Credit Karma

• Free Services
• Two Official Credit Reports
• VantageScore Credit Scores
• Helpful Alerts
• Sleek Mobile App
• Excellent Credit Education
• Useful Tools

Free Services

Credit Karma's biggest selling point is that its services are free. With no payments required, the company will provide members with access to their credit reports and scores from two of the major credit bureaus, TransUnion and Equifax.

Even more impressive, the company refreshes these reports on a weekly basis.

Two Official Credit Reports

Those who have a Credit Karma account are able to receive updates for their TransUnion and Equifax credit reports every week.

Credit Karma provides users with an easy-to-use interface for navigating and understanding their credit report, including suggestions for improving their credit.

VantageScore Credit Scores

Although CreditKarma, unfortunately, does not provide official FICO scores, the company does provide a VantageScore 3.0 for each credit report. 

VantageScore is a newer scoring model that has gained traction but is still not necessarily the most popular or accurate measure of one's creditworthiness. Either way, users can see their VantageScore go up and down over time on well-presented graphs and reports, which can give them an indication as to whether they are on the right track.

Another feature is that users can compare their credit scores to others in their area, age group, and so forth.

Helpful Alerts

Credit Karma provides a fully-configurable alerts panel to notify consumers by email of anything from a change in one of their credit reports to large purchases, withdrawals, interest rate changes, and so forth. 

Each time someone logs into their Credit Karma account, they can check for changes on their credit report since the last refresh.

Sleek Mobile App

Credit Karma has a well-designed mobile app for both Android and Apple devices which allows users to access all information on their credit reports, scores, and alerts while on the go.

Excellent Credit Education

Credit Karma maintains an up-to-date, online library of credit-specific educational resources that are well-written, informative, and accurate. Additionally, the company has an active community where users can get advice on all aspects of their credit and scores.

Useful Tools

Credit Karma provides everything from debt repayment and loan calculators to fully-featured credit score simulators powered by TransUnion.

The Credit Score Simulator allows you to see how different decisions, like paying off part of your credit card debt or getting a home loan, might affect your credit score in the future.

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• Missing Credit Report
• No FICO Scores
• Privacy and Security

Missing Credit Report

The service has absolutely no way of pulling a user's credit report from Experian, which is a significant blind spot in any comprehensive credit monitoring strategy.

No FICO Scores

The credit scores provided by Credit Karma aren't true FICO scores, so they aren't the same credit scores most lenders will see when they pull your credit.

There have been reports of Credit Karma's VantageScore being off by as much as 100 points from what a lender saw when they pulled that customer's FICO score from the same bureau.

Privacy and Security

There have been significant privacy questions raised by the FTC in regards to Credit Karma's mobile app not being as secure as the company claimed, resulting in a settlement in 2014, wherein the company agreed to submit to annual independent tests to verify that its apps are secure for the next 20 years.