Where your
study hours go
Put in the date you are sitting FAR and the hours a week you can actually sustain. This works out the content-area split from the published Blueprint weight ranges, in your browser. It does not ask for an email address, and it does not tell you a total number of hours — no examining body publishes one. Whether you call it a CPA study plan, a study schedule or a study planner, the decision underneath is the same: where a fixed number of hours goes.
Hours to allocate
—
| Area | Content | Weight | Your hours |
|---|
Why the output is a range
The Blueprint states each content area as a range, not a point. Area I is 30 to 40% of the exam; so is Area II; Area III is 25 to 35%. Turning those into a single percentage each would invent a precision nobody published, so the allocation stays a range and the judgement about where you sit inside it stays yours.
The useful reading: take the low end for an area you already work in professionally, and the high end for one you have never touched. The ranges overlap, which means there is no area small enough to skip — the narrowest is still a quarter of the exam.
| Area | Content | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Area I | Financial Reporting | 30–40% |
| Area II | Select Balance Sheet Accounts | 30–40% |
| Area III | Select Transactions | 25–35% |
What this planner does not do
- It does not tell you a total. There is no published study-hours figure for FAR; the ranges you see quoted elsewhere carry no primary source. The longer version of why that matters →
- It does not allocate minutes inside the exam. Multiple-choice and simulations carry about half the score each, and hours of study do not fix pacing. That is a separate calculation — the simulation time budget.
- It does not estimate whether you will pass. Time available is not evidence of coverage. The pass-probability estimator moves on what you have actually answered, and it is not validated against real exam outcomes.
Common questions
Is this CPA study planner free?
Yes, and it does not ask for an email address. It runs in your browser: nothing you type is sent anywhere and nothing is stored.
How does it decide how many hours go to each area?
By the published Blueprint content-area weight ranges — 30–40%, 30–40% and 25–35% of the exam. Your total available hours are split across those ranges, so every figure comes out as a range rather than a single number.
Why does it not tell me how many hours I need in total?
Because no examining body publishes that figure. A planner that hands you a total is handing you somebody’s estimate with the source removed. This one starts from the hours you can actually sustain and shows where they have to go.
Does it work for sections other than FAR?
Not yet. The weight ranges built into it are the FAR ones, and applying them to another section would be inventing an allocation the Blueprint does not state.
What is the difference between a CPA study plan and a study schedule?
In practice nothing — people use study plan, study schedule and study planner for the same job, which is deciding where a fixed number of hours goes. A schedule usually implies calendar dates and a plan implies topic order, but the arithmetic underneath is the same one this page does.
What we are building for this
Exam Copilot is FAR practice, diagnosis and tutoring built around an evidence-based estimate rather than around a content library. When you miss a question, it opens by asking you one thing about the specific wrong choice you made, rather than pasting the explanation. You get the full walkthrough within a few exchanges either way — and if you would rather just have it, ask three times and it is yours.
It is not open yet — no question in the practice bank has been reviewed by a licensed CPA.