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There are hundreds of companies offering free credit reports, free credit scores, free credit monitoring services, and more. But which one, or ones, are the best?
A good company, or app, will monitor your credit’s critical features, including payment history, credit utilization, the status of individual credit accounts, and more. Many also offer separate features for monitoring identity fraud.
Below we’ll explore some of the most well-known credit monitoring services, paid and free, to see if they are a good fit for your credit building or credit repair needs.
7 Best Credit Monitoring Apps:
- Credit Karma: The Best Overall
- Experian CreditWorks: Best for Free FICO Score
- MyFICO: Best for All FICO Scores
- Nav: Best for Business Owners
- Credit Sesame
- Mint
- Capital One CreditWise
Best Credit Monitoring Apps Compared
| Brand Name | Credit Scoring Model | Credit Bureaus Pulled | Price |
| Credit Karma | VantageScore 3.0 | TransUnion & Equifax | $0 |
| Experian CreditWorks | FICO Score 8 | Experian | $0 or $24.99/month for upgraded service |
| MyFICO | FICO Score 8 and other FICO scoring models | Experian, TransUnion, & Equifax | $19.95 – $39.95/month |
| Nav | VantageScore 3.0 | Experian & TransUnion | $0 – $49.99/month |
| Credit Sesame | VantageScore 3.0 | TransUnion (free account) | $0 |
| Mint | VantageScore 3.0 | TransUnion | $0 – $4.99/month |
| Capital One CreditWise | VantageScore 3.0 | TransUnion & Experian | $0 |
Credit Karma: Best Overall
Credit Score Provided: VantageScore 3.0
Credit Bureaus Checked: TransUnion & Equifax
Identity Theft Insurance: No
Cost: Free
Credit Karma offers a wide range of tools to help you monitor your credit. Signup is free, and they will monitor your Equifax and TransUnion reports for any changes. If changes are spotted, you will receive notifications via email or push.
Credit Karma also provides guidance on how to dispute incorrect information on your credit reports and/or set up fraud alerts with each of the three major credit bureaus.
You also get access to identity monitoring tools, full credit reports, and plenty of educational resources. Credit Karma will consider your current credit situation and recommend credit cards, loans, and other services that best suit your credit building goals.
Here at Digital Honey, we voted Credit Karma the best overall credit monitoring app because they offer a variety of credit monitoring services for free.
Experian CreditWorks Basic: Best for Free FICO Score
Credit Score Provided: FICO Score 8
Credit Bureaus Checked: Experian plus TransUnion & Equifax if you upgrade
Identity Theft Insurance: Only with upgraded package
Cost: Free for basic, $24.99/month for Premium
The Experian credit reporting agency offers its own credit monitoring service. Experian CreditWorks allows you to monitor your Experian credit profile.
When you sign up for their free service, you’ll get access to your full Experian credit report. You’ll also get the option to customize your alerts. i.e., you can set a special alert to let you know when your credit score reaches a specific value.
As part of their credit monitoring service, you will get a free Experian FICO credit score, identity protection alerts, and access to their Boost tool for increasing your credit score using your utility and subscription bills.
Experian also has an upgraded credit monitoring package that offers you access to all three credit bureaus, a credit simulator, identity theft protection services, and more.
Because Experian CreditWorks gives you a free FICO score, we voted them the best resource for free FICO scores.
MyFICO: Best for All FICO Scores
Credit Score Provided: FICO Score 8
Credit Bureaus Checked: Experian, Equifax, & TransUnion
Identity Theft Insurance: Yes
Cost: $19.95 – $39.95 a month
MyFICO is a credit monitoring service created by the same people who invented credit scores.
The credit monitoring service offered by MyFICO has varied price points depending on how many credit reports you need and how often you want your score refreshed.
MyFICO Plans
| Basic | Advanced | Premier | |
| Credit Bureaus | 1 (your choice) | 3 | 3 |
| Refresh Period | 1 month | 3 months | 1 month |
| Monthly Cost | $19.95 | $29.95 | $39.95 |
Source: MyFICO
As part of their service, you get access to full credit reports, a variety of FICO scoring models (i.e., scores used for auto loans, home loans, and credit cards) identity theft insurance, a score simulator, and more. Identity monitoring only comes with the Advanced & Premier packages.
Their credit monitoring service looks at the FICO Score 8 model and will notify you of changes to your credit report(s) and scores.
Because of the wide variety of credit scores MyFICO offers, we rated them as the best-paid option for credit scores.
Nav: Best for Small Business Owners
Credit Score Provided: VantageScore 3.0
Credit Bureaus Checked: Experian & TransUnion
Identity Theft Insurance: Yes (with paid subscription)
Cost: $0 – $49.99 a month
Nav provides users with a variety of business and personal credit scores and reports, depending on which subscription you choose. Many people call Nav “Credit Karma for Business”.
