Your credit score is an important indicator of your overall financial health. It’s how lenders decide if you’re a trustworthy borrower, and it determines the rates and terms you get on a credit product. It’s an important number to keep an eye on.
Experian -- one of the three major credit bureaus -- is one of the companies responsible for collecting your financial information and compiling it into a credit report. Your credit report is then used to generate your credit score. Each credit bureau offers its own credit monitoring options, and I found Experian’s to be one of the best services for tracking your credit score.
Experian’s free credit monitoring service lets you check your FICO score, review your Experian credit report and freeze your credit report to help prevent identity theft. It also features product recommendations, FICO score simulators and educational resources, among other things.
However, the most useful free feature is Experian Boost. This service lets you add additional accounts, like utility bills, to your credit report to help boost your Experian credit score. And Experian’s paid credit monitoring service comes with even more helpful features.
What Is Experian’s credit monitoring service?
Experian credit monitoring is Experian’s service for keeping track of your FICO credit score and your credit report. It has several useful features for free, with an expanded list of features available for a $24.99 monthly subscription.
You can use this tool to report any inconsistencies you find in your credit report, track your credit score history and turn on dark web monitoring for your sensitive information.
Pros and cons of Experian credit monitoring
Pros
Monitor your Experian credit report and FICO credit score
Freeze your credit report to help prevent fraud
Access educational resources
Use Experian Boost to increase your FICO score
Cons
The best features are behind a paywall
Somewhat intrusive product recommendations
How does Experian’s credit monitoring service work?
You’ll first need to sign up using the first four digits of your Social Security number and your phone number. You’ll then need to supply your name, date and address, among other things. Once your identity is verified, you’ll be able to see your credit score and check your Experian credit report
Check your credit report
One of the primary features of using Experian’s credit check service is to go over your credit report to see if there are any unrecognized accounts open in your name. You can also freeze your credit report if you think your identity has been compromised. Freezing your credit report prevents any new accounts from being opened, fraudulent or otherwise.
Experian Boost
Experian Boost is a free service that boosts your FICO score by adding additional financial information to your Experian account. You’ll need to connect your credit cards and bank account, but according to Experian, you could boost your score by an average of 13 points.
It’s worth noting that this boost applies only to your Experian credit score. It won’t show up on your TransUnion or Equifax credit reports.
Privacy scan
You can scan the web for sensitive information using Experian. The scan will tell you if your address, phone number or other identifying information has been compromised and can be accessed on the site. If you want to take the next step and have Experian provide dark web monitoring, you’ll need to pay for it. Some other credit services offer this feature for free.
Paid features
While you can get good value from using Experian’s free version, you could get even more using its paid services. For $24.99 a month, it adds dark web monitoring, access to all three of your FICO credit scores and credit reports, bill negotiation services, easy subscription cancellation, dedicated fraud resolution support, identity theft insurance and more.
Access to all three credit scores and reports
What’s better than access to one credit report and credit score? Access to all three. You can see them side by side and access all of your information in one place. Just remember – these will be your FICO credit scores, which might look slightly different than your VantageScore.
Bill negotiation and subscription cancellation
If you feel like you’re bleeding money but can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from, perhaps you should look into your subscription services and utility bills. Experian will help you negotiate a better cost for your bills or help you cancel any subscriptions you’re no longer using.
Identity theft insurance
If you’ve ever been a victim or know someone who has suffered from identity theft, you know the financial damage it can wreak. Experian’s identity theft insurance insures you for up to $1 million for costs incurred on a minimum of six credit reports, notarizing documents, refiling applications, travel costs, accounting costs and more.
Experian isn’t the only option when it comes to credit monitoring services, but it does offer the most features for its price tag. However, it might not be the right fit for you. Here are others to explore.
Capital One CreditWise
Capital One’s CreditWise service is free, and you don’t have to be a Capital One customer to enjoy it. CreditWise features dark web monitoring for some of your information and offers access to your TransUnion VantageScore and credit report. You can’t access scores or reports from other credit bureaus.
It stacks up pretty well against Experian’s free version, but it doesn’t offer any additional features -- paid or otherwise -- other than checking your score, getting actionable tips on how to improve your score and accessing educational resources.
Equifax
Equifax is another credit bureau. It has a free credit monitoring service similar to Experian but doesn’t offer anything comparable to Experian Boost. However, it has more varied membership tiers that could make it a better fit for people not wanting to shell out the full $24.99 for Experian.
TransUnion
You won’t get many features for free with TransUnion -- it offers the least free features of the three credit agencies. In fact, you can’t even check your credit score without providing your credit card information. Its paid membership is also the most expensive, coming in at $30 per month.
The bottom line
Experian offers one of the best free credit monitoring services, but its paid service goes above and beyond. If you’re more interested in its free service, you could combine it with CreditWise to access dark web monitoring and to check your TransUnion credit report and credit score. Otherwise, for $24.99 per month, you could access everything you would ever need to keep an eye on your credit profile.
The editorial content on this page is based solely on objective, independent assessments by our writers and is not influenced by advertising or partnerships. It has not been provided or commissioned by any third party. However, we may receive compensation when you click on links to products or services offered by our partners.
