Audinate rebuilt its Dante Certification Program from the ground up for a third edition, rolled out in autumn 2025. The path now runs from Level 1 to Level 3, adds a separate Dante Domain Manager Administrator certification and remains free of charge. For anyone who routes stageboxes, broadcast flypacks or install racks over Dante, the useful question is not whether the courses are worth the time, but which level matches your daily work.
Who it is for and prerequisites
Level 1 assumes no networking background beyond having opened Dante Controller. It suits live engineers, AV installers, broadcast operators and students. Level 2 expects you to be comfortable with IP addressing and managed switches, and Level 3 targets system designers and the IT-minded integrators who build multi-room or multi-site networks. Audinate recommends taking the levels in order, and each exam clearly builds on the previous one.
The courses are delivered in English, with a Spanish version of the third edition available since 10 July 2026. The French page of the Dante website is a landing page only, so French-speaking crews will follow the English material.
What the three levels actually cover
| Level | Typical duration | Main topics |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | about 5 h 30 (5.5 AVIXA RUs) | Dante fundamentals, device discovery, routing in Dante Controller, clocking and latency basics |
| Level 2 | about 8 h | Network design for Dante: VLANs, QoS, IGMP snooping, primary and secondary redundancy |
| Level 3 | about 6 h 15 | PTP in depth, multi-subnet systems, Dante Domain Manager, Dante Director, Dante Connect, Managed API |
| DDM Administrator | 2.75 AVIXA RUs | Domains, user roles and day-to-day administration of Dante Domain Manager |
The real jump sits between Level 1 and Level 2. Level 1 teaches you to make Dante work on a small, clean network. Level 2 explains why it stops working on a real one: multicast flooding when IGMP snooping is misconfigured, clock packets stuck behind bulk traffic when QoS is missing, and redundancy that only looks redundant on paper.
Level 3 reflects where Audinate is heading. Next to the multi-subnet PTP topics that used to require reading white papers, it covers the software and cloud tools the company now sells alongside the protocol: Dante Director for remote device management and Dante Connect for cloud production. If you already manage domains, our explainer on Dante Domain Manager gives the context for the separate administrator certification.
Format
Everything runs online and at your own pace, in short video modules followed by quizzes. Each level ends with a final exam, with up to five attempts, and the certificate remains valid for three years. Audinate also schedules in-person sessions and webinars, including at JTSE in Paris on 25 and 26 November 2026.
Price and funding
The programme costs nothing beyond a free Audinate account. No CPF, OPCO or France Travail file is needed, and none applies. The real cost is time: count around twenty hours for the three levels, more if you replay the network modules with a managed switch on your desk. For AVIXA CTS holders, the courses also count as renewal units, Level 1 alone being worth 5.5 RUs.
The pro view
Most Dante incidents on shows and in trucks are not Dante faults. They are network faults: an unmanaged switch with Energy Efficient Ethernet enabled, a VLAN shared with lighting or video, a multicast flow nobody pruned. Level 2 is precisely the course that addresses them, and the one worth making mandatory for any crew member who touches the patch. Level 3 matters more for whoever designs the system and signs off the network with the IT department. The same discipline applies when control signals move over IP, as described in our piece on virtual GPIO in broadcast.
Verdict
The third edition is the most complete free training path in audio networking today, and the only one tied directly to the protocol most of the industry runs on. Level 1 is an afternoon for experienced engineers, Level 2 is the essential one, and Level 3 is for system designers. The certificate will not replace hours on a busy network, but it gives a crew a shared vocabulary, and that alone saves time at load-in.
In practice
Price: free, Audinate account required
Duration: about 5 h 30 (Level 1), 8 h (Level 2), 6 h 15 (Level 3), plus the separate DDM Administrator certification
Language: English; Spanish version of the third edition since July 2026
Exam: one final exam per level, up to five attempts, certificate valid three years
Links: Dante Certification Program, certification portal
Verified on: 13 November 2026
My take
Free, current and written by the people who designed the protocol: there is little to argue with. If you already route Dante every week, move quickly through Level 1 and spend your real time on Level 2. That is where field failures are explained, and where most crews lose hours on site. Level 3 earns its place once you manage domains or remote devices; otherwise it can wait for your next renewal cycle.
Audinate’s official channel introduces the Dante Certification Program.
