Free PL-300 resources worth your time (and what to skip)

Published 19 September 2026

There is no shortage of free PL-300 material. The problem is that most of it overlaps, and some of it is actively harmful to your certification. Here is what is worth using.

Start here: Microsoft Learn

The official learning path is free, matches the current skills measured, and is updated when the exam changes. If you only use one resource, use this one. Work through it in order rather than jumping to topics that look interesting.

The free practice assessment

Microsoft publishes a free practice assessment on the certification page. It is the closest free approximation of the real question style. Save it for late in your preparation and take it timed, in one sitting, so it tells you something useful about your readiness.

Power BI Desktop itself

The most underused free resource. Download a public dataset, import it, clean it, model it and build a report. An afternoon of building teaches more than a week of watching.

Community walkthrough videos

Useful for one specific purpose: seeing how a scenario question is read and broken down. Watching one good walkthrough after you have studied a topic is worth more than ten hours of video before you start.

Microsoft documentation for DAX

When a measure doesn't behave as expected, the official function reference explains the evaluation context better than most blog summaries. Go to it whenever you find yourself memorising DAX instead of understanding it.

What to skip

Exam dumps

Sites advertising "real exam questions" or "actual questions from the exam" are selling leaked content. Using them breaches Microsoft's exam policies, and candidates found to have used them can have results cancelled and certifications revoked. It also leaves you unable to answer a question phrased differently from the one you memorised. Avoid them entirely.

Anything written for DA-100

PL-300 replaced the older DA-100 exam. Older study guides and question sets still float around and describe content that no longer matches the exam.

Collecting more resources instead of studying

Ten bookmarked courses feel like progress and produce none. Pick one path, finish it, then add practice material.

A reasonable free-first approach

Microsoft Learn for the concepts, Power BI Desktop for the practice, the free practice assessment near the end, and one paid practice-test course only if you want more question volume before the exam. That is enough to pass without spending much at all.