Earlier, we compared FreeCreditReport.com to AnnualCreditReport.com. While the names can be deceiving, the place you want to go for a free credit report is AnnualCreditReport.com. But the one very important piece of information you won’t get there is your FICO credit score. And it’s a question heard a lot: “How do I get my free credit score?” Fortunately, you can get your credit score instantly online for free.
How to Get Your Free Credit Score
You have several options when it comes to getting your credit score for free. With all of these options, your free score is available online instantly once you sign up for a free trial of credit monitoring service. The best options give you your credit score from all three major credit bureaus and offer the free trial for at least 7 days.
Our TOP PICK to get your 3 Free Credit Scores is GoFreeCredit.com. It only takes a few minutes to get your Free Credit Scores from each bureau – Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, your 3-in-1 Credit Report, and your 7-day Free Trial of Credit Monitoring. If you continue with the credit monitoring service, the cost will be $19.95. But, it’s a good idea to have the credit monitoring service, because you will receive instant Fraud ID Alerts should anything change on your Credit. .
Owned and operated by TransUnion, one of the three major credit bureaus, TrueCredit offers consumers a look at all three of their credit scores (not just TransUnion) as well as all three credit reports, during the 7 day free trial. Once the free trial period has expired, the cost to maintain the TrueCredit is $14.95. That amount is in line with the other free credit score providers we’re showing in this post and the TrueCredit.com interface is a cinch to use.
Credit Sesame is a new service that offers a free credit score without your credit card. The free score comes from Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus and it’s updated anytime there is a change to your credit history. Credit Sesame also offers free tools to help consumers build their credit and provides it’s users a badge to showcase their credit profile
CreditReport.com offers your credit score from all three credit bureaus. The free trial is for 7 days, and the cost if you don’t cancel is $14.95. The credit monitoring service checks activity in your credit file from all three credit agencies and their interface is extremely user friendly. I’ve personally used CreditReport.com for years, and continue to be impressed with the accuracy of their data, as well as the costs for maintaining a credit monitoring service.
Credit Karma is one of our favorite places to get your score for free. Why? Because you don’t need a credit card and you don’t need to sign up for a free trial. In fact, Credit Karma is one of the few places you can get your credit score without a credit card and you can use their services more than once. Each member is allowed a free credit score every six months and Credit Karma is kind enough to email you when it’s time to check your credit score again for free.
If you haven’t heard of Quizzle before, you should take a look at all the information they have to offer. In addition to providing you a free credit score, you also receive a full report of what you’re doing well and what you need to improve on. A free credit score is also included and there is no fee for continuing your service with Quizzle. There are added services that you will be charged for, however the basic free credit report and score, as well as report card are always 100% free of charge.
ScoreDirect.com is powered by FreeCreditScore.com and specifically provides consumers with their Experian credit score. When you order your free credit score, you’ll begin a 7-day free trial in triple advantage and if you decide to continue your service beyond the free trial, the cost is $14.95 a month. It’s important to note that Experian begins monitoring your credit within 48 hours of signing up, Equifax and TransUnion can approximately take 4 days to kick in, sometimes never activating during your free trial. Your Experian credit score is shown instantly.
Side By Side Comparison
If you’re still not sure what’s the best option for you, here is a side-by-side comparison of the free credit score offers. I’ve used several of them, so you may want to try more than one to decide which one is best for you.
| Credit Score Offer | What You Get | Free Trial Period and Cost After Trial |
|---|---|---|
| GoFreeCredit Editor's Choice | 3 Credit Scores with Credit Monitoring and Alerts | |
| TrueCredit | 3 Credit Scores with Credit Monitoring and Alerts | |
| CreditReport.com | 3 Credit Scores and Credit Monitoring | |
| ScoreDirect.com | Free Experian Credit Score and Monitoring | |
| Credit Karma | Free credit score without a credit card | |
| Quizzle | Free credit score, report and report card |
The above offers provide your credit score as reported by one or more of the three major credit bureaus. But some of those scores do not use the FICO formula. This can be a bit confusing, and is worth a few moments to explain. The credit bureaus have your credit information on file that they use to generate credit scores. Think of your credit report as containing all of the data that they put into their credit score formula to calculate a score.
Here’s where it gets a bit complicated. The credit bureaus don’t have just one credit score formula; they have many of them. Some of these formulas come from a company called Fair Isaac, better known as FICO. And just to confuse us some more, there is more than one FICO formula. None of the free trial offers provide an exact FICO score and unfortunately myFICO.com has discontinued their free trial program, so the only way to obtain your true FICO credit score is to pay for it.
While the credit score programs you see above use different formulas and produce different results, the credit scores from these formulas are still pretty close to one another. You won’t see one formula producing a score of 820 and another showing 530. So do you need your FICO score versus the other types of scores? Frankly, getting your FICO score versus the scores reported by the agencies has become less important. Why? Because the results are about the same, and they all give you a really good picture of the health of your credit.
Published or updated December 20, 2011.
{ 10 comments }
I didn’t realize that they would alert you when your credit moved to a certain score. That’s a pretty nice feature.
all three credit bureaus the only thing they do it’s crew-up or ruin your credit history and bias for lender…one hand took your credit protection other hand ruin your credit history…in facts they said no discrimination on race or color..but it’s lied…i’m a victimize of this sampled !!!!! all equifax,experian,transunion gotten questions go tracing Me now
I always had a good credit , 2 years ago a heatstroke knocked me out for two months I lose my job and struggeled to make payments on time . with this stupid thing of score the bank cut my credit .overnight and there I was bankrupcy was the sole way out. This score thing should be banned it is inacurate 80 % the time it is a bankers invention to charge more interest and loot your money the fed say the interest rate is so and so % but if your score is
you pay more and more and more. and this administration did the ultimate….l
say lend but it is in fact give away our money to this croocks.unbelievable.
I use freecreditreport.com because I get all three credit scores and all three credit reports. I pull my credit this way every three to four months for a flat fee. I recomend a quarterly exploration of your personal credit, thus more time to address any negative issues on your report.
I was only able to get a score from Experian – myFICO.com can’t give me a score saying I don’t have enough information on file. I haven’t had a mortgage, car payment, or credit card for several years, and my FICO.com can’t help me figure out where I stand. No help at all to determine if I can get a mortgage or car loan. At least annualcreditreport.com got me a credit report and some kind of score to work with.
MK, I suspect the score Experian gave you was not a FICO credit score. If you have little recent credit history, there just isn’t enough data to input into the FICO score formula to compute a score.
Lots of people do not avail the facility to get a free copy of their credit report each year. They can get this from all three major credit bureaus.
Gordan, you are absolutely right, and folks should get the free credit report each year to make sure it’s accurate. Of course, the only way to get your free FICO score is through a program like myfico.com.
In Canada you can go to equifax and to trans unions websites and order your scores that way. I prefer avoiding third party ‘fees’ and just going to the source.
All my bills have been paid off and only one – TransUnion, will NOT delete it from my record even though the creditor has said that it could be deleted and gave me a letter stating it was paid in full. It doesn’t seem fair that a credit bureau can keep poor info on one’s credit for a full 7 years! Now I am having trouble getting a mortgage loan just because of that – have no other bills or mortgage – just trying to get a first time buyer mortgage. It doesn’t seem fair and I am extremely disappointed in TransUnion. Equifax and Esperian have my credit score as being very good.but TransUnion is ruining it all.
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