A clear look at what CAIA Level I practice material actually costs, and what you're getting at each price point — so the comparison is about value, not just the number on the page.
Early access pricing through 31 July 2026.
Exam registration: $1,295, plus a one-time $400 enrolment fee for first-time candidates. This is required regardless of how you prepare, and it includes the official curriculum.
Full prep course bundles: typically $800 or more. These bundle three distinct things — condensed notes, structured video or instructional content, and a question bank — into a single package.
Standalone question banks: prices vary significantly by depth, volume, and explanation quality. This is the layer where the real differences between options show up, and where price and actual value don't always move together.
A low price on a thin question bank isn't a good deal — it's a bank you'll exhaust in a week with no fresh material left for the final stretch of your preparation, when practice testing matters most.
A high price on a full course bundle isn't automatically better value either, if the parts of that bundle you actually need are the smallest piece of what you're paying for. Many candidates — particularly those comfortable reading the curriculum independently, or those who've already worked through a full course once — are effectively paying full bundle price for notes and instructional content they won't use.
The more useful question than "what's the price" is "what does this price include, and does that match what I actually need." For a full breakdown of how to evaluate any question bank before buying, see what to look for in a CAIA Level I question bank.
The MockSmith CAIA Level I bank is priced at $149 for early access, through 31 July 2026, for the complete bank:
The equivalent of 12+ full 200-question mock exams, structured exactly like the real exam — two timed sections, with the break. 100-question half mocks for shorter timed sessions. 25-question untimed drills for topic-by-topic review. Full explanations for every answer option on every question, across the entire current curriculum.
That's a meaningfully lower price than a full bundled prep course, for the specific component — rigorous, exam-realistic practice testing — that's most directly tied to passing.
This isn't a case that a full course bundle is never worth it. If you learn substantially better with structured video instruction, or if external pacing and deadlines are genuinely what's been missing from your past exam preparation, that part of a bundle has real value for you specifically, and it's worth paying for.
The honest comparison is between what you need and what each option provides — not simply between the two price tags. For more on this trade-off directly, see CAIA Level I prep course cost: what you're paying for.
Ten free sample questions with full explanations are available directly on the main CAIA Level I page, if you want to evaluate explanation depth directly before committing to any question bank.
| Included | Typical Cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Exam registration | Official curriculum, exam sitting | $1,295 + $400 enrolment |
| Full prep course bundle | Notes, instruction, question bank | $800+ |
| MockSmith CAIA Level I bank | 12+ full mocks, half mocks, drills, full explanations | $149 (early access through 31 July 2026) |
See what's included in full on the CAIA Level I mock exam page and question bank page. Common questions answered on the CAIA Level I FAQ page.