Gap finder · free, no sign-up
PR Points Gap Finder
Short of your target? Enter your current total and see every legal way left to close the gap — ranked by what it actually costs, in dollars per point and weeks per point, not by which one we’d rather sell you.
Your target
65 gets an EOI into the pool. Real invitation cut-offs in competitive occupations often sit higher.
Which visa are you scoring for?
What have you already claimed?
Tick anything you already hold, so it drops off the list below — there’s no point suggesting something you can’t claim twice.
Ranked by $ per point, the top 2 options below would close a 10-point gap on their own.
Every remaining option, ranked
Costs and timeframes other than the CCL fee and the points values are our estimates, not published figures.
Another qualifying year of skilled employmentcounts toward closing your gap
+5 ptsNo fee — but a full year, and only if it crosses into the next band. Overseas and Australian experience are added together and capped at 20 points combined, so time already banked toward that cap is worth nothing extra.
Retest English to superiorcounts toward closing your gap
+20 ptsThe highest English tier. A meaningful share of fluent, working-professional English speakers do not clear it on a given attempt — cheap on paper per point, but the ceiling is real.
Check the exact score you'd need →Retest English to proficient
+10 ptsAssumes you're currently at competent (0 points). Not available to everyone, and a retake is not guaranteed to land — see the converter for exactly what score you need in each of the four skills.
Check the exact score you'd need →Pass the NAATI CCL
+5 ptsOne sitting, one result. The fee is exact; the 8weeks is our estimate of prep time plus NAATI’s typical 4–6-week wait for the result. You still have to pass — a re-sit is the fee again, in full.
Price in the chance you don't pass first time →Get your partner a positive skills assessment
+5 ptsOnly worth this if your partner already has competent English but no assessment — the step up from that to a full skilled-partner claim.
Complete a professional year in Australia
+5 ptsAt least 12 months, in your nominated or a closely related occupation, within the last 4 years. Course fees only — most people also need to live on something for the year.
Complete a Masters by research or doctorate (STEM)
+10 ptsIncluded for completeness. Nobody should start a PhD for 10 points — three-plus years and tens of thousands of dollars for a points gain that a single CCL sitting can beat outright.
Meet the Australian study requirement
+5 ptsAt least two academic years of study in Australia towards a recognised qualification. This is a multi-year commitment, not a top-up — include it for completeness, not as a quick fix.
Found your cheapest option? The CCL is the one you control.
A nomination depends on a state inviting you; a year of work costs a year. The CCL depends on you passing a test you book yourself — so find out now whether you would.
Free, no account needed. We sell NAATI CCL Punjabi preparation — the practice above is free either way.
How the ranking actually works
Every option left on your list gets the same two numbers: its estimated dollar cost divided by the points it’s worth, and its estimated time divided by the same points. Sorting by either one is a Segmented toggle above the results, and the order you get is whatever that division produces — nothing is pinned to the top. Run it for a 491 with a nomination on offer and you’ll often see the nomination rank above the CCL on raw cost, because a $265 application fee split across 15 points is genuinely cheap.
What the ranking can’t price in is control. A nomination requires a state or territory to actually choose you — it is a decision, not a transaction, and no amount of preparation guarantees it. An English retest to superior requires clearing a band that a meaningful share of fluent, working-professional English speakers never reach no matter how many times they sit it. The CCL’s honest pitch sits underneath both of those: it is usually the cheapest point on the list that depends on nothing but your own performance in a language you already speak, sat once, marked once.
Why stacking beats chasing one big option
Most people who are short by 10 or 15 points look for one option that closes the whole gap and conclude nothing affordable exists. The more realistic path is usually two or three cheaper options stacked together — a CCL pass plus a professional year, say, or a CCL pass plus a partner’s skills assessment. The “counts toward closing your gap” marker above walks down the ranked list and shows exactly which combination gets there first, in the order the current sort puts them.
For a deeper look at where the CCL specifically sits in this picture — what it costs once you price in the chance of a re-sit, and how that compares to the other lines on this list — this explainer goes further than the summary here, and how the points differ across the 189, 190 and 491 covers the nomination side in more depth than fits in one tool.
What this tool will not tell you
It will not tell you whether a state will actually nominate your occupation, whether your work experience will pass a skills assessment as “closely related”, or what your genuine odds are of clearing a higher English band — those are judgement calls for an assessing authority, a state government or your own honest self-assessment, not arithmetic. It also assumes every option is legally open to you; occupation lists, visa conditions and individual eligibility rules can rule options out entirely regardless of what they’d cost. This is a planning tool, not migration advice, and we are not registered migration agents.
Frequently asked questions
What's the cheapest way to gain PR points?+
It depends what you already have on offer. A state or regional nomination, when one is available to your occupation, is usually the cheapest points on the board per dollar — but it's a decision a government makes about you, not something you can simply go and buy. Among the options anyone eligible can act on unilaterally, the NAATI CCL (5 points for a $814 sitting fee) is usually the cheapest that doesn't depend on someone else's discretion or a rare English ceiling.
Is this tool just trying to sell me the CCL?+
No — run it and check the actual ranking. Depending on your visa and toggles, a nomination or an English retest can rank above the CCL on pure $/point and weeks/point. We show that plainly rather than reordering the list to flatter our own course. The CCL's real advantage is narrower than 'cheapest': it's the option that depends only on your own performance, with no state's discretion and no unusually high English ceiling to clear.
I'm short by more points than any single option gives me — what then?+
Combine them. The list ranks every option you haven't already claimed, and marks which ones, taken together from the top down, would close your specific gap. If the running total across everything on the list still falls short of your target, the tool says so plainly rather than implying a combination exists when it doesn't.
Why does the tool ask what I've already claimed?+
Because suggesting a professional year to someone who's already done one, or superior English to someone who already holds it, would be actively misleading — those points are already banked and can't be claimed twice. Ticking what you already have removes it from the list rather than double-counting it.
Does 491 or 190 change which options are worth it?+
Yes. A subclass 189 has no nomination path at all, so those rows disappear from the list. A 190 adds a state nomination worth 5 points; a 491 adds a regional nomination worth 15 — but the 491 is provisional and carries a 5-year commitment to a regional area, which the tool flags as a life decision, not just an arithmetic one.
Are the costs and timeframes here official?+
The points values are — they come straight from Schedule 6D, same as the main calculator. The dollar and week figures for everything except the CCL's fixed fee are our own honest estimates, labelled as such, because none of these processes publish a single official price or duration. Treat them as a planning range, not a quote.
Related tools
Australia PR Points Calculator
Every factor in the skilled migration points test, scored live against the 65-point pool mark.
NAATI CCL Cost Calculator
The sitting fee is the advertised price. This is the honest one.
Read the detail
- The Cheapest Ways to Gain PR Points, Ranked
Nine ways to add points to the skilled migration test, laid out as arithmetic: what each one costs, how long it takes, and the catch that the sticker price doesn't show.
- How Many Points Do You Actually Need for Australian PR?
65 is the minimum to submit an Expression of Interest for the 189, 190 or 491 — not the score that gets invited. The gap between the two is the whole game, and almost nobody says so plainly.
- The 5 PR Points NAATI CCL Gives You — and How to Claim Them
Where the 5 PR points NAATI CCL gives you actually sit in the points test for the 189, 190 and 491 visas — and why they so often decide who gets invited.
Every tool on this site is free and ungated — see all of them.