Our standards
What our certification actually attests.
Online certification has a trust problem, and vague promises made it. This page is the opposite: exactly how our exams work, exactly how verification works, and exactly where we stand on accreditation — so you can judge us on facts.
The exam
A certificate is only worth what its exam demands.
Passing one of our exams means one specific thing: this person, verified, answered at least 70% of a timed, closed-book examination correctly. Here is what stands behind that sentence.
Identity-confirmed
Certification exams are taken through your student account with identity confirmation before the session starts. The name on the certificate is the name that sat the exam.
Timed and closed-book
Exams run against the clock, closed-book. A Green Belt has 180 minutes for 100 questions — enough time to think, not enough to look everything up.
Monitored sessions
Exam sessions are monitored and recorded. Irregularities are reviewed by a person before any certificate is issued.
Real consequences
Confirmed misconduct voids the exam and revokes any issued credential — and revocation shows immediately on our public verification register.
Verification
Don't take our word for it. That's the point.
Every certificate we issue carries a unique credential ID and a QR code. Anyone — an employer, a recruiter, a stranger — can check it on our public register in seconds, free, forever. Revoked credentials stop verifying immediately.
Try it right now with our sample credential — this is exactly what an employer checking your certificate would see:
What the register shows
- Holder name and program, exactly as certified
- Credential ID and issue date
- Live status — active or revoked
- Issued only after a passed, monitored exam
Side by side
Our terms, next to the industry's.
“Common industry practice” below describes patterns documented across well-known online Six Sigma certification providers — not any single company.
| Averon Institute | Common industry practice | |
|---|---|---|
| Refund window | 30 days, full refund, if less than 25% of the course is complete | 72-hour windows are common, sometimes minus a 10–15% service fee |
| Exam integrity | Timed, closed-book, identity-confirmed, monitored | Open-book, untimed, unlimited-retake exams are widespread |
| Verifying a credential | Free, public, instant — QR code on every certificate | Often unavailable to employers, or sold back to the graduate as a paid digital badge |
| Credential expiry | Never expires; no renewal fees, ever | Varies — some charge renewal or account-reactivation fees |
| Pricing | One price on the page; course, exam, retake and certificate included | Textbook add-ons, badge fees and reactivation charges after checkout are common |
On accreditation
A straight answer to a question most providers dodge.
Six Sigma has no government-mandated licensing body. Anyone can certify anyone — which is why the industry is full of “accreditations” that sound official but are issued by private organizations, sometimes ones with close ties to the very providers they accredit, and sometimes given away free. An accreditation logo, on its own, tells you almost nothing.
So here is our position, plainly: Averon Institute is an independent institute, and we do not currently hold third-party accreditation. Rather than borrow credibility from a logo, we publish our standards on this page — what the exam demands, what the credential attests, and how anyone can verify it — and we let you check every claim yourself before spending a dollar.
When we do pursue external recognition, it will be from an independent body with no financial relationship to us, and we’ll publish exactly what it covers. Until then: judge the exam, judge the material, and verify the credential. Facts over logos.
Test us
Start with the free White Belt and judge for yourself.
Full course, monitored exam, verifiable credential — free. If our standards hold up, the other belts will be here.