Let Credentialing Assistance pay your SANS renewal fees, version 3.0
TL;DR Yes, CA will still pay SANS renewal fees. However the website and CA have changed quite a bit recently. Details are below.
Rather than completely re-writing the original howto I have simply posted updated versions. The links are below.
SANS renewal fees via CA, version 1, circa May 2021
SANS renewal fees via CA, version 2, circa Jan 2023
SANS renewal fees via CA, version 3, circa May 2025
Background
I have always said, don’t ever fool yourself into thinking the Army likes you. They offer just enough pay and benefits to keep just enough service members (SM) around. We see this in the ebb and flow of benefits like Credentialing Assistance (CA).
The DoD announced numerous changes to TA/CA in mid to late 2024. I will only list the remarkable ones here:
- CA was decreased from 4k a year to 2k.
- SMs are limited to one CA request a year and a max of 3 in 10 years.
- Training is only allowed via CA if it includes a certification exam.
- TA requests now require Command approval [again, this was required something like 15 years ago]
Obviously the big changes are to CA, and they are crippling. CA was a great program, and if used strategically in combination with college one could dual track certifications with college classes, finish college quicker, and actually save the DoD money in the process. This was done by CAing an exam voucher that was worth college course credit, then self-studying for the exam while taking a college class. Every two months one would knock out 2 classes this way, get one certification, and save the DoD roughly $500. This is because CA paid $250 each for CompTIA vouchers vs $750 for a 3 credit hour college class.
I don’t often include my opinion in these howtos, cheatsheets, TryHackMe walkthoughs, etc and stick to simply the facts and technical details. However I will state what I believe happened to CA here; politicians love to promise things that they have no intention of ever actually funding. IMHO the DoD was using CA as a retention tool and believed that they would not have to fund it. When SMs actually used the benefit they had been promised the DoD panicked, as they had never set aside the funding in the first place.
The small, very small, silver lining
Buried in the fine print of these changes we see that certification renewals do not count towards the cap. Hence using CA to renew SANS certifications is only limited to 2k a year. Now that my CA request for the GCDA renewal fee has been paid I can confirm that SANS renewal fees do not count against the cap. My ArmyignitED states that I have used 4/9 ‘Lifetime CA Credentials’. This tracks with the stated changes as I have CAed vouchers for Project+, Linux+, CND, and SSCP. Had I known that they were going to cap these later I would have CAed more expensive vouchers. Oh well, at the time I was CAing certifications that were worth college credit, thereby saving TA.
On a sidenote, the very first exam I CAed, CASP, was requested through goarmyed before ArmyignitED existed. I noticed that it is not counting against my cap. This lets me know that the DoD is tracking CA requests only via ArmyignitED. CASP was my first CA request, and it was by far the most valuable of all the CA requests I did. It saved $1,000 in TA and myself $1,000 ‘out of pocket’ as it counted as course credit for a 4 hour class in WGU’s Masters program.
SANS portal
The SANS site has remained largely unchanged since I wrote version 1 of this howto 4 years ago. One navigates to the GSEC portal, selects ‘Renew with CPEs’, and critically selects ‘Call in with Credit Card’.
You can then save the invoice to PDF. It looks like the below. You will need it for the ArmyIgnitED request.
ArmyignitED
The ArmyignitED site has not changed too much since version 2 of this howto 2 years ago. One starts out by creating an education goal and then requesting funding. The main difference is that ArmyignitED now has a selection specifically for ‘Recertification’.
Let’s walk through the process. Start by creating a goal.
Next input the SANS certification you are renewing. In my case this was GCDA.
Select the vendor.
The start date has to be between 45 and 90 days out. Just don’t put the end date too soon, be sure to give CA enough time to approve and pay your request and then give yourself enough time to upload proof of renewal.
This part of the CA process is still a bit counterintuitive. Select ‘Add Training’.
Select the specific certification.
Hit ‘Add Manually’. Input verbiage similar to “SANS Renewal fee for <certification>” and copy/paste the prices listed on the SANS invoice PDF. Note the price carefully as SANS has recently changed their renewal fees and occasionally you can get a discount. Therefore someone else could be putting in a CA request for SANS renewal fees on the same day I put mine in but have a different price on their invoice than the $212.93 I had.
Check and confirm the price, then upload the SANS invoice PDF and submit the funding request.
Next steps
It still takes about a month to get a CA request approved and funded. As before I simply screenshotted where it shows my GCDA renewal fee was paid on the SANS and GIAC portals, mashed them together, did a ‘print to PDF’, and uploaded the result to ArmyignitED to show the funding request is complete.
I then submitted a request to get my GSEC renewal fee paid.
As always, don’t forget to swing by the ‘Course Materials’ section of the SANS portal and download the new PDF eBooks for the course. The DoD just paid quite a bit to SANS, make sure they get their money’s worth.
Summary
If you hold 8 SANS certifications thanks to work’s generosity then your SANS renewal fees are about $1,750 every 4 years, i.e. $437 a year. This is in very stark contrast to
- $50 a year for CompTIA
- $80 a year for EC Council
- $135 a year for ISC2
- $145 a year for ISACA
- $0 a year for Microsoft
- $0 a year for Altered Security, and they include ongoing access to their course material, all for free.
These other certification organization's rates are all flat rate too, it doesn’t matter if you hold 1 CompTIA cert or 10. I would say it’s because CompTIA, ISC2, ISACA, etc are non-profits … but Microsoft is very much a for profit business.
They are called $AN$ for a reason. I will let others speak as to whether they are even remotely worth it, Mike Sass says it better here than I could.
IMHO SANS is like college; both are overpriced. However if your work is paying then you’d be insane to not go.
I am just thankful that CA is continuing to cover SANS renewal fees, even after the powers that be badly kneecapped it. I have much more mundane things to spend my paycheck on, like groceries and utilities.
References
More on TA/CA changes: https://militaryrunning.com/army-cool-ca-policy-changes/
More on TA/CA changes: https://www.army.mil/article/281853/army_approves_tuition_assistance_increase_adjusts_credentialing_program
