Before you book AZ-104, budget for the fee, the cost of a failed attempt, and the renewal. In the United States the exam costs $165 USD per attempt, and Microsoft sets a different price in each country or region. You pass at 700 on a 1 to 1,000 scaled score. If you fail, the retake is another full fee, and you wait 24 hours before the next attempt. The renewal is free. It is a short online assessment on Microsoft Learn in the six months before the certification expires, and passing it extends the certification one more year. This page checks each exam number against Microsoft's own pages, so you can set a budget for the booking and the renewal instead of trusting a third-party page.
The fee is regional, so the number to trust is your checkout price
Microsoft's AZ-104 exam page lists the price as $165 USD for the United States, with the note "Price based on the country or region in which the exam is proctored" (as of September 2026). In other countries the price differs, so check the total at the Pearson VUE checkout before you book.
Each attempt is billed in full. Microsoft's retake policy says "You must pay to retake the exam (if applicable.)" There are no free retries. If you hold a voucher from an employer or a Microsoft event, Microsoft's voucher documentation says "If you are eligible for an exam discount, it will be applied during checkout," and you enter the code on the Pearson VUE payment screen.
Three scheduling rules shape when you can book. You can schedule certification exams no more than 90 days in advance, and you can have at most two Microsoft certification exams scheduled at a time (register and schedule an exam). And register with a personal Microsoft account. The exam page warns that if you register with an organizational (work or school) account, "your exam records will be lost if you leave your organization and they will be unrecoverable."
The exam itself is 100 minutes, proctored, and may include interactive components. It is scheduled through Pearson VUE and offered in ten languages, including English, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese (Brazil).
A 700 is a scaled score, not 70 percent correct
Microsoft's exam scoring page states it plainly. "All technical exam scores are reported on a scale of 1 to 1,000. A passing score is 700 or greater." And: "As this is a scaled score, it may not equal 70% of the points." The passing mark is set against question difficulty, so "For easier sets of questions, more points are required to pass," and a harder set needs fewer. A raw percent correct is not a readiness number, which is why the page notes that "providing a simple percent correct won't help you gauge success." The AZ-104 study guide says the same in its useful links: "A score of 700 or greater is required to pass."
Three more details from the scoring page. Some questions are unscored and used to test new items. You will not know which are which, so the page advises you to "answer every question as if it will be included in your score." For most exams, results arrive within minutes of finishing, and your score is available in your Learn profile within 24 hours. The report shows one overall number plus a bar chart by skill area, and "Microsoft does not share which questions were answered incorrectly," so plan any retake around the weak skill areas the bars point to.
For practice, aim for 700 on any set scored on the 1 to 1,000 range.
What AZ-104 measures, and which version of the outline is current
AZ-104 is the exam that earns the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate credential. From the study guide version marked "Skills measured as of April 17, 2026":
- Manage Azure identities and governance, 20-25%
- Implement and manage storage, 15-20%
- Deploy and manage Azure compute resources, 20-25%
- Implement and manage virtual networking, 15-20%
- Monitor and maintain Azure resources, 10-15%
If a prep page shows different weights, check its date against the "Skills measured as of" line. Some prep pages still list identities at 15-20% and networking at 20-25% under the older name. The current guide has identities at 20-25% and "Implement and manage virtual networking" at 15-20%. Identity is now one of the two heaviest domains, so plan study time accordingly.
Most questions cover features in general availability (GA), and the guide notes the exam "may contain questions on Preview features if those features are commonly used." Microsoft updates the English language version of the exam first. The change log for the April 17, 2026 version compares the previous and current versions of the skills measured. It lists the audience profile and the storage, compute, networking, and monitoring skill areas. The audience profile row and five sub-objective rows are marked minor, and each of the four skill areas shows no change at the domain level.
