11/2/2005 -- Those who are used to buying their Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) exam vouchers from discount online vendors may soon be facing sticker shock.

This month, the organization ended its volume discount pricing program, through which many vendors used to purchase large quantities of A+, Network+ and Security+ exam vouchers at deep discounts and resell them to the public for significantly less than the standard price of the exams.

Although the vouchers had to be resold packaged with study materials per CompTIA's requirements, such packages regularly sold for $50 to $75 or even less than the non-member price of an exam alone.

The only discount now available to resellers, the CompTIA member price, is significantly smaller than the bulk discount offered quantity buyers. As the supply of the vouchers sold at the former prices dries up in the marketplace, the discounts will now likely hover at around the $20 range, if new prices from many of the major online vendors are any indication.

In 2003, the organization attempted to rein in discount voucher resales by implementing restrictions on how such vouchers could be resold, most notably requiring the vouchers to only be resold when packaged with training or other study materials.

In an e-mail sent to resellers at that time, the organization wrote: "The intent of the discount is to allow our members to purchase discounted vouchers for their own employees ... It was never CompTIA's intention to have our members reselling stand-alone vouchers." In the e-mail it included figures it said showed the organization lost out on more than $1 million in revenue due to stand-alone voucher sales.

As a result of the restrictions, several vendors did drop out of the resale business. Others started packaging the materials with low- and no-cost study preparation materials, allowing them to keep offering the vouchers at prices significantly below CompTIA's standard prices.

Tcat Houser, an independent trainer who teaches preparation classes for CompTIA exams, often offered his study guides for little or no cost to vendors to allow the discounts to continue. He told CertCities.com he did so because he feels its important to keep the exam prices low for students, and fears that the end of the bulk discounts will curtail the uptake of CompTIA exams. "[CompTIA's] prices are just too high," he said.

A CompTIA spokesperson told CertCities.com in a recent interview that the only motivation behind ending the volume discount program was to simplify CompTIA exam prices in the market, pointing out that the changes make it so that CompTIA exams now have only two prices: member and non-member. The organization does not expect the number of CompTIA exams taken to decline as a result, the spokesperson said.

The CompTIA spokesperson said that vouchers sold based on the former bulk discount prices will remain valid until the individual voucher's expiration date.

Resellers of the discount vouchers were made aware of the pricing changes last month. On Friday, CompTIA formally announced that it will be selling its own packages of discount vouchers and study materials through its Web site. -Becky Nagel