Start with the Red Seal Program's own sample questions: 20 per trade, free, no sign-up, but no explanations. After that the market splits into free question sites, one-time purchases from about $50 to $100, subscriptions from $27 a month, downloadable PDFs from $70 to $198, and full courses up to $800. The table below puts 18 providers on the same facts, as their own pages stated them on October 5, 2026.
We publish this page and we are one of the 18. TicketPrep sells a one-time $69 pass for one trade or $89 for all sixteen. We have kept to facts each site states about itself, with the page we read listed under Sources, and we say plainly where we fit and where we do not.
01How we compared them
We read each provider's public pages on October 5, 2026 and recorded what they say on six points: the format (web app, PDF, mobile app, course or prepaid credits), which Red Seal trades they cover, how many questions they claim, what it costs and for how long, what is free, and whether they state a guarantee or refund policy. Where a price was not on a public page we say so rather than guess.
Two things we did not judge. We did not buy and work through every competitor's questions, so this page says nothing about how good anyone's questions are, ours included. And a question count is a claim made by the provider; we repeat it as stated. If you want to judge quality, every provider with a free tier lets you read real questions before paying, and we link to each one.
Prices are in Canadian dollars as each site shows them. Where a Canadian site prints a plain dollar sign we have taken it as CAD. "Of our 16" means how many of the sixteen trades TicketPrep covers that provider also covers; it is there so you can see overlap, not as a score.
02Start with the official sample questions
The Red Seal Program publishes a free sample quiz for 54 trades, including every trade on this site and all three Ironworker exams. Each quiz has 20 questions and shows you an overview of your results when you finish. There is no account, no email and no cost.
Its limits are the ones you would expect from a sample. Twenty questions cannot cover a standard with five to nine blocks, the answers come with no explanation, and the Program says plainly that success on these questions "will NOT result in certification". Still, they are the only questions written by the people who write the exam, so they are the best check on whether a practice site's style matches the real thing. Do them first, then compare any paid set against them.
03The comparison at a glance
| Provider | Format | Red Seal trades (of our 16) | Questions claimed | Price | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red Seal Program (official) | Web quiz | 54 (16) | 20 per trade | Free | All of it, no sign-up |
| redsealquiz.ca | Web quizzes; printable PDFs | 11 (9) | 110 to 406 per trade; 1,688 total | Online free; PDFs $19 to $29 one-time | Every question, no sign-up |
| CertReady | Web course | 7 (7) | 200+ to 320+ per trade | $49.99 one-time, 5-year access ($29.99 with a launch code) | Practice questions, no sign-up; 5 free days after registering |
| Red Seal Practice | Web app | 21 (9) | 5,000+ in total; per trade not stated | $99 first trade, $40 each added trade; $20 mock test (30 days); access period not public | Sample quiz per trade |
| Red Seal Pass | Web app | 20 (14) | 1,000 to 1,500 per trade | $9.99 for 7 days; $29.99 a month; $69.99 one-time for 90 days | 10-question quiz per trade, no sign-up |
| PassRedSeal | Web app, subscription | 54 (16) | 1,000+ per trade | $27 a month, $87 per 6 months or $127 a year, renewing | 7-day trial, 20 questions, no card |
| Dakota Prep | Mobile and web app | Electrical (309A, 442A) and Plumbing (306A) | 2,500+ electrical; 500+ plumbing | In-app purchases, e.g. $59.99 Pro, $79 All Access, $189 lifetime | 5 questions a day with explanations |
| XLR8ed Learning | Web course and apps | 6 (6) | Not stated | Not shown publicly on October 5, 2026; access sold by length, 1 day to 10 weeks | Sample quiz in each course |
| ExamBank Trades | Prepaid credits, online exams | 32 by apprenticeship period (12) | Welder: drawn from 1,896 | $25 for 40 credits up to $250 for 700; a 100-question exam is 25 credits | Mixed-trade demo test |
| Trades Prep | Online exams, subscription | 54 (16) | Not stated; each attempt is a full-length set | $95 a month | None seen |
| Five PDF sellers | Downloadable PDFs | 18 to 51 each | 1,000+ where stated | $70 to $198 one-time | None |
| Canny College | Video course and simulator | 18 (10) | 1,000+ across 10+ mock exams | $800 one-time, lifetime | None found |
| ElectricalExam.ca | E-learning and classes | 309A and 442A | Not stated | $299.95 to $749.95; classes about $1,000 | One free code-changes module |
| TicketPrep (this site) | Web app | 16 (16) | 550 per trade; 880 for Ironworker's three exams | $69 one-time for one trade or $89 for all, 120 days | Five questions per trade, no account; ten more on each free page |
Explanations: every provider above states that it explains answers except the official quiz (none), ExamBank (an answer key, explanations not stated) and ElectricalExam.ca (not stated). Red Seal Practice gives basic explanations free and full ones to paying users. Guarantees and refunds are covered in the sections below, because they differ enough to matter.