The audience profile expects "subject matter expertise in implementing, managing, and monitoring an organization's Microsoft Azure environment, including virtual networks, storage, compute, identity, security, and governance," with familiarity in operating systems, networking, servers, and virtualization, and hands-on experience with PowerShell, the Azure CLI, the Azure portal, ARM templates or Bicep, and Microsoft Entra ID. Microsoft publishes no minimum experience duration, so treat any "six months of experience" claim in a prep page as that page's own framing.
Calibrate difficulty with the two free tools Microsoft links from the exam page. The free Practice Assessment gives "an overview of the style, wording, and difficulty of the questions you're likely to experience on the exam," and the exam sandbox lets you "interact with different question types in the same user interface you'll use during the exam."
A failed attempt costs a second fee and a waiting period
Microsoft's retake policy sets the timeline. If you fail the first time, "you must wait 24 hours before retaking it." After that, "a 14-day waiting period is imposed between all subsequent attempts (up to 5)." You may not take a given exam more than five times within a 12-month period from the first attempt, and if you fail five times, you wait 12 months from that first attempt to sit it again. A waiver of the wait exists only for internet connectivity issues or equipment failure during the exam, with a Pearson VUE case created.
The booking rules add another way to lose the fee. Reschedule or cancel at least 24 hours before the appointment or "your fee will be forfeited," and if you used a company-purchased voucher, the voucher is forfeited as well (reschedule and cancellation policies).
A failed first attempt means paying the full fee again.
The renewal is free, and the window is six months
Once you pass, the certification is valid for one year. Microsoft's credential expiration policy says role-based and specialty certifications "are valid for one (1) year from the date that you complete all requirements to earn that Certification." The study guide adds that "Microsoft associate, expert, and specialty certifications expire annually."
Renewal is the cheap part. Microsoft's renewal process page says "There's no cost to renew your certification, just make sure you pass the online assessment before your certification expires." The assessment is free, unproctored, and open book, and it focuses on recent technological and industry updates, which makes it shorter than the original exam.
The Azure Administrator renewal page sets the window. "If you have this certification and it will expire within six months, you are eligible to renew." The renewal process page adds that you can take the assessment any time during that six-month eligibility window via Microsoft Learn. "Once you pass, your certification will be extended one year from the expiration date," so passing at any point in the window buys exactly one more year from the original expiry date.
The renewal page lists the seven skill areas the assessment measures: hosting a web application with Azure App Service, building a containerized web application with Docker, securing your Azure Storage account, securing and isolating access to Azure resources by using network security groups and service endpoints, protecting your virtual machines by using Azure Backup, configuring virtual machine availability, and managing users and groups in Microsoft Entra ID. A free collection of learning modules, estimated at 45 minutes, prepares you for it.
Two things to watch. First, the renewal page states "The English language version of this renewal assessment was updated on January 26, 2023." Check the renewal page for the current version before you sit it. Second, if you miss the window entirely, the expiration policy says you "will no longer be able to renew that Certification and will need to re-earn the Certification by passing all the required exam(s)." That means sitting the full AZ-104 again and paying the fee again. Set a calendar reminder for the six months before your expiry date.
Retakes are easy to schedule. The retake policy says "There is no limit to renewal assessment retakes," and "If you don't pass, you can try again immediately." After the second try, you need at least 24 hours between future attempts.
The free prep to run before the fee is charged
Microsoft Learn's study guide is free and carries the full skills outline, the change log, and links to the free Practice Assessment and the exam sandbox.
If you want a structured check before you spend the fee, the free AZ-104 assessment on CramHQ needs no card. It returns a Readiness Report, your top gaps, and a targeted repair preview before the full Pass Plan unlocks. The full AZ-104 path is $34.99 for 12 months of access (free AZ-104 assessment). Take it before you book. It shows your gaps by skill area, so you know what to study before the fee is charged.
If you want to know which practice scores say you are ready, and what to do with each result, the separate am I ready for AZ-104 page covers it.
What to do before you book
Check your Pearson VUE checkout price for your region. Take the free assessment. A retake costs the full fee again. Book when you pass a practice set you have not seen before. If you already hold the certification, set a calendar reminder for the six months before your expiry date, and pass the free renewal assessment before it lapses.