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LEED Green Associate is the entry point and has no prerequisites, so most people begin with the LEED Green Associate course. If you already hold the GA, a specialty AP credential is the natural next step, and around half of our GA students come back for one. If you are weighing them up, this comparison of LEED GA, LEED AP and WELL AP walks through the differences.

Yes. The LEED Green Associate, LEED AP BD+C and LEED AP O+M courses, along with all their practice exams and flashcards, are on LEED v5. If you want to understand what changed in the new version, our guide to LEED v5 and what is different covers it in detail.

All our courses are valid for 1 year except for the access everything bundle for 2 years. All can be renewed with a 50% discount.

Scoring 80% on the practice exams is the readiness mark. Most students finish the material in about two weeks at one to two hours a day. You can assess where you stand right now with a free 100 question practice exam, and our guide to the LEED exam covers booking, cost and format.

Choose by the work you actually do, not by which exam looks easier. BD+C covers design and new construction and is by far the most common choice, so it is the default for most architects, engineers and consultants. O+M covers existing buildings and suits facilities managers, property teams and anyone working on buildings already in operation. If you are still weighing them up, this comparison of the credentials lays out who each one is for, or go straight to LEED AP BD+C or LEED AP O+M.

Both LEED and WELL do three concrete things. They are listed as requirements or preference on a large share of sustainability, architecture and engineering job postings. It signals to clients that you can speak to the certification process rather than outsourcing it. And having a LEED AP or a WELL AP on a project team can contribute toward the project’s own certification, which is why firms often pay for staff to get accredited. It is a credential, not a promotion, but it removes a reason for someone to pass you over. If you want the fuller picture of what LEED is before committing, start with what LEED is and how it works.

No. The Green Associate exam has no prerequisites at all. For the AP exams, project experience is recommended rather than required, and it is not something you have to document to register. Plenty of our students earn the credential before their first LEED project and use it to get onto one.

Two weeks for most people, at one to two hours a day. Across our students, around half sit the exam about two weeks after enrolling, roughly a third take three weeks, and a smaller group finishes in one. The structure that works is finishing the training in week one at about thirty minutes a day, then spending week two on full practice exams and flashcards. The people who struggle are almost always the ones who skipped material and booked the exam early. You can see where you stand right now with a free 100 question practice exam.

Most candidates do not. The reference guide is a technical manual written for project teams documenting a real certification, not a study resource, and it is expensive. The exam tests whether you understand the process and the intent behind the credits, which a structured course covers far more efficiently. We wrote up the full reasoning in do you need the LEED reference guide.

LEED measures how a building performs environmentally, covering energy, water, materials and site. WELL measures how a building affects the people inside it, covering air, light, movement, nourishment and mental wellbeing. They are complementary rather than competing, and a growing number of projects pursue both, which is why holding both credentials is a genuine differentiator. Start with what the WELL Building Standard covers, or go to the WELL AP course.