04If you want to pay nothing
You can get a long way for free. redsealquiz.ca puts every one of its 1,688 questions online with no sign-up, with explanations and a mock-exam mode, across 11 trades; its banks are small (110 to 406 questions a trade) and it sells the same questions as printable PDFs for $19 to $29. CertReady has free practice questions for its seven trades and a free readiness test. Red Seal Pass offers a 10-question quiz per trade without sign-up. Dakota Prep gives five questions a day with full explanations in its electrical and plumbing apps. Red Seal Practice has a free sample quiz for each of its 21 trades, with basic explanations.
TicketPrep's free tier is five sample questions on each trade page, plus ten more on each trade's free questions page, with no account; your email unlocks the written explanation for every option. If free is the whole budget, redsealquiz.ca's open bank and the official 20 are the most questions you will read without paying.
05One-time purchases
This is the crowded middle, and the access period matters as much as the price.
- CertReady: $49.99 for one trade with five years of access, or $29.99 with its launch code. Seven trades. No standard refunds, but a "Pass Reward" returns the full fee if you pass the real exam within six months.
- TicketPrep: $69 for one trade or $89 for all sixteen, 120 days of access, nothing renews. 550 questions a trade (880 across Ironworker's three exams), every option explained. Full refund within 7 days, and if you do not pass, 120 more days free.
- Red Seal Pass: $69.99 for one trade for 90 days, with 1,000 to 1,500 questions claimed per trade and unlimited mock exams. Its "Free-Until-You-Pass" extension applies to this pass if you have completed at least 70% of the questions and send your result sheet within 14 days. No refund policy is stated.
- Red Seal Practice: $99 for a first trade and $40 for each added trade, plus $20 for a 30-day mock test. The access period for the $99 purchase is behind the login, so we could not read it. No refund policy found.
- ExamBank Trades: prepaid credits, $25 for 40 up to $250 for 700. A 100-question exam costs 25 credits, so about $16 at the smallest pack and $9 at the largest. Credits do not expire on a standard account; used accounts are "typically nonrefundable".
- Dakota Prep: in-app purchases from $59.99, electrical and plumbing only, no refunds.
The PDF sellers are also one-time purchases: redsealpracticeexam.ca lists all 32 of its guides at $120, on sale at $108; ExamPlus.ca charges $99 for each of 18 trades and claims 1,000+ questions per trade; redsealexamprep.com charges $95 for each of 51 trades and prints its question counts, 1,005 to 1,650; redsealexamtrades.com emails 18 trade packages at $70; CourseTree Learning's PDF kits run about $138 on sale to $172, with printed copies up to $198. None of the five has a free tier. A PDF cannot shuffle, time or score you, so these suit people who want to work on paper.
06Subscriptions
Three providers bill by the period. PassRedSeal covers all 54 Red Seal trades at $27 a month, $87 per six months or $127 a year, each renewing until cancelled; the full four-hour exam simulation is on the yearly tier only. Trades Prep also covers all 54 trades at $95 a month, delivering a randomly generated full-length exam on every attempt; its home page mentions three months of attempts, which its product pages price per month, and we could not resolve the two. Red Seal Pass adds a $29.99 monthly plan and a $9.99 seven-day pass to its one-time option.
A subscription is the cheaper route if your exam is two or three weeks away and you will cancel on time. It costs more than any one-time pass if you study for three months or forget to cancel.
07Courses, if you want teaching as well as questions
XLR8ed Learning sells six trades as web courses with iOS and Android apps, randomised quizzes and mastery tracking, with access sold by length from one day to ten weeks and a Commitment to Completion plan that renews access for four weeks after each failed attempt. On October 5, 2026 none of its prices appeared on a public page, so we cannot quote them. Canny College charges $800 for lifetime access to a video course of 20-plus lessons plus a simulator with 10 or more mock exams, and lets you retry at no extra cost. ElectricalExam.ca is electrical only: 309A and 442A e-learning from $299.95 to $749.95, in-person classes around $1,000, and a pass guarantee on its tiers that include support.
These are the right fit if you have been out of school for years and need the theory taught, not just tested. They are the wrong fit if you know the trade and want volume and feedback.
08Which one fits you
- No budget: the official 20, then redsealquiz.ca's open bank, then the free samples on CertReady, Red Seal Pass and the trade pages here.
- Electrical, and you want diagrams: Dakota Prep's apps claim 2,500 questions with 100-plus diagrams; ElectricalExam.ca if you want a taught course with a guarantee.
- A trade none of the smaller sites has: PassRedSeal, Trades Prep and redsealexamprep.com list all 54 Red Seal trades; Red Seal Pass has 20.
- You want the biggest bank per trade: Red Seal Pass claims 1,000 to 1,500 per trade and PassRedSeal 1,000-plus; ExamBank's Welder exam draws on 1,896. We have not tested these claims.
- One payment, a few months, explanations and a guarantee: TicketPrep ($69, 120 days, extended free if you do not pass), CertReady ($49.99, five years, fee refunded if you pass) and Red Seal Pass ($69.99, 90 days, extended free if you do not pass) are the three built this way. Compare their free questions on your own trade and pick the one whose style you trust.
