Your credit score can impact many of your financial decisions, so it pays to protect it. Capital One's CreditWise can help you keep an eye on your credit at no cost. However, the service has some gaps in its coverage, and more comprehensive monitoring is preferable if you want a complete picture of your credit profile.
Despite these gaps, Business Insider's personal finance team reviewed CreditWise and found that it ranked among our top credit monitoring services. Read on to see whether CreditWise suits your needs.
- Free of charge
- Can be accessed from the standalone app or through the Capital One app with an account.
- Monitors two of the three major credit bureaus
- Doesn't offer Experian data, only alerts users to important changes.
- Does not monitor Equifax
- Monitor your credit for free
- Get alerts for important changes to your credit report like inquiries, delinquent accounts, and more.
- Monitor your personal information so you can take action if your Social Security number or email address is detected on the dark web
- Use the CreditWise Simulator to explore the potential impact of your financial decisions before you make them.
CreditWise Overview
CreditWise is a credit monitoring service offered by Capital One, one of the nation's largest financial institutions. Originally launched in 2014 as the "Credit Tracker" for Capital One credit card holders, the tool was rebranded as CreditWise in 2016 and made available to non-cardholders. Unlike other credit cards that offer identity theft protection or credit monitoring, CreditWise is available and free even if you don't have any Capital One accounts, as long as you're over 18 with a valid Social Security number that can be linked to a TransUnion credit profile.
Like other credit monitoring services, CreditWise tracks activity on your credit report and alerts you to changes such as hard inquiries, newly opened accounts, balances, payments, and changes made to your personal information. It can be valuable for anyone wanting to track their credit health, especially for those new to credit or who want free credit monitoring.
However, unlike many of its free competitors that offer monitoring for just one credit bureau, CreditWise tracks changes to your credit reports from two of the three major credit bureaus (TransUnion and Experian). That said, it only provides credit scores and credit reports from your TransUnion file. The service uses a soft inquiry to access your credit report, so checking your credit score via CreditWise will not impact your score.
The CreditWise mobile app is available on the Apple app store, where it has a 4.8 rating across 262,000 reviews. It's also available on the Google Play store, where it's rated 4.6 stars out of five based on over 106,000 reviews. You can also access CreditWise online through Capital One's website, which has all the same functionality as the app.
CreditWise is free to use. However, Capital One uses your personal information for internal business and marketing purposes and may also share your information with affiliates unless you opt out.
CreditWise Features and Benefits
CreditWise offers a single level of service available for free to all members — there are no paid plans or add-ons. Your membership gets you the tools listed below and more at no cost.
Credit score: CreditWise shows your current credit score and updates it as often as daily when you log into your account. Instead of a FICO score, CreditWise offers a score generated using the VantageScore 3.0 model.
Key credit stats: CreditWise breaks down your credit score into its most vital components, including payment history, age of accounts, credit utilization, and recent inquiries. Seeing how you perform in the factors that affect your credit score can help you identify where there's room for improvement.
Credit and identity alerts: You'll be alerted (by email or push notification) of changes to your TransUnion and Experian credit reports, including new inquiries, delinquencies, and changes in your credit score or profile. You'll also be alerted of dark web activity associated with your identity and other suspicious activity. This will help reduce the risk of identity theft.
Credit score simulator: This tool indicates how certain activities (like getting a mortgage, opening a new credit card, or paying down a balance) may impact your credit score calculations. Precision is not guaranteed, but the results of the credit simulator will give you some idea of whether a financial decision is prudent.
Score improvement: CreditWise offers suggestions for how you can improve your credit score, like reducing your balances or diversifying your debt. These suggestions are ranked from most to least impactful, so you can prioritize which actions to take.
How to Enroll in CreditWise
You can sign up for CreditWise through Capital One's website or by downloading the CreditWise app through the Apple App store or Google Play store.
While you do not need a Capital One credit card to sign up, if you're already a Capital One customer, you can also enroll by signing into your Capital One account. Regardless of how you sign up, you may cancel your account at any time with no penalty.
When you sign up, be prepared to provide a phone number, address, date of birth, and Social Security number.
How CreditWise Compares
With monitoring from two bureaus, CreditWise stands above all other free credit monitoring services. However, it lacks many of the functions that paid credit monitoring services often come with. CreditWise doesn't have features like social media monitoring and digital security tools offered by more comprehensive services. It also lacks any tools that can help you recover from identity theft.
That looks favorable at first glance compared to the monthly fees charged by many of the top credit monitoring services, but a thorough comparison shows that you get what you pay for.
A shortcoming of CreditWise is that it only provides data from one of the three major credit bureaus (TransUnion). That's analogous to installing a security camera on your front door but not your backdoor or garage: You end up with useful but incomplete information. Again, that's fine if you don't need better coverage, but you should also keep an eye on your Experian and Equifax reports if you have pressing credit concerns. For example, Credit Karma monitors Equifax and TransUnion, two of the three major credit bureaus. Though it does monitor Experian, the third major credit bureau, it still provides greater coverage than CreditWise.
CreditWise uses the VantageScore 3.0 model for credit scoring, instead of the more common FICO model. FICO and VantageScore calculate scores based on similar factors (such as payment history, credit utilization, and recent inquiries), but use different weighting that produces varied results. More importantly, FICO is more popular among financial institutions, so while the VantageScore you get from CreditWise is useful, you'll want to also check your FICO score before making large financial decisions.
On the plus side, CreditWise offers a superior user experience compared to other free credit monitoring services. The app is highly rated thanks not only to its functionality but also to its efficient user interface.
CreditWise will suffice for basic credit monitoring, but consider other options if you've been a victim of identity theft or have other cause for concern.
Frequently Asked Questions About CreditWise
Yes, CreditWise is a free credit monitoring service.
Yes, CreditWise shows a legitimate credit score. CreditWise shows your TransUnion credit score using the VantageScore 3.0 model, which is widely used among lenders and other financial services but remains less popular than the FICO model.
No, CreditWise is not only for Capital One customers. You can use CreditWise regardless of whether you have any credit, banking, or other accounts with Capital One.
No, using CreditWise will not affect your credit score. CreditWise uses a soft inquiry and soft inquiries do not impact your score.
Why You Should Trust Us: How We Rated CreditWise
Choosing a strong credit monitoring service comes down to what you get for the money you're paying. A paid service needs to monitor your credit reports from all three of the major credit bureaus — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.
Free credit monitoring services like CreditWise often offer much less than paid services, but it is hard to argue with free. At their worst, these services fill your inbox with excessive emails. This cost is a small one to pay for free credit monitoring, but it's important to be aware of the limitations and blind spots of monitoring one bureau instead of all three.
The best paid credit monitoring services also have aspects of identity theft protection included in their features, like public records or dark web monitoring. These two services are hard to replicate on your own. They should also provide some identity theft recovery assistance and restoration.
Read our full explanation of how we rate credit monitoring services.
