The CFP® Foundations study package
Professional conduct, general principles, insurance, and investment planning — the four domains the rest of the CFP® exam is built on, taught through client cases rather than definitions. One full domain is free, no card required.
4
Principal Knowledge domains
190+
Practice questions
~150 hrs
Guided study plan
Everything in the Foundations package
One source-cited body of material, drilled six ways — so you learn it, retain it, and walk in genuinely ready.
Domain-mapped study notes
Every reading mapped to a CFP Board Principal Knowledge Topic, with the insurance need analysis, time-value work, and suitability rules applied to a client fact pattern rather than defined and left there.
Case-anchored question bank
Exam-style items that re-weight toward your weakest domain, each with a full explanation of why the wrong answers are wrong — the misconception, not just the key.
Full-length mock exams
Timed mocks built the way the real exam is — client scenarios spanning several items — so you find out where your pace breaks down before exam day does.
Spaced-repetition flashcards
The definitions, ratios, and regulatory thresholds that have to be automatic, scheduled by an algorithm keyed to your forgetting curve.
Performance analytics
Readiness by domain, benchmarked against the wider candidate pool, so you can tell a weak topic from a weak day.
A worked client case in every domain
Each domain closes on a full client case — the numbers run and the recommendation justified — because that is the shape the exam actually tests.
Mapped to the real Foundations weights
The package follows the published CAIA topic-area weights, so your study time tracks where the marks actually are — not an even split across topics.
- Investment Planning33%
- General Principles of Financial Planning29%
- Risk Management & Insurance Planning22%
- Professional Conduct & Regulation16%
CFP Board · Principal Knowledge Topics (2021 Practice Analysis) — domain weights renormalised across this study part
Foundations curriculum
4 domains · ~150 hrs
- Investment Planning33%
- General Principles of Financial Planning29%
- Risk Management & Insurance Planning22%
- Professional Conduct & Regulation16%
Source: CFP Board · Principal Knowledge Topics (2021 Practice Analysis) — domain weights renormalised across this study part
See the work, not a claim
Every competitor calls their notes rigorous. Here is one, with the moves that make it different named in the margin.
Sizing a life insurance need two ways
The human life value method capitalises the client’s future earnings net of self-consumption and taxes — an economic figure, indifferent to what the family actually plans to spend.1
The needs approach instead totals what the survivors require — final expenses, debt payoff, income replacement, education, legacy — then subtracts existing resources.2 A client earning $150,000 with 20 working years left can carry a human life value near $2.1m while the needs approach returns $1.3m once a paid-off mortgage and $400,000 of existing coverage are netted out.3
- 1
The distinction the exam tests
Human life value ignores the family’s actual budget. Naming that is what separates the two methods on an exam item.
- 2
The full deduction list
Existing coverage, liquid assets, and survivor benefits all net down the need. Candidates lose the mark by forgetting the offset.
- 3
The numbers, run both ways
We work the actual dollar figures so you can reproduce the gap under exam time rather than recall which method is "bigger".
Choose your Foundations plan
Same source-cited content in every tier — pick how far you want the support to go. Move up anytime and pay only the difference.
Foundations questions, answered
Still deciding? These are the things candidates ask before they start.
About the CFP® charterNo. The CFP® exam is a single comprehensive test covering all eight Principal Knowledge Topics at once. Foundations and Advanced Planning are our study split, so each domain is built before the exam asks you to combine it in a case. If you are sitting the exam, you need both.
Try a topic before you decide.
One full Foundations topic is free — notes, questions, and the tools — so you can judge the material against how you actually study before paying anything.
Start free