Hidden cost example: Professor Messer gives his courses away for free. If you want to get the courses notes, he charges $25 (not to mention other things he charges for – as detailed on his website). In general, many of the course providers seems to leverage low or zero priced courses to sell other resources at much higher prices. I don’t have a problem with this – different business models and everyone is trying to make buck.

Although there is some free stuff, it’s far from a “ton”. There aren’t any proper practice labs for free that I could find anywhere.

How do you get to “average 80 hours material”? I just had a quick look on Udemy and from what I could tell, the courses + practice exams (combined) are very far from that (or am I missing something?)?

Regarding exams, it’s not as simple as you say – the devil is in the details. I’ll use Security+ as an example where the retail price on the CompTIA store $370. These guys charge (on their websites):

Mike Meyers: R334.99 ($35.01)

Jason Dion: $333.00 (saving = $37)

Professor Messer: $333.00 (saving = $37)

iCollege: $ 296.00 (saving = $74)

The above is beside the point though. Most people seem to use a combination of paid and free resources and there are costs involved. It’s a simple question, all things considered, how much did it cost you to prepare for your CompTIA exam?