. A student pays $25 plus $25, or $50 per year.
The absence of a PDU requirement is a genuine cost advantage. You do not need to budget for conferences, workshops, or course credits just to keep the initial credential in good standing. If you are weighing recurring costs against career benefit, our ROI analysis of the CEG certification works through that tradeoff.
A Three-Year Cost View by Candidate Type
Using only the published fees, here is how the numbers compare for a candidate who passes on the first attempt and maintains the credential. These are straightforward sums of the listed fees, not estimates of anything else.
| Scenario | Exam Fee | Annual Dues | Three-Year Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student member, pass on first try, held 3 years at student rates | $25 | $50 per year | $175 |
| Professional member, pass on first try, held 3 years | $50 | $135 per year | $455 |
| Professional non-member, pass on first try, held 3 years | $150 | $135 per year | $555 |
A few notes on reading this table. First, it assumes the annual dues apply starting in the first year after the exam; the fee schedule does not describe dues proration, so confirm the exact billing timing with ATMAE. Second, the student rate only applies while you are in an eligible student status, so a graduate would move to professional dues. Third, if you needed one retake, add $25. The point is not precision to the dollar but the order of magnitude: the CEG is a low-cost credential relative to most professional certifications.
Costs That Are Not on the Fee Page
The official fees cover the exam and the credential. Several practical costs fall outside them.
Printed reference materials
The exam is open-book, but the rule is specific: printed reference materials are permitted, while internet resources and software-based references are prohibited. That means your open-book advantage is a physical one. Budget for printing, binding, or purchasing the standards references and notes you intend to bring. Tabbing and organizing a binder is cheap but time-consuming, and a well-organized binder is worth far more than an expensive pile of loose pages.
Proctoring and technology
Delivery is online with an approved proctor. The fee page lists the exam fees; any technology requirements, such as a working webcam, a stable connection, or a quiet room, are your responsibility. If you lack a suitable space at home, factor in the cost of arranging one, such as booking a campus room through your program.
Study materials
ATMAE publishes a study guide for the exam that lists the content areas, and our own CEG study guide and one-page CEG cheat sheet are free to read. You can also practice with the questions on our main practice test site. Nothing about the official process forces a paid prep course, so treat any training purchase as optional and evaluate it on whether it covers the sixteen content areas you actually need; see CEG training for the options.
Spending Your Prep Money Where the Exam Points Are
If you do spend on preparation, concentrate it. The ATMAE study guide lists sixteen major content areas, and the exam tests engineering-graphics knowledge rather than software-specific CAD skills. The official guide does not publish percentage weights for these areas, so avoid any resource that claims precise domain percentages. Instead, spend where the open-book format cannot rescue you.
The open-book format helps most with lookup-style facts and least with spatial reasoning and calculation, which you must do under time pressure: 142 questions in two hours leaves well under a minute per question on average. That argues for putting your money and time into the areas where you need fast recognition, not slow research.
Print-and-tab domains: lookup-heavy
These areas reward an organized binder because the answer is often a standard, a symbol, or a convention you can locate quickly.
- Domain 1: ASME Standards, Terms, and Line Conventions
- Domain 2: ASME Standard Sheets, Title Blocks, Revision Blocks, and Part Lists
- Domain 13: Machining Specifications, Callouts, and Surface Texture Symbols
- Domain 14: Screw Thread Representation
- Domain 15: Springs and Fasteners
Practice-heavy domains: reasoning under time pressure
A binder will not do the thinking for you here. Invest in worked problems rather than more reference pages.
- Domain 5: Orthographic Projection Theory, Standard Representation, and Spatial Visualization
- Domain 6: Sectional View Standards, Terms, and Conventional Practices
- Domain 7: Auxiliary View Standards, Terms, and Conventional Practices
- Domain 11: Tolerancing Calculations and Practices
- Domain 12: Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GDT)
The remaining areas, including Domain 3 on units, measuring devices, scaling, and metric/inch conversion; Domain 4 on geometry constructions; Domain 8 on pictorial drawings and 3D modeling representation; Domain 9 on assembly drawing methods; Domain 10 on dimensioning standards; and Domain 16 on specialized examples such as gears, sheet metal, welding, castings, and plastics, mix both skills. Our complete guide to all 16 CEG content areas breaks each one down.
A short scheduling note
If you are building a plan around cost, tie it to the domains above. In the first week or two, build and tab your printed references for the lookup-heavy domains, since that work is cheap and front-loaded. Then spend the remaining weeks on projection, sections, auxiliary views, tolerancing, and GDT practice, the areas where a missed concept costs more than a missed lookup. Finish with a timed full-length run of 142 questions in two hours to confirm your pacing before you pay for the real attempt.
Eligibility Mistakes That Waste Fees
The cheapest exam is the one you only pay for once. A few avoidable errors cost candidates money or momentum:
- Registering in the wrong category. Selecting a student rate without meeting the student eligibility language, or a professional route when you qualify as a student, can lead to correction headaches. Confirm your status against the published requirements first.
- Assuming assessment-only testing earns the credential. At $25 per student it does not include membership or certification.
- Bringing prohibited references. Software-based and internet references are not allowed. Showing up with a plan that depends on them can derail your attempt and waste the fee.
- Skipping the timing check. With two hours for 142 questions, an unpracticed candidate who tries to research every answer will run out of time.
Students whose programs are not obviously on the eligible list should look into ATMAE-approved equivalency before paying anything. It is cheaper to ask first than to discover a mismatch afterward.
Weighing the Cost Against the Career Value
Because the up-front price is small, the real question is whether the credential helps your job prospects. Employers that value drafting, design documentation, and engineering-graphics competence, including manufacturers, design and drafting firms, and engineering departments, are the natural audience. Recent graduates can use it to differentiate a résumé. For the earnings picture, see the CEG salary guide, and for where the credential is put to work, browse CEG jobs. We deliberately avoid quoting pass rates or salary numbers here that are not backed by published data; our CEG pass rate analysis explains what can and cannot be said.
When you are ready to test your knowledge before spending on the real exam, our practice test platform lets you work through questions across all sixteen content areas first, which can reduce the chance you need that $25 retake.
Frequently Asked Questions
Individual fees are $25 for student members, $50 for student non-members, $50 for professional members, and $150 for professional non-members. These individual routes include applicable membership and certification upon passing.
Retakes are $25 per attempt, and the current certification FAQ lists no waiting period between attempts.
Yes. Initial CEG status continues with annual dues: students pay $25 membership plus $25 per certification, and professionals pay $100 membership plus $35 per certification. No continuing education is required for initial CEG status.
No. The 30-PDU, three-year requirement belongs to CSEG, a separate senior credential. Initial CEG status does not require continuing education.
Assessment-only institutional testing is $25 per student and does not include membership or certification. Group certification testing is $75 per student. Programs choose based on whether students are meant to earn the credential.