The Best Free Credit Score Sites

Having a good credit score is integral to getting goods and services at a reasonable rate. Most creditors pull up at least one of your scores, whether you are looking for a loan, housing, a credit card, or some other product or service.

It’s important to have at least a rough idea of your current credit score, whether that’s so you’re prepared for what creditors are going to see when they pull up your history, you are trying to improve your score, or something else.

Several different services can help you get a good overall picture of your credit health. But which are the best? And what do their scores really tell you? Below, we explain what credit scores are and list some of our favorite places to access your scores for free.

Read on for the details!

What Are Credit Scores?

In short, credit scores are numbers that represent your creditworthiness. Lenders, credit card issuers, and other services that expect payment for their products and services, such as utility companies, cell phone providers, and more, look at your credit score. Your score indicates how likely you are to pay on-time in the future. Personal credit scores range anywhere from 300 to 850; the higher your score, the better.

Each creditor has their own ideas about what’s considered “good” credit, but typically, if you have a score above 600, you won’t have a difficult time finding creditors willing to work with you. However, the higher your credit, the more services you’ll qualify for and the better rates you’ll receive.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have just one credit score; in fact, you have many. Credit scores are derived from your credit report — a history of your past debts, payments, and other information gathered by credit reporting agencies. The three big credit reporting agencies are Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. While all three agencies gather similar information about you, they might not all have the same information. You can learn more about the ins and outs of the agencies via our guide to the three credit bureaus.

A scoring algorithm, usually either VantageScore or FICO, is applied to your credit report to come up with your score. As such, consumers have many different credit scores, depending on the scoring system and the credit report your information was derived from.

VantageScore VS FICO

Credit scores are derived from your credit report using a scoring model, either VantageScore or FICO. Both have scales of 300 to 850, but they might return different scores because they place importance on different factors.

Most free credit score services get their data from VantageScore. However, many creditors will look at your FICO score. If a potential lender pulls your TransUnion FICO score, for example, they will get a different number than what you see from your free credit score service.

That said, the difference in scores doesn’t tend to be significant; if you have a high FICO score, you will also have a high score from VantageScore. Conversely, if you have poor (or inaccurate) marks on your report, they will be reflected by both VantageScore and FICO as a lower score. For general credit score monitoring, either VantageScore or FICO will suit most consumer’s purposes.

If you need to know your FICO score, for whatever reason, you have a few different options:

• Some of your FICO scores can be accessed for free via Discover Credit Scorecard (see below). This score is derived from your Equifax data.
• Scores derived from all three credit reporting agencies can be purchased directly from FICO via myFICO. Currently, monthly access to scores from all three agencies can be purchased for $39.95 ($29.95 for quarterly access).
• Some credit card issuers, or other places that extend credit, will provide your scores if you are a customer.

Be aware, however, that even if you check your FICO score from the same agency that your lender does, you still might be looking at a different score. FICO offers several different credit scores, some of which are not available to consumers.

For a complete comparison of VantageScore and FICO, check out Merchant Maverick’s guide to credit scoring models.

The Best Free Credit Score Sites

The following are our favorite credit score services. These services derive scores from at least one of the three major credit reporting agencies. All offer services for free and are available to all consumers.

Credit Karma

Credit Karma was one of the first online services to offer your credit scores for free. This service offers scores and reports from two agencies: Equifax and TransUnion (both VantageScore). Scores and reports are updated weekly. They also offer free daily credit monitoring but only for TransUnion.

Credit Karma is the only service we know of that offers free scores from two different agencies. It also pulls data from Equifax, one of the only services to do so. Additionally, it offers many other useful financial tools for consumers. These include personalized credit card and loan recommendations, financial calculators, informative financial blog posts, and even help with filing your taxes.

For the full Credit Karma breakdown, visit our review.

Discover Credit Scorecard

Discover has recently started offering free credit scores to all consumers, regardless of whether or not you are a Discover customer. Discover is one of the only services to provide a free FICO score; most free credit score services provide your VantageScore. Discover’s FICO score is derived from Equifax, and it’s updated monthly.

Be aware, however, that because FICO offers several scores, the score shown on your Discover Credit Scorecard might not be the same score that your creditors are using. However, it might still be worth a look for educational and general credit monitoring purposes.

If you want a deeper dive into Discover’s Credit Scoreboard, check out the full review.

WalletHub

WalletHub offers a free credit score and credit report from TransUnion (VantageScore). This is the only free credit score service that updates daily.

In addition to your credit score, WalletHub offers other useful services to improve your credit and financials. Customers receive free monitoring of their TransUnion account as well as services such as customized advice to improve credit, credit card recommendations, and savings alerts.

To get more deets on this site, Merchant Maverick has done a complete review of WalletHub for your perusing pleasure.

Credit Journey From Chase

Chase offers TransUnion scores and reports via Credit Journey. This service is free and available to all consumers (not just Chase customers). Your score is updated weekly.

Chase also tracks your score over time and has a credit score simulator that shows how your score might change if you take certain actions.

Learn more about Credit Journey in our full review.

Free Annual Credit Reports

You should know that, by law, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax are required to issue a free copy of your credit report every 12 months. Consumers who request a free copy of their report will receive a full copy, whereas many free services only offer a limited report. You can use your free annual reports to review the information included in the limited reports and contest any mistakes that you find.

Unfortunately, your annual free credit report does not include any actual credit scores. To access this information, you’ll have to sign up for a free credit score service or pay for your scores.

Annual credit reports can be requested at AnnualCreditReport.com. We’ve gone more in-depth on this service in our guide to getting your credit report for free.

Final Thoughts

Free score services only offer scores derived from one or two agencies and don’t always offer a full credit report. It’s a good idea, then, to also request free copies of your credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com every year and contest any mistakes that you have found.

That said, free credit score services are useful for educational purposes and general credit monitoring — just remember that the specific score shown is unlikely to be the same score that your creditors see. However, a free score service can give you the tools you need to improve and maintain your credit score. All the services listed above are free, easy to use, and offer useful services in addition to your credit score.

Do you need to improve your credit? Read about five ways to improve your score.