The Best Free Credit Score and Monitoring

If you’ve ever applied for a loan, credit card, or tried to rent, your credit score and history have most certainly been reviewed.

Whether you agree or disagree with the need for credit scores, they’re a financial measure of one’s ability to make payments. Scores are widely accepted today across all aspects of your financial life.

Of course, if you pay with cash, own your home, vow to stay out of debt, avoid car payments or other forms of debt, the need for a credit score diminishes. In some cases, obtaining a home mortgage is even possible with manual underwriting.

We often review the places where you can get your free credit scores as well as monitor them on an ongoing basis. Why? Well, at the very least, as long as credit scores count in obtaining a mortgage or renting, you should probably pay attention.

And as a side note, we’d rather you not have a car note.

Here’s a list of several companies and links to each of our reviews to dive into more detail and evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Free Credit Scores and Credit Monitoring

My FICO

MyFICO offers a 10-day free trial to receive your credit score and credit report from Equifax. They also provide a 10-day Score Watch free trial to keep track of your FICO credit score daily as well as show you what areas you need to improve. Check out our full review of myFICO here.

Credit Sesame

Credit Sesame provides you with a free TransUnion credit score and monitoring with a trial offer. You receive your free credit score each month and can monitor your credit report at no cost. You also get $50,000 in identity theft insurance, plus free fraud resolution assistance. Check out our full review of Credit Sesame here.

TransUnion

TransUnion provides you with your TransUnion credit score for free, plus your full credit report for $1. When you request your free credit score, TransUnion signs you up for a 7-day free trial membership of their credit monitoring service, which normally costs $19.95 per month. You may cancel your membership at no cost before the end of the 7-day free trial. Read our full review of TransUnion’s Credit Monitoring service.

Experian

Experian offers you a free look at your FICO credit score, as well as your full credit report for just $1. Signing up for your credit score gives you a 7-day free trial membership in Experian CreditWorks, which monitors your credit and notifies you when there are key changes to your credit report. If you do not cancel before the end of the 7-day free trial, you will be billed $21.95 each month you continue your membership. The company also offers Experian Boost. Its a service that uses your phone and utility bills to boost your score.

Borrowell

Borrowell offers instant access to your credit score as well as continuing credit monitoring for Canadians. After opening an account with the online lender and providing basic information, such as name, social insurance number (SIN) or credit card number, email, address, date of birth, Borrowell provides Canadians with their credit score and full Equifax credit report (updated monthly). Canadian credit scores can play a role for many lenders including apartment rentals, mortgage applications, credit cards, and more. Borrowell offers additional products including personalized financial product recommendations as well as credit improvement tips & education. Get your credit score from Borrowell.

Credit Karma

Credit Karma provides free credit scores (TransUnion and Equifax), reports and monitoring and educational resources. They also provide a credit report card to break down your score into various factors and give you a rating on each of them. Here’s our full review of Credit Karma.

CreditScoreQuick

CreditScoreQuick teams up with Identify Guard and provides a 14-day free trial of their credit monitoring service. You receive your 3 credit bureau scores and a 3 – in – 1 report. After the free trial, you’re charged a monthly fee.

CreditScoreDirect.com

CreditScoreDirect.com currently provides customers a look at their Experian score free for a free 7-day free trial. After the trial, you’re billed monthly for the service. A credit report can be purchased at an additional price. However, you get access to some information such as negative accounts, length of credit history, etc.

GoFreeCredit.com

GoFreeCredit.com provides your credit scores from all three major credit reporting bureaus during a 7-day free trial. After the trial, you’re charged monthly for the service. Along with your scores, you receive credit monitoring and alerts. Check out our full review of GoFreeCredit.com here.