- You want to be taught: XLR8ed, Canny College or ElectricalExam.ca, in rising order of price.
09Where TicketPrep fits, and where it does not
TicketPrep is a web app with 550 questions per trade, 400 at the Standard level and 150 Advanced, weighted to each trade's published exam breakdown, with a written explanation of why the right answer is right and why each of the other three is wrong. It is a one-time payment of $69 for a trade or $89 for all sixteen, for 120 days. There is a 7-day full refund and, if you do not pass, 120 more days free. Sixteen trades are covered, eighteen exams counting the three Ironworker exams on one pass.
Where it does not fit: it covers 16 of the 54 Red Seal trades, so if yours is not on the trades page, PassRedSeal, Trades Prep or a PDF seller will have it and we will not. It launched in 2026 and has no track record of independent reviews yet. The questions are drafted with AI language models and then checked against the published standards, a process we describe in full on how our questions are made, and we name no journeyperson reviewer because we do not have one yet. If a human-reviewed bank or a long history matters most to you, weigh that.
If you want to test the style before deciding, every trade page has five free questions and every free questions page has ten more.
10Questions people ask
- What is the best Red Seal practice test?
- There is no single answer, because the providers are built for different people. The official Red Seal sample questions are free and written by the exam's authors, but there are only 20 per trade with no explanations. For free volume, redsealquiz.ca puts 1,688 questions online. For a one-time purchase with explanations and a pass guarantee, TicketPrep, CertReady and Red Seal Pass are built that way. For every one of the 54 trades, PassRedSeal and Trades Prep sell subscriptions.
- Are there free Red Seal practice questions?
- Yes. The Red Seal Program offers 20 free questions per trade for 54 trades. redsealquiz.ca has every one of its 1,688 questions free online across 11 trades. CertReady, Red Seal Pass, Red Seal Practice and TicketPrep each have free sample questions, and Dakota Prep's apps give five free questions a day.
- How much does a Red Seal practice exam cost?
- Free to $800. One-time passes run from $49.99 (CertReady, five years) through $69 (TicketPrep, 120 days) and $69.99 (Red Seal Pass, 90 days) to $99 (Red Seal Practice). Subscriptions start at $27 a month (PassRedSeal). PDF question banks cost $70 to $198. Full courses cost $800 (Canny College) or $299.95 to $749.95 (ElectricalExam.ca).
- Which practice tests cover every Red Seal trade?
- PassRedSeal and Trades Prep list all 54 Red Seal trades, as does the Red Seal Program's free sample quiz. redsealexamprep.com sells PDFs for 51. Most others cover between 2 and 21 trades; TicketPrep covers 16.
- Does any Red Seal practice site guarantee you will pass?
- No practice site can promise a pass. Several offer money or time instead: CertReady refunds its fee if you pass within six months, TicketPrep and Red Seal Pass extend access free if you do not pass, Canny College lets you retake its course at no cost, and ElectricalExam.ca advertises a pass guarantee on its tiers that include support. Read each provider's conditions, which differ.
11Sources
- Red Seal Program: sample examination questions: trade list; the 20-question count comes from the Program's own question data for each trade, read October 5, 2026
- redsealquiz.ca: trade list, question counts, PDF prices, refund wording
- CertReady: price, access period, launch code, Pass Reward and refund wording
- Red Seal Practice: home page and mock-tests page; the pricing page requires a login
- Red Seal Pass: pricing: passes, mock exam tickets; guarantee terms from its terms page
- PassRedSeal: plans, trial, trade count
- Dakota Prep: Canadian electrical Red Seal: prices from the Apple App Store Canada listings; free tier and refund wording from its FAQ
- XLR8ed Learning: FAQ: access lengths, sample quiz, explanations; no price on any public page that day
- ExamBank Trades: sign up: credit packs; the Welder page for the 1,896-question figure; terms for refunds
- Trades Prep: monthly price from its product pages
- redsealpracticeexam.ca: 32 guides at $120, sale $108
- ExamPlus.ca: shop: 18 trades at $99
- redsealexamprep.com: trades: question counts per trade; store prices
- redsealexamtrades.com: $70 packages
- CourseTree Learning: kit and hardcopy prices on the home page
- Canny College: 18 trades: $800, lifetime access, retry policy
- ElectricalExam.ca: membership prices and guarantee wording
- TicketPrep: pricing: our own prices, access period, refund and pass guarantee
Every figure above was read on the provider's own public page on October 5, 2026. Prices change often; the provider's page is the final word. If you find one of ours out of date, or think we have described your product unfairly, tell us and we will fix it.
Related: all guides · how our questions are made · how to study for the Red Seal exam · how hard the exam is · free practice questions
12Practice for this exam
If TicketPrep is on your shortlist, read the five free questions on your trade's page before you decide; they come from the same bank as the paid set. Every answer is explained, the set is weighted to the published exam breakdown, and the pass is one payment for 120 days.
Ten free questions per trade, no account: free practice questions. How our questions are written and checked: how our questions are made.