Nav Subscription Plans
| Free | Business Manager | Business Boost | Business Loan Builder | |
| Personal Credit Bureaus | Experian | Experian & TransUnion | Experian & TransUnion | Experian & TransUnion |
| Business Credit Bureaus | Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, Equifax | Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, Equifax | Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, Equifax | Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, Equifax, SBSS |
| Monthly Cost | $0 | $29.99 | $39.99 | $49.99 |
Source: Nav
Their free option only comes with a credit summary which limits the credit monitoring options, but all of the paid packages come with full credit monitoring.
The paid subscriptions also come with identity theft insurance. The Boost and Loan Builder plans even come with a business credit reporting service (Nav is added as a tradeline to your business credit reports).
In other words, Nav’s Business Boost plan doesn’t just monitor your business credit, it helps you build business credit.
When building and monitoring business credit, it’s important to know what your business and personal credit scores look like. This is why we rated Nav as the best credit monitoring option for small business owners.
Credit Sesame
Credit Score Provided: VantageScore 3.0
Credit Bureaus Checked: TransUnion
Identity Theft Insurance: Yes
Cost: $0
If you are looking for a direct alternative to Credit Karma, then Credit Sesame is worth considering.
This credit monitoring service looks at your TransUnion credit report and score. Credit Sesame will send you alerts immediately of any changes on your TransUnion credit report. Your credit report is monitored and your score is refreshed once a month.
Their credit monitoring service also includes free identity theft insurance, personalized budgeting tips, and product recommendations.
Mint
Credit Score Provided: VantageScore 3.0
Credit Bureaus Checked: TransUnion
Identity Theft Insurance: No
Cost: $0 – $4.99/month
Mint is an app designed to help you track your personal finances. As part of their overall service, they include credit monitoring.
The budgeting tools require you to link all of your existing accounts (credit cards, bank accounts, investment accounts, etc.) to use the features fully.
Mint monitors your TransUnion report daily and sends you alerts when they notice any changes.
In addition to budgeting and credit monitoring tools, Mint also offers finance-related alerts (spending, bills due, etc.), bill negotiation, free evaluation with a financial coach, investment tracking, and more.
Mint also offers two upgraded subscriptions; their Ad-free plan for $0.99/month and their Premium account with subscription cancellation services for $4.99/month.
CreditWise from Capital One
Credit Score Provided: VantageScore 3.0
Credit Bureaus Checked: TransUnion & Experian (monitoring only, no score)
Identity Theft Insurance: No
Cost: $0
This service should be familiar to those who already have a credit card or loan with Capital One. That said, the service is available to everyone, regardless of whether or not you have an account with Capital One.
CreditWise checks your TransUnion credit score and report. They will notify you if they find any changes to your Experian or TransUnion credit report.
In addition to credit monitoring services, CreditWise also offers identity monitoring (looking for your information on the dark web), a score simulator, and more.
FAQs
How Does a Credit Monitoring Service Work?
Each credit monitoring service pairs with one or more credit bureaus.
When you first sign up, they’ll pull a credit report and credit score to determine your starting point.
From this point on, they will monitor your credit and look for any changes, usually on a daily basis. These changes can include new accounts, new inquiries, large changes in credit score (up or down), personal information that looks incorrect (i.e., new address), and more.
The credit monitoring service will then notify you of any changes they find. Most services offer email notifications, and several offer push notifications as well. Some credit monitoring services even let you customize how and when you want to receive alerts.
How Much Does a Credit Monitoring Service Cost?
Credit monitoring services don’t have to cost a thing. Many companies offer these services for free. They can afford to do this in one of four ways.
1. They get revenue through ads
2. They receive revenue through product recommendations
3. You are already a customer (i.e., credit card)
4. They get revenue from upgraded subscriptions
There are limitations to these free credit monitoring services. You often only get access to one credit report, and the score you are provided with is usually a VantageScore instead of a FICO score.
Credit monitoring companies that charge for their service use a price point between $5 and $50 a month. And they often provide services beyond just credit monitoring, including identity theft insurance, budgeting tools, additional credit scores, and more.
Is Credit Monitoring Worth It?
As most services are free, credit monitoring is worth it. Why not take advantage of a free credit monitoring service that can help you improve your credit score.
But how exactly does a credit monitoring service improve your credit score?
By monitoring changes and looking for suspicious activity, you can catch fraud early on and work to fix the errors that appear on your credit report. Over time, this will help you improve your credit score and keep it up. And this clean credit file can make all the difference to lenders.
Credit monitoring services that offer identity theft protection and restoration go one step further in helping you recover your credit.
Companies that provide direct reporting services, like Experian and Nav, can directly impact your credit by adding to your credit history.
Even a credit monitoring service that charges a monthly fee is usually worth it if you are making full use of their premium features.
Credit monitoring services are still worthwhile once you have achieved a good credit score. After all, the only way to remain on top is to catch problems before they arise.
Amanda Garland is a personal finance blogger living in Dallas, TX. 10 years ago she was living paycheck to paycheck and knew nothing about how credit works. She learned some hard lessons in her fight for financial stability. Now she has a friendly competition going with her husband to see who can reach a credit score of 850 first. She is also a poet, having obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing.