In this post we talk about how to check your credit score for free.
If you’ve ever wanted to take out a loan or get a mortgage, you’ve probably had to think about your credit score – that mysterious, elusive and somewhat arbitrary measurement of your ability to deal with money. For reasons that we’ll explain in this article, checking your credit score regularly is actually important whether or not you’re planning on taking out a loan.
Unfortunately, many of the sites that offer you to check your credit score ask for a small fee. It can be harder to find services that offer to show you your credit score for free—but it certainly is possible! Here’s how:
How to Check Your Credit Score For Free – A Simple Guide
Why check your credit score
First of all, let’s have a deeper look into why you should check your credit score.
Your credit score affects your ability to get a favorable loan, to have low credit card fees, even to rent a house. All in all, the difference between someone with an excellent credit score and someone with a much lower one can be thousands of dollars on simple loans.
When you think about how important your credit score is, it’s quite shocking to learn that up to 1 in 5 Americans may have an error on their credit report. That’s the first job of checking your credit score: ensuring that you’re able to catch any error before applying for a loan.
The second reason to check your credit score is to prevent identity theft. If you find that your credit score is significantly lower than it should be, it’s a sure-fire sign that someone else took out credit in your name. This is actually more common than you’d think, and something that is good to check up on regularly.
How often should you check your credit score?
Now, do these risks mean that you have to check your credit score religiously every day?
Only if you have a good reason to be worried about these prospects. But in most cases, we recommend simply checking out your credit score when you are doing other financial activities. When you’re preparing your tax report for example, or are going through your quarterly expenses. By making checking your credit score an integral part of your financial admin routine, you can save yourself a lot of pain in the long run.
At the very least, we recommend that you always check your credit score before applying for loans or a credit. That’s the best way to prevent any errors that could cost you a serious amount of money.
How do online services check your credit score?
Each online service that offers to check your credit score for free works a bit differently.
To calculate your credit score, these services will use different credit bureaus. The most popular ones being TransUnion, followed by Equifax and Experian.
The second thing that affects the score that these services provide is the credit scoring model that they use. In most cases, the model that they use is a bit different from the one that a bank would use. However, this doesn’t mean that the result provided won’t be roughly the same. The most popular credit scoring model used by online services is called VantageScore 3.0.
Also keep in mind the fact that online services don’t necessarily give you a reading that is exactly accurate at the moment of checking. On average, these services will update information on your score every week to every month. This means that if you make a considerable purchase, or make a credit card payment, the credit score which they give you might not be able to reflect that just yet. We recommend that you check up on these services regularly to get a more accurate assessment of your score.
Are credit scores given by free websites accurate?
Credit scores given by free websites tend to accurately represent the state of your score as your bank will be able to see it. That being said, because online services generally use tools that are a bit different from the ones that are at your bank’s disposal, there may be some variations.
Banks tend to use a model called the FICO 8 credit score. This is a different model from the one that most free online services use. That being said, you might still be able to access this score by using Discover, or your bank’s own free credit score service if applicable.
If you want to get a completely accurate credit score, the best thing to do is to investigate into the model that your bank uses, and find a service that does the same. In some cases, these services will charge a fee, but you can generally find a free alternative.
Services that offer free credit scores: our recommendations
Now that you (hopefully) understand a bit better
- how a credit score works
- why you should check it
- how certain services do it for free
let’s have a look at the more practical aspect of checking your credit score.
There are a few, reliable services available today that let you check your credit score for free, no matter what your bank is. These are:
- Credit Karma
- Mint
- CreditWise by Capital One
- Credit Journey by Chase
- Credit Sesame
Another option which we’ll also discuss is getting your credit score directly from your bank. Here are the banks that offer that service:
- American Express
- Bank of America
- Citi
- U.S Bank
- Wells Fargo
Free online credit score services
Credit Karma
Credit Karma is a rapidly growing platform that allows you to check your credit score for free. As of today, they have well over 80 million members, attesting to their lasting popularity.
What we like about this service is how straight-forward it is. By visiting the Credit Karma site or using the app, you’re never encouraged to make a purchase, or provide your credit card information.
