Meet Maggie, PCMag'sCredit Karma began as a tool to help you check your credit score and improve it. It still does that, but the service also now includes a few more personal finance features, such as debt monitoring, net worth tracking, transaction imports, and a TurboTax integration. Credit Karma is still free, too, thanks to the targeted offers for financial products (such as credit cards) that it serves you. The latest version introduces additional credit score and spending management tools, including Credit Spark, which helps you build a credit profile from scratch. Credit Karma is worth using if you primarily want to monitor your credit score, but Monarch and Quicken Simplifi are our Editors' Choice winners because they offer more comprehensive sets of financial features and unbeatable cross-platform user experiences.
Your credit score is a measure of your creditworthiness. It supposedly predicts how likely you are to pay your debts in full and on time. Banks and car dealerships, for example, look up your credit score when you apply for a loan. Potential employers and landlords might even request your credit score.
Three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) compile your score based on your history of paying your debts. If you’ve borrowed from a lender that reports to the credit bureaus for at least six months (usually a credit card), you have a credit score. It ranges from 300 to 850. The higher, the better.
Keeping an eye on your credit score for changes is one way to watch out for financial fraud. If someone takes out a loan or line of credit in your name and doesn't make payments on it, your credit score will drop. Credit Karma can help you avoid this by posting daily updates from Equifax and TransUnion. This provides better coverage than any other personal finance app I've tested.
Similar Products
Quicken Simplifi
Monarch
As mentioned, Credit Karma is completely free. Yes, it does present targeted ads for financial products, but that doesn't prevent you from accessing your credit score details. NerdWallet, which is also free, takes a somewhat similar approach, but isn't as aggressive. Its homepage has a few links to suggested financial products, but the service confines most of them to its Marketplace section.
Prices for other services vary. The well-rounded Quicken Simplifi starts at $6.99 per month, billed annually; Rocket Money lets you pay what you think is fair (between $11 and $13 per month), and WalletHub's top-end Premium+ costs $10.50 per month, billed annually. Other plans and services mostly fall somewhere in between.
As with other personal finance sites, you have to provide some personal information and connect online accounts before you can start getting feedback. In Credit Karma’s case, you must supply your address, name, and a few other personal details, such as your Social Security number, so the app can pull your credit score, credit report, and historical information.
To get a thorough profile and an estimate of your net worth (and a wider swath of optional financial product recommendations), you have to give Credit Karma the address of any property you own and tell it about your vehicles. If you want to import income and expense transactions from your online financial institutions, you need to log in to them through Credit Karma and authorize its access to that data.
Personal finance software companies tell me that the majority of their customers prefer doing many—if not most—of their financial tasks on their phones rather than desktop computers. As a result, I’ve noticed a greater development focus on mobile platforms than browser-based versions. Sometimes, new or enhanced features pop up on a service's mobile apps before they appear on the desktop—if at all. Credit Karma is a good example of that trend.
The service prominently displays your credit scores and current net worth when you first log in to the desktop browser version. But then it immediately starts suggesting financial products like credit cards and home loans. They're essentially ads, but some take your credit profile into account, so your chances of approval could be higher. This lengthy page also provides advice on ways to save money by linking to, for example, multiple car insurance companies based on your vehicle and credit profile.
I conducted most of my testing with Credit Karma's Android app (a version is also available for iOS), which looks attractive but uses a confusing organization system. The app divides access to its content among three navigation tools: icons at the bottom of the page, links at the top of some sections, and a toolbar that isn't easy to find. It took me some time to figure out where everything was, and I hope Intuit improves the structure in future versions. The mobile dashboard resembles the one on desktop browsers: some key numbers appear at the top, followed by a lot of promotional offers interspersed with your personal data and tools to help you improve your finances. At least it takes less time to scroll through the ads on the mobile version than on the desktop version. Competitors offer more focused home pages.
Credit Karma backs up its money management features with an excellent support system. You can search for or browse in-depth how-to articles on numerous different topics and converse with an AI-powered chatbot. Unlike every other similar feature I've tested, however, you can use the chatbot only after entering your name, email address, phone number, and date of birth. Alternatively, you can email the company. Individualized support is also available from live experts.
