How to Certify Your Product: A Step-by-Step Guide

Bringing a hardware product to market involves more than just design and manufacturing. One of the most overlooked hurdles is certification, the formal process of proving that your product meets the safety and regulatory standards required to sell in different markets.

This guide walks you through the certification journey step by step, helping you plan ahead, manage costs, and avoid delays that can stall a launch. You’ll discover how hardware teams can navigate certification the first time and stay on budget.

Inside, you’ll find:

• A step-by-step roadmap from concept to market
• How to choose the right standards, labs, and accreditation bodies
• Practical budgeting tactics to reduce certification costs‍

Key Points

• Begin planning for certification at the concept stage to identify compliance requirements early, which helps avoid expensive redesigns and speeds up market entry. Addressing certification needs early also builds investor confidence by showing you're managing risks proactively and committed to quality (Sucofindo).
• Choose the right standards and accredited labs from the start. Conduct inexpensive pre-compliance testing to catch issues related to electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), safety, and batteries before manufacturing tools are made.
• Be strategic about labs and standards—picking the correct ones early saves time and money.
• Budget smart by setting aside a portion of your hardware spending for certification and testing. You can save money by combining related tests like safety, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), and wireless. Also, linking payments to project milestones can help manage costs and potentially lead to big savings (Netsuite).
• After certification, continue to ensure compliance by regularly testing components, materials, and making changes to ensure future products meet regulations.

Why Product Certification Matters for Startup Hardware Teams

Certification is the process of proving that your device meets recognized product testing standards, while compliance is the legal requirement to meet those standards (Jingsourcing), and regulatory approvals – such as Conformité Européenne (CE) in Europe or Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. – are the official stamps that let you ship (GME).

Many founders assume certification can wait until after the MVP ships. However there are many reasons why certification shouldn’t be delayed:

1. Speed to market –  Certified products often benefit from expedited customs clearance and smoother retail onboarding processes, since compliance is already demonstrated. This reduces delays from inspections or missing documentation and improves overall supply chain efficiency (Across Logistics).
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2. Cost avoidance – Up to 50% of total development costs stem from testing and rework; early certification planning slashes late-stage redesigns (QU6.io).
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3. Investor confidence – Demonstrating a clear certification roadmap de-risks hardware bets and unlocks non-dilutive financing options tied to shipping milestones (Dealmaker).

It's often thought that you should wait to get certified until after your product's first version (Minimum Viable Product or MVP) is out. However, if you have to fix design issues after you've already started making tools or setting up production, it can be very expensive. This is because parts like the outer casing, circuit boards, and internal software (or firmware) might already be finalized or the cost of rework might be significant. Making these changes later can be much more costly and take a lot more time. (Fictiv).

Mapping the Product Certification Process from Concept to Market

Below is a six-step product certification process you can drop into any Gantt chart. Think of it as the backbone of your hardware development plan.

1. Requirements Discovery
   Determine which rules and standards apply to the product, the places it will be sold, and what customers need. Tools to help: A chart outlining market needs and a scan for upcoming regulations.
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2. Design for Compliance
   Bake standards into the design spec. “Standards may seem like obstacles, but they're design inputs that ensure your device will work as intended in every scenario,” notes Etienne Nichols of Greenlight Guru (Greenlight Guru).
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3. Pre-Compliance Testing
   Using samples during development to check for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), safety, and environmental impact is crucial. Identifying problems at this stage is inexpensive, saving potentially millions later.
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4. Formal Application
   Send a technical document, containing diagrams, a list of all parts and materials (“Bill of Materials”), and a risk assessment, to a certified laboratory or a regulatory body (“Notified Body”).
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5. Factory Audit & Witness Testing
   Laboratories check your quality system and observe important tests. For CE marking (a certification that shows a product meets European safety, health, and environmental protection requirements), this might involve audits for ISO 9001 (an international standard for quality management systems) or evaluations of production quality (Trade Commissioner).
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6. Certification Mark Issuance
   Once all identified problems from testing and checks are fixed, the certification body provides a certificate. This certificate is called a "certification mark,” and it allows the manufacturer to legally add marks like UL (Underwriters Laboratories) or CE (Conformité Européenne) to the product (Premier-Research).

Identifying Applicable Standards and Planning Compliance Testing

The fastest way to blow a schedule is to test against the wrong product testing standards.

The best place to start is by mapping requirements by geography (where you’ll sell) and by function (what your product does). From there, run a gap analysis – compare your design specs against each clause of the relevant standard.

Leo Eisner, known as “the IEC 60601 Guy,” emphasizes that integrating standards early in the design phase prevents costly risks later in a project (Greenlight Guru). (By the way, IEC 60601 refers to a series of technical standards for the safety and essential performance of medical electrical equipment.)

Some technologies require extra attention during testing. For example, integrating lithium-ion batteries into wearables introduces unique safety challenges, such as thermal management and fire risk. Identifying these risks early helps you prioritize lab time and test plans around the highest-risk modules.

Budgeting and Timeline Tips for a Smooth Product Certification Journey

• Plan a compliance budget: Projects related to radio frequency (RF) and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) often cost tens of thousands of dollars. Tektronix, for example, estimates $10,000–$20,000 for intentional radiators (devices that intentionally emit radio waves) to meet Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Conformité Européenne (CE) standards. For using external labs, the cost can be $1,000-$10,000 per day.
• Perform Early Product Testing (EVT) for Compliance: Testing your product early helps avoid re-testing and delays, as many products don't pass Electro-Magnetic Compatibility (EMC) standards on the first try.
• Bundle scopes: Ask labs to quote electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) tests, plus safety, environmental, and wireless tests together to save time and money. (Intertek).
• Utilize milestone payments: Divide payments by milestones: 30% when testing begins, 40% when the draft report is submitted, and 30% when the certificate is issued.

Pro tip: Use certification milestones to unlock staged purchase orders with retailers—revenue financing with built-in risk gates.

FAQs

Who uses product certifications and why do investors care?
Product certifications are required by regulators, retailers, and enterprise buyers; investors value them because they de-risk compliance recalls and accelerate time-to-revenue.

How much does certification usually cost?
Costs vary by product complexity and region. For example, combined FCC/CE testing for wireless devices can run $10,000-$20,000, while simpler low-voltage products may only require a few thousand dollars in testing fees (Tektronix).

How long does certification take?
A typical certification timeline ranges from several weeks to a few months, depending on lab capacity, product complexity, and whether the device passes testing the first time. Pre-compliance testing can shorten this timeline significantly.

Can certification be reused if we make design changes?
It depends on the change. Small tweaks may only require limited re-testing, but material changes (like batteries, antennas, or enclosures) often trigger new evaluations.

Do we need certification before raising capital?
Not always – but having a clear certification plan (timeline, budget, labs selected) builds investor confidence and prevents surprises during diligence.

Conclusion

A proactive certification strategy is one of the highest-ROI tasks a hardware startup can tackle. From mapping standards early to negotiating smart lab contracts, every step you take before tooling reduces the odds of costly redesigns and launch delays. Use the action items in each section, engage accredited labs during design, and turn certification from a roadblock into a competitive advantage.