Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration

What is it?

What exactly is the Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration?

Professional collaboration infrastructure

CCNP Collaboration certifies skills in Cisco collaboration technologies including unified communications, video and messaging, via the CLCOR core plus a concentration.

Before you book

Who is eligible to sit the Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration?

Who it is for: Collaboration engineers

The test itself

What is the format of the Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration?

The Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration is administered by Pearson VUE and runs 120 minutes (core), contains 90–110 (core) questions and requires ~825 of 1000 to pass.

Money & time

How much does the Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration cost?

For the Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration, the exam fee is $400 per exam; the all-in cost is typically $700+; most candidates spend 4–8 months preparing.

The fine print

What are the retake and renewal rules for the Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration?

Proctoring & delivery

Delivered by Pearson VUE: at authorized test centers or online via OnVUE remote proctoring (CCST uses the Certiport/Pearson VUE platform). A government-issued photo ID is required; online tests include a room/environment scan.

Retake policy

If you fail, Cisco requires a waiting period of 5 calendar days before you may retake the same exam. Each attempt requires full payment of the exam fee. Cisco does not cap total attempts, but some exams limit attempts within a 12-month window.

Score reporting

Results are reported as pass/fail and made available online (Cisco Certification Tracking System) typically within 48 hours. A section-level performance breakdown is provided to help target further study; scaled scores use a 300-1000 range (CCNA/CCNP-style exams).

Recertification

All Cisco certifications are valid for 3 years from the date earned. Recertify before expiry by (a) passing a higher-or-equal level qualifying exam, (b) earning Continuing Education (CE) credits through eligible training/activities, or (c) a combination of exam + CE. For associate-level certs 30 CE credits are required; for professional-level 40 CE credits. Certificates can also be extended via the Cisco Continuing Education program.

Refunds & rescheduling

Exam fees are generally non-refundable once scheduled, but Pearson VUE allows rescheduling or cancellation up to 24-48 hours before the appointment without penalty; no-shows forfeit the fee. CCST/Certiport policies may differ by region.

What it pays

How much does this credential pay?

$130,390 median for computer network architects (BLS SOC 15-1241, May 2024), the closest official series to the unified-communications engineering roles CCNP Collaboration supports

CCNP Collaboration pays through the network-engineering job market, and the closest official BLS figure is the May 2024 median annual wage of $130,390 for SOC 15-1241 Computer Network Architects — BLS has no occupation literally called 'collaboration engineer' or 'unified communications engineer', so we cite the architect series for this credential and say plainly that the fit is partial rather than exact. The lowest 10 percent in that occupation earned less than $79,520 and the highest 10 percent earned more than $198,030 in May 2024, a very wide spread driven by seniority, employer and location far more than by any certificate. BLS counted 179,200 computer-network-architect jobs in 2024 and projects 12 percent employment growth from 2024 to 2034, much faster than the average for all occupations, with about 11,200 openings a year, most of them replacement demand. Three caveats anchor the picture. First, BLS classifies by job duties rather than by certification, so the series includes architects without a CCNP and excludes CCNP holders working under other titles, which means the credential’s specific wage premium cannot be read off this page. Second, CCNP Collaboration is a specialist credential for voice and collaboration engineers, and the relevant comparison for a holder is typically the voice-network or unified-communications salary band rather than the architect median; employer listings rather than BLS set any premium for the collaboration concentration specifically. Third, the certificate gates nothing legally — unlike a state license it is an employer-recognized credential, so its value is realized through hiring, specialization and promotion decisions. For a candidate asking whether CCNP Collaboration pays, the direct answer is that it certifies skills inside a job family with a $130,390 national median and double-digit projected growth, and voice and collaboration experience continues to be one of the harder infrastructure skills to hire for.

Job growth.+12% projected change 2024-34 (much faster than average), with about 11,200 openings a year; collaboration and hybrid-work infrastructure remain a specialized hiring area

Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook - Computer Network Architects

Your schedule

How long should I study for it?

180-240 hours over 16-20 weeks of focused study

CCNP Collaboration is two exams — the 350-801 CLCOR core and one concentration — and the efficient plan runs 16 to 20 weeks at 10 to 14 hours a week, roughly 180 to 240 hours in total, with the core consuming about 60 percent of the time because it is the 120-minute, $400 exam covering the broadest ground. The two exams are sequential in practice: most candidates pass the core first, since CLCOR v2.0 covers infrastructure and design, protocols and endpoints, on-premises call control, voice gateways, cloud and hybrid services, and media and QoS, and the concentration then deepens one area — advanced call control with CLACCM, applications with CLICA, cloud and edge with CLCEI, conferencing with CLCNF, or automation with CLAUTO. Weeks one through four cover the infrastructure and design and protocols content, including SIP, codecs and endpoint registration. Weeks five through eight work the on-premises call control domain in depth — Cisco UCM call routing, dial plans, partitions and calling search spaces, Unity Connection and user management — which is 30 percent of the paper. Weeks nine through eleven cover voice gateways, session border controllers, media and QoS, and weeks twelve through fourteen work the cloud and hybrid services domain, including Webex Calling, meetings, messaging, cloud APIs and hybrid services. Weeks fifteen through seventeen are full timed practice exams at the real formats — 120 minutes for the core and 90 minutes for the concentration — with a miss log driving final gap-closing. Candidates with strong voice and UC experience can compress to twelve weeks, spending recovered time in a lab on dial-plan and gateway configuration rather than on concept review; candidates coming from pure data networking should add four weeks of voice fundamentals before the core. The plan’s anchor is the lab: dial-plan configuration, gateway dial peers, QoS policies and Webex integration are hands-on skills, and candidates who configure them rather than read about them finish the performance-based questions inside the clock.