Some additional perks that the company offers is calculating the likelihood of your application to certain loans or credit cards being accepted. They also provide help should you detect a mistake or something odd in your credit score.
Finally, certainly the most valuable feature of Credit Karma is that it can help you to improve your score overtime. By monitoring how your score changes and the cause behind these changes, the algorithm comes up with personal recommendations on improving your score.
So if you are looking to check your credit score to see what is the best credit that you can apply for, this may be a particularly useful service.
CreditWise by Capital One
CreditWise is a service created by the credit card company Capital One. It’s accessible on both desktop and mobile phone.
What we love most about this one is the intuitive, minimalist design. It is remarkably easy to use, and provides charts that are easy to read and understand.
As well as showing you your credit score, CreditWise also gives some background on the things that are affecting it. You also get the option to change different variables to see how your credit score would react, and to get a simplified report if you’re checking your score regularly.
Credit Journey by Chase
This service is quite similar to CreditWise. It was also started by a credit card company, this time Chase, and is equally accessible to non-clients.
This is one of the simplest services you’ll be able to find. It presents information in an easy, straightforward manner, with useful graphs and figures.
A couple of additional features are the possibility of setting up alerts, a simplified summary, and a credit score simulator.
Credit Sesame
Credit Sesame is an independent (not owned by a credit card company) service that offers a free credit score reading along with some useful perks.
One of its best features is that it can track how your credit score changes over time. In fact, the service prides itself in being somewhat of an advisor that can help you to improve your credit score overtime. How it does it is by keeping track of changes in your score and what affects them. Based on that, the service sends you personalized tips on how to keep your score up or increase it.
Credit sesame does also offer a wide range of additional features in a paid version. These include more regular credit scores and calculations based on three different credit bureaus.
Mint
Mint is not primarily known as a credit score checker. It’s a finance-tracking app and program that also lets you check your credit score.
If you’re not already using Mint to organize your finances, you may not find it to be the best option to check your credit score. Even though it provides fairly accurate readings, those are only updated once per quarter—which is very slow compared to most other services on the list!
Free credit score services offered to bank clients
There’s independent services that offer you free credit scores (often against affiliate percentages if you choose a certain credit, or encouragement to go for a premium, pay-for plan). And then there’s banks that have a free credit score service built-in. These are actually some of the most popular banks in the country, so it’s well worth checking if you have an account with any of them:
American Express
If you are a primary cardholder from American Express, you are entitled to seeing your credit score for free. The calculation that they provide is based on the Experian bureau and the FICO 8 credit score model, which are the most commonly used by banks everywhere. This means that if you have an (active) account with American Express, you’ll get to access one of the most accurate free credit scores available.
As a side note, American Express also offers other credit score models like Vantage Score 3.0. This is a less-commonly used system, but it’s good to know that you have the option to use this one too.
To get your free credit score from American Express, simply log into your online account, and find the “credit score” section.
Bank of America
Bank of America also offers access to free credit scores to any cardholder. Again, this is a score that is based on the FICO 8 model, so the one most banks you’d apply for credits with would use.
The only issue that we have with this service is that scores are only updated once a month.
To check your free score, login to your online account and look for the “credit score” section.
Citi
If you’re using a Citi credit card, you could gain access to an Equifax credit score. This is generally considered a very accurate score, in keeping with the ones that most banks use.
Be careful though, the score is only updated monthly. It is also not available to all credit card users, as it only works with certain plans.
U.S Bank
The U.S bank offers clients a free TransUnion credit score. This one is updated monthly and can be checked on your online account.
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo is one of the only banks to offer a free, Experian FICO 9 credit score.
To be eligible, you need to be an active, primary cardholder of a Wells Fargo card.
You can access your score on your online account. It is updated monthly and even comes with a few tips on improving your score.
The Takeaway
As long as banks and lenders continue to take credit scores seriously, so will we. And in the case of personal finances, ignorance isn’t bliss. So getting a free credit card score and checking up on it regularly is crucial. Make sure to have a look at different options, and choose the model that most closely follows the one that your bank uses. And remember, credit scores are not always updated regularly. So you’d do well to come back and check your score regularly after any important financial change.
We hope you like this post on how to check your credit score for free – and let us know if you have any feedback in the comments below!
