Which Techniques Training Suits a Working Private Investigator?

Match the course to the work you bill for most. Insurance and domestic cases call for surveillance, witness work for interviewing, and attorney support for evidence handling, notes, reports and testimony. Prices below are from our course catalog as of October 2026, and the hours are on each course page.

The surveillance course covers fixed, loose and close, moving, and two-man and three-man foot surveillance, plus aerial and electronic surveillance and how surveillance photos and video are handled in court. The evidence course covers search methods, scene photography, sketching, marking, packaging, documentation and chain of custody. For more on that subject, see training that improves evidence collection. The interviewing course covers interview and interrogation compared, memory and stress, using an observer, and dealing with victims and witnesses; the interview techniques guide covers field practice.

Every course in the table lists approval in Georgia, Minnesota, Tennessee and Texas. The Surveillance, Interviewing, Interrogation, Background Investigation, Insurance Fraud, Note Taking, Report Writing and Testifying pages also list North Carolina. Those are the course pages' statements, and your board has the final word.

It varies from 6 hours a year to 18 hours every two years. The table shows four states and the share one four-hour course covers. That share is our arithmetic: 4 divided by the required hours.

Agency owners and managers should confirm their own figure with the board, since the Georgia rule is stated for employees. Once the state is known, the real work is making the hours count.

Rules limit format and topic as well as hours. North Carolina caps on-demand online credit at 6 of 12 hours, while live virtual classroom courses are not subject to the cap (PPSB). Self-paced courses, ours included, are on-demand, so in our reading the cap applies to them.

Georgia fixes slots for ethics and homeland security, so 12 hours of surveillance and interviewing alone will not complete a renewal (Rule 509-3-.12). Georgia private detective employees renewing for the first time since their license was granted are exempt from CE entirely, so buying a full block early wastes money.

Minnesota counts only board-certified programs. It also requires the instructor to give evidence of completion that shows the subject area and the hours (Rule 7506.2700). A certificate that lacks either detail can fail an audit.

In our judgment, the common mistake is buying by course title and discovering the hours or format fall outside the rule. North Carolina students taking our courses are told on our course pages to email sharondecet@yahoo.com so a form can be sent for submission to the board. Within the 6-hour online allowance, one four-hour course that lists North Carolina, such as Surveillance at $80, fits; two would total 8 hours.

It costs $320 for 16 hours on our courses, against $175 for our fixed 16-hour Georgia renewal course, so choosing the subjects costs $145 more. The $320 is our model, not an official figure: three technique courses at $80 each ($240) plus 133 Ethics at $40 and 134 Homeland Security Part 1 at $40.

The model gives 12 industry, 2 ethics and 2 homeland security hours, matching the rule. It assumes the board treats surveillance, interviewing and evidence collection as industry-related, which is our reading of the rule. Our Georgia renewal course page says the 16-hour course meets the standards set by the Georgia Board of Private Detectives and Security Agencies for renewal. Prices are as of October 2026.

Pay the $145 premium only if the subjects matter to your caseload. If you only need the hours, the fixed course is cheaper.

Our technique courses run $10.94 to $20.00 per hour as of October 2026 (the 16-hour Expert Private Investigation Course to the 4-hour courses). In the price lists compared here, longer courses generally cost less per hour. Learningshopusa publishes this page and its own courses are among those compared. Per-hour figures are our arithmetic: price divided by hours, from each provider's own price page as of October 2026.

Short courses cost the most per hour. In our judgment, price per hour matters least when the course is the wrong format or topic for your state.

We do not teach open-source intelligence (OSINT, which means researching people and businesses from public online sources), digital forensics, skip tracing or live field drills. Our catalog covers the techniques and law-and-evidence topics in the first table, as self-paced courses with a certificate of completion. For the skills above, choose another provider and apply the same state checks.

Run five tests, each with a clear pass or fail. For a deeper walk-through, read will this PI course count in my state, and for renewals generally see PI continuing education for renewal.

1. Board approval. Pass: your board's published list names the course or provider, or the board confirms in writing. Fail: only the provider says it is approved.
2. Format cap. Pass: your on-demand hours stay within your state's limit (North Carolina: 6 of 12). Fail: more than that.
3. Topic slots. Pass: the hours match the required split (Georgia: 12 industry, 2 ethics, 2 homeland security). Fail: any slot is short.
4. Certificate detail. Pass: the certificate shows the subject and the hours. Fail: either is missing (Minnesota requires both).
5. Timing. Pass: you are past any first-renewal exemption (Georgia). Fail: you are inside it, so wait.

If your caseload sits in the first table, call (832) 922-1215 or (706) 268-2221, Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM EST, to set up a corporate account or ask which courses suit your state. Every course and price is in our course catalog.