1. Weeks 1-411-14 hrs/week

   Infrastructure, design, protocols and endpoints (25%)

   • Cover solution design elements, dial plans, high availability and disaster recovery from the CLCOR v2.0 topics
   • Study SIP call setup and teardown, SDP, DTMF, and endpoint registration and provisioning
   • Learn codecs and media: G.711, G.722, G.729 and the bandwidth math of a call
   • Set up a lab with CUCM, a voice gateway and a soft client
2. Weeks 5-812-14 hrs/week

   On-premises call control (30%)

   • Configure call routing in Cisco UCM: route patterns, route groups, route lists and translation patterns
   • Work partitions and calling search spaces, time-of-day routing and forced authorization codes
   • Implement toll fraud prevention and globalized call routing with +E.164
   • Configure Unity Connection: mailboxes, MWI, call handlers and routing rules
3. Weeks 9-1111-13 hrs/week

   Voice gateways, session border controllers, media and QoS (20%)

   • Configure dial peers, voice translation rules, codec preference lists and DTMF on IOS XE gateways
   • Study Cisco Unified Border Element and redundancy features such as server groups and DNS SRV
   • Configure LLQ with class maps, policy maps and service policies, and troubleshoot media quality
4. Weeks 12-1412-14 hrs/week

   Cloud and hybrid services (25%)

   • Describe the Webex Suite: calling, meetings and messaging
   • Configure call routing in Webex Calling: locations, numbers, translation patterns, trunks and dial plans
   • Study cloud APIs and webhooks, Control Hub user management and Webex hybrid services
5. Weeks 15-1710-12 hrs/week

   Timed practice exams and gap closing

   • Take timed practice sittings at the real durations: 120 minutes for the core, 90 minutes for your chosen concentration
   • Re-drill the miss log by domain until clean
   • Book the core and the concentration with the five-day retake rule and your schedule in mind

What to buy

Which study resources are worth paying for?

The buying logic for CCNP Collaboration is anchored by the fact that Cisco publishes the official exam topics for free — the CLCOR v2.0 topics page is the definitive scope map — so the first resource every candidate needs costs nothing, and no paid product can claim to define the blueprint better than Cisco’s own documents. The exam seats themselves are the biggest line item: the 350-801 core costs $400 and each concentration costs $300, both paid to Pearson VUE at scheduling, and retakes are full price with a five-calendar-day wait after a failure. Beyond Cisco’s free topics, the market splits into three tiers. Cisco’s own paid training — Cisco U. learning paths, the official courses and practice tests — typically runs several hundred dollars and is the closest match to the exam style, including performance-based questions. Cisco Press books for collaboration, such as the official cert guides for CLCOR and the concentrations, are usually $50 to $70 and are strongest for the dial-plan and gateway fundamentals. Third-party question banks from providers such as Boson and Pearson, typically $100 to $150, are the best timed-readiness check because they simulate the performance-based item mix, and the ones that explicitly track the current exam version are the ones to choose. A free or low-cost lab — Cisco Modeling Labs, the DevNet sandbox or a virtual CUCM environment — is worth more than any course for a performance-based exam, because the blueprint names objects you must actually configure. Prices below are list prices as of mid-2026 and change frequently, and we rank nothing by commission; confirm the current price on the Cisco and Pearson VUE pages before buying.

Prices checked 2026-08 in USD before tax. The $400 core and $300 concentration fees are Cisco’s published prices; prep-product list prices change frequently, so confirm at the source before buying. We do not rank by commission.

What you'll face

What question types will I see?

CCNP Collaboration exams are delivered on computer through Pearson VUE, and the official topics page describes the item mix as performance-based questions, multiple choice and drag-and-drop — Cisco publishes the formats but reports only a pass or fail result, with no numeric passing score and no cohort pass-rate statistics. The core exam, 350-801 CLCOR, runs 120 minutes and costs $400, while each concentration exam runs 90 minutes and costs $300; the core is offered in English and the question count is not fixed in the published topics, so pacing discipline matters more than counting questions. Performance-based questions drop you into a task — trace a call through partitions and route lists, configure a dial peer, or set an LLQ policy — and carry disproportionate weight because they test whether you can do the work rather than recognize it. Multiple-choice items test concepts from the blueprint, from SIP signaling and codecs to Unity Connection and Webex Calling routing, while drag-and-drop items typically ask you to order configuration steps or match API concepts. The CLCOR v2.0 blueprint weights on-premises call control at 30 percent, cloud and hybrid services at 25 percent, infrastructure and design at 15 percent, and protocols and endpoints, voice gateways and session border controllers, and media and QoS at 10 percent each, which tells candidates where the item mass sits. Cisco also publishes a free exam tutorial that walks candidates through each item format before exam day, which is worth taking once so the first performance-based task you see is not a surprise. The three samples below are editor-written illustrations of the published blueprint, not live exam items; one shows the call-control domain, one the infrastructure domain, and one the cloud and hybrid services domain.

Samples are editor-written illustrations of the published blueprint, not live exam items.

Reference

What are the key facts about the Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration?

Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration is a certification credential; awarded by Cisco; the exam fee is $400 per exam; typical preparation is 4–8 months; holders typically earn $85,000 – $125,000.

In short

Is the Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration worth it?

• CCNP Collaboration = CLCOR core + 1 concentration.
• It covers voice, video and messaging.
• It renews every three years.

Worth comparing

How does the Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration compare with similar credentials?

• Cisco Certified Network Associate Cisco Systems

Trust

Where does this information come from?

Everything above is taken from the awarding body's own published material. Fees, question counts and domain weights are revised regularly — check the official page before you pay.

• Cisco Awarding body
• Official Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration exam page Exam page
• Cisco certification programme Programme rules

Research confidence: high · Last reviewed 2026-08