Best Security+ practice tests compared: prices for Dion, Messer, Boson and more

The short list, by budget

Pick the row that matches what you can spend, then stop shopping.

• Free. CompTIA's 10 free Security+ V7 questions, plus Professor Messer's free SY0-701 video course, which runs to 121 videos and 15 hours 11 minutes. Messer also posts monthly study group replays with practice questions. This is enough to learn the material. It is not enough practice to judge readiness.
• About $30. Add one bank. Dion's Practice Exam Pack gives the most questions for the money, at 1,100+ with a fresh randomised set each attempt. Messer's Practice Exams give three fixed 90-question exams that you can sit like the real thing.
• Both $30 banks. Buy both. They are written by different people, so you see the same objectives phrased two ways, which is the best defence against memorising one bank's wording.
• $99 a year. Boson ExSim-Max for the last two or three weeks. Cancel the auto-renew the day you buy it if you only need it once.
• Phone-first. Pocket Prep if most of your study happens on a commute. Its Security+ page lists 1,330 questions with quiz modes, including a mock exam.

Before buying anything, check which exam you will sit. CompTIA launches SY0-801 on or around 17 November 2026 and retires the English SY0-701 on 11 June 2027. SY0-701 or SY0-801 covers that decision and what changes in the objectives.

Dion Training's practice exam pack

Dion Training, Jason Dion's company, sells its SY0-701 Practice Exam Pack on diontraining.com for $29.99. The page lists 1,100+ practice questions, randomised question sets so no two attempts match, detailed answer explanations, five performance-based questions, unlimited attempts and 12 months of access.

The randomisation is the main reason to choose it. A fixed exam stops being a fair test the second time you take it, because you remember the answers. A randomised pool keeps producing unseen combinations for longer.

The five PBQs are thin for an exam where PBQs carry so much time. Dion sells a separate PBQ Practice Pack for $29.99 that draws on a 100-question PBQ bank. If simulations worry you, that pack is the better second purchase than another multiple-choice bank.

Dion's page states that students who pass two of its practice exams have a 96% pass rate on the real exam. That is Dion's own, self-reported figure, and the page does not say how it was measured.

Dion also sells a complete SY0-701 course for $349 with 31+ hours of video, labs, 600+ practice questions, the official CompTIA study guide and eBook, and a 60-day pass guarantee that Dion describes as "pass your exam or we pay for your retake". Professor Messer vs Jason Dion compares the two creators across A+, Network+ and Security+.

Professor Messer's practice exams

Professor Messer sells SY0-701 Practice Exams for $30 as a PDF, or $50 as a printed book with the PDF included. The set is three 90-question exams over 380 pages, with multiple-choice and performance-based questions and detailed explanations for each answer.

Ninety questions per exam matches the exam's maximum, so each one is a true full-length rehearsal. Sit them under exam conditions: 90 minutes, no notes, one sitting. Three exams means three honest attempts, so space them out. Take one after you finish the videos, one two weeks later, and one in the final week.

Messer also bundles the practice exams with his course notes for $50, and sells a Success Bundle for $119 that adds audio, downloadable video, his Exam Hacks eBook and priority answers in his monthly study group. You do not need the bundle to pass. The free videos plus the $30 exams cover the essentials.

The weakness is the fixed question count. After three attempts the bank is used up, which is why pairing it with Dion's randomised pool, or with Boson for the final stretch, makes sense.

Boson ExSim-Max for Security+

Boson sells ExSim-Max for CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 at $99 for a one-year subscription that auto-renews until you cancel. It contains three full-length practice exams and 270 questions, with a simulation mode that matches the live exam's timing, a study mode, reports by topic, and explanations for why each option is right or wrong.

Boson's own page says ExSim-Max replicates the difficulty of the live exam so closely that it guarantees you will pass if you can pass ExSim-Max. That is Boson's guarantee and its claim. Read the terms on Boson's site before you rely on it.

Use it last. Boson exams are long and demanding, and a bank this size is best spent when you are close to ready, as a check rather than a teaching tool. Boson bundles ExSim-Max with its Practice Lab for Security+ at $179 a year, against $198 for the two separately.

Boson also lists an instructor-led Security+ Training course at $2,495. For context on price: that is the cost of a classroom route, and every bank on this page costs a small fraction of it.

If you buy in the week before you test, cancel the renewal straight away. A forgotten $99 renewal a year later is how a practice bank ends up costing double.

Two more options: CertMaster and Pocket Prep

CompTIA's CertMaster Practice is the exam owner's own practice product. CompTIA describes it as timed practice exams, objective quizzes and exam objective mastery scores, aimed at people who already know the material, and estimates 10 to 20 hours to work through it. It is also the first practice product with a confirmed Security+ V8 edition, because CompTIA lists CertMaster Practice on its Security+ V8 page. CompTIA also sells bundles that combine CertMaster Practice with a voucher and Retake Assurance. The store did not show prices when checked on 2 November 2026, so check them directly, and see CompTIA voucher discounts for ways to pay less for the bundle.

Pocket Prep is a phone app. Its Security+ page lists 1,330 questions written by industry professionals, a question of the day, quick 10-question quizzes, missed-question and weakest-subject quizzes, timed quizzes, a build-your-own mode and a mock exam. A free tier exists. The full bank needs Premium, which Pocket Prep's pricing page lists for new subscribers at $20.99 a month, $49.99 a quarter or $124.99 a year.

Pocket Prep suits short sessions: ten questions in a queue or on a lunch break, every day. Its subscription is the most expensive option here if you keep it for a year, so buy a month or a quarter to match your plan.

Which practice tests are ready for SY0-801

On 2 November 2026, two weeks before the V8 launch:

• Dion Training sold its pack as SY0-701.
• Professor Messer sold SY0-701 Practice Exams.
• Boson listed ExSim-Max for SY0-701 and no SY0-801 product.
• Pocket Prep showed the V7 domain names on its Security+ page.
• CompTIA listed CertMaster products, including Practice, on its Security+ V8 page.

A V7 bank still covers most of what V8 tests, because the five domain areas carry over. It will not test the new AI security risks objective, and it drills the old weights: program management at 20% where V8 has 14%, general security concepts at 12% where V8 has 16%. If you sit SY0-801, use a V7 bank only for the overlap and check vendors' pages for a V8 edition before your final month. Treat any third-party bank as V7 until its product title says SY0-801.

If you sit SY0-701 before it retires, every bank on this page fits.

How to use a practice test so the score means something

The bank matters less than how you use it.

1. Take the first test cold. Sit one timed test as soon as you finish your course. The score by domain tells you where to spend the next weeks.
2. Time it. Security+ gives 90 minutes for up to 90 questions. PBQs take longer than multiple-choice items, so practise flagging them and coming back.
3. Review every answer. Read the explanation for the questions you got right as well. A right answer for the wrong reason fails on the next variant.
4. Change banks before you trust a score. Once you have seen a question, a second attempt measures memory. A new bank, or Dion's randomised sets, measures knowledge.
5. Book against a threshold. CompTIA's own advice is to keep taking practice exams until you consistently score over 85%. Dion's line is two passed practice exams. Use CompTIA's 85% on unseen questions as the stricter bar.

The cost of skipping this is a second voucher. CompTIA charges the full exam price for every attempt, and only a first retake can be booked straight away; any later attempt needs a 14-day wait. What to do after failing Security+ has the recovery plan if it comes to that, and the Security+ exam guide has the domains and study plan.