Open Exam Prep Review: The Free Arizona Notary Prep, Honestly Assessed
Disclosure: we publish AzNotaryClass.com, a paid Arizona exam-prep course. Open Exam Prep is our closest free competitor, so this review bends over backward to be fair. Everything below is verifiable on open-exam-prep.com and its YouTube channel as of September 30, 2026. Also, as always: Arizona designates no official trainer, and that includes both of us.
What Open Exam Prep is
Open Exam Prep is a free study site (with a companion YouTube channel) built around the Arizona notary exam. As of September 30, 2026, it offers:
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Price | Free, with an AI tutor sold on paid credits (price unpublished) |
| Videos | 102 micro-videos, roughly 2-3 minutes each, in a numbered “Arizona Notary Exam Prep” series (published August 2026) |
| Practice questions | 200, free |
| Flashcards | 50, free |
| Cheat sheet | Yes, free |
| Mandate awareness | Yes, it knows the July 1, 2025 exam requirement |
| Vendor transition | Not covered; its testing guidance is Prometric-only |
| SB 1479 | Not covered |
| Monetization | Affiliate links, including to Notary.net’s $25 course |
What’s actually good about it
The price is real. No trial wall, no credit card. For a self-disciplined student with $0, the free tier here plus the free Reference Manual from azsos.gov is a legitimate study stack. We mean that. Our own free 24-question practice test exists because we think free diagnostics help everyone, including people who never buy anything.
It knows the exam exists. Like the NNA (and unlike at least one $45 competitor and one app), Open Exam Prep correctly treats the July 1, 2025 mandate as fact. In a market where several paid products still haven’t absorbed a rule change from 2025, free-and-current beats paid-and-wrong.
The micro-video format is a real idea. Two-to-three-minute clips are the right size for studying in stolen minutes: a video per statute cluster, watched on a phone in a waiting room. And the numbered series gives the material a spine: you can see that video 41 follows video 40, which is more structure than a raw playlist would have.
The extras are generous. Two hundred questions and fifty flashcards at zero dollars is more free practice volume than most paid courses in this niche include.
Where it’s limited
Its testing guidance is already stale. This is the load-bearing problem. Open Exam Prep’s exam material is framed around Prometric, the manual-era vendor. But the exam has moved to Pearson VUE: a $35 fee (down from $46.75), registration through Pearson with a Candidate ID Number before you apply for a commission, and a 3-attempts-then-30-days retake rule; the October 2026 manual and azsos.gov agree on it (verified October 19, 2026). None of that is on Open Exam Prep as of September 30, 2026. If you register for this exam trusting free guidance alone, verify the vendor and fee at azsos.gov first. We keep the full breakdown in Prometric or Pearson VUE? The Transition, Explained.
No SB 1479. Effective September 12, 2026, Arizona notaries must take a signer’s right thumbprint for deeds, deeds of trust, other real-property documents, and powers of attorney, and the October 2026 manual, the edition the exam draws from, carries the rule in its journal-entry list with exceptions on page 52. The law also affects you the week you’re commissioned. Open Exam Prep has nothing on it; as far as we can find, no prep provider other than us does. (Our SB 1479 guide is free.)
Two hundred unscored questions is a drill, not a simulation. The real exam is 45 questions, 60 minutes, 80% to pass, open book with the manual built in as a searchable PDF. Practicing that (the clock, the flag-and-return rhythm, the 80-second-per-question budget, searching the manual under pressure) requires a timed, exam-length simulation. Open Exam Prep’s quiz format doesn’t replicate that.
It’s a library, not a course. 102 clips organized by number is still 102 separate entry points. There’s no sequence that says “learn this, then this, then prove it”: no module quizzes gating progress, no diagnostics telling you which of the manual’s chapters your misses cluster in. For some learners that’s freedom. For most, it’s the reason free resources get abandoned at video 15.
The AI tutor’s cost is unpublished. The one paid element, AI tutoring on a credits model, doesn’t publish its price. You have to start paying to find out what it costs.
Follow the money, mildly. The site monetizes through affiliate links, chiefly to Notary.net’s $25 video course. That doesn’t corrupt the free content, but it explains the funnel: the free questions are the top of a path that ends at an affiliate’s checkout. (What we found reviewing that $25 course.)
Who it’s for
Open Exam Prep is the right primary resource if you are comfortable directing your own study, you verify logistics at azsos.gov yourself, and $0 is the budget. Pair it with the free manual, and test yourself with a scored diagnostic. Ours is free and right here.
It’s the wrong sole resource if you want a sequence, a timed simulation before exam day, or guidance that already knows about the 2026 vendor change. That’s the gap our $69 course fills: same launch price as the NNA, with the structure and currency layered on. The full field, ranked: Best Arizona Notary Exam Prep, Compared.
Frequently asked questions
Is Open Exam Prep enough to pass by itself?
It’s enough to *study* with, if you add the manual and self-discipline. It is not a simulation of the exam’s clock and search conditions, and its logistics guidance needs independent verification at azsos.gov. Take one full timed practice exam somewhere before the real thing.
Is it really free, or free-with-catch?
The videos, questions, flashcards, and cheat sheet really are free. The AI tutor costs money on unpublished credit pricing, and the site earns affiliate commissions if you click through to paid courses.
Why does it say Prometric when azsos.gov says Pearson VUE?
Because its material was built before the transition. The January 2025 manual also said Prometric; the October 2026 edition says Pearson VUE. The manual remains authoritative for exam *content*; azsos.gov is authoritative for exam *logistics*.
What’s the difference between its 200 free questions and your 295?
Scale aside, ours come with per-answer explanations citing the exact Reference Manual page, module-level diagnostics, and two timed 45-question simulations at the real exam’s bar. Its questions are free practice volume; ours are a scored system with a readiness gate.
Start with our free 24-question diagnostic, then decide →
*AzNotaryClass.com*