Credit Karma isn’t the best choice if you want detailed information about individual bank and credit card transactions. It shows only the associated account, amount, date, category (on the mobile app), and vendor or income source of line items. Monarch provides much more detail; for example, it has fields for attachments, linked goals, notes, and tags. Credit Karma lets you see how your spending aligns with your expectations through tables and charts, though the lack of budgeting tools is a major omission. On the bright side, the app tracks all the components of your net worth (such as debts, investments, and property) and provides monthly cash flow breakdowns.
Credit Karma also highlights bills and subscriptions, showing a calendar with due dates. Quicken Classic is the only app I've reviewed that still supports online bill pay. Credit Karma does help you monitor your finances with alerts, however. You can request notifications via the app or email about changes to your accounts or credit report, data breaches or identity theft, and other information related to your Credit Karma profile.
Intuit, the owner of Credit Karma, also owns TurboTax. A link in Credit Karma takes you directly to the tax service's opening pages. If you're starting fresh with TurboTax, it will import your Credit Karma profile, including your personal information (such as your name and address). Credit Karma's Tax Assistant collects information throughout the year about life events that could impact your tax return. If you set up connections to your financial institutions in Credit Karma, you might be able to import tax documents, such as your W-2 and 1099s.
Like NerdWallet, Credit Karma bases its ads on what it knows about you and the financial products themselves. Each offer includes your approval odds. You can also search for credit cards using filters, such as balance transfers and rewards. New since my last review is the Cards Optimizer. It offers multiple integrated tools that can help you get the most out of your credit card rewards. You can view all the benefits you’ve earned, get recommendations on which card(s) to use for specific benefits, see the “earn rates” of all your cards, and learn about the best ways to redeem your rewards.
The app features a lot of information about these products through comparisons, descriptions, internal reviews, and user reviews. Credit Karma contributors, not the issuing companies themselves, provide this editorial content, making for more objective analysis. Keep in mind that Credit Karma’s offers don't represent the entire universe of financial service companies and products.
As your credit score changes over time, you can take advantage of Credit Karma’s educational tools to learn more about that critical number and how you might be able to improve it. For example, you can see some of the factors that determine your credit score, including payment history. Others are credit age, credit card use, derogatory remarks, hard inquiries (requests for your credit report from potential lenders), and total accounts. Each factor has an impact level, so you know which ones weigh more heavily on your score. Credit Karma also makes your full credit report available.
Other tools help you better understand your credit and debt. They include a credit score simulator that shows how your credit score might change based on new activity, such as opening a new credit card or missing a payment. Calculators determine the actual cost of taking out a loan and give you advice on paying down your debt faster, for example.
New Features for Select Groups
Credit Karma might also offer new features, depending on the financial information you import and enter. If you have a lot of revolving debt, for instance, you might see the Debt Assistant. This AI-powered tool builds a debt consolidation plan for you and suggests loans that might meet your needs. If you connect an account that reports salary data, you could see the Paycheck Assistant, which provides an AI-generated plan for allocating your money based on your spending habits.
Credit Spark helps “credit invisibles,” individuals who either don’t have a credit report or whose credit file doesn’t have enough history to generate a credit score. The service reports positive payments to TransUnion every day (phone and utility bills only at this time). This way, individuals can start working toward getting a credit score.
Credit Karma offers two bank accounts: a savings account (Credit Karma Money Save) and a checking account (Credit Karma Money Spend) through MVB Bank, Inc., Member FDIC. You fund these accounts through an external bank account. Signing up gets you a Visa debit card, and there are no fees or minimums. Money Save was paying 2.60% APY as of this writing. Credit Karma also has a financial product called Credit Builder that can help you build credit while saving money. To be eligible, you need a TransUnion credit score of 619 or lower and a Credit Karma Money Spend account.
PCMag doesn't evaluate financial products.
Credit Karma offers numerous security features, including 128-bit or higher encryption, account security questions, and multi-factor authentication. Like any other good personal finance app, Credit Karma automatically signs you out after a period of inactivity. The company says it alerts users to suspicious activity as soon as possible. Here are all the security policy details.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Intuit)
Credit Karma
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
It's worth signing up for Credit Karma, as it provides detailed credit information for free, and we like its new features for helping consumers better manage their credit. But it’s not a full-featured personal finance app. Its weak transaction management tools and lack of bill tracking, budgeting, and investment features are all downsides. We don't recommend using Credit Karma on its own if you want a complete picture of your finances, and we definitely prefer the mobile apps over the browser-based site. But you can certainly use it alongside one of our Editors' Choice winners, Monarch or Quicken Simplifi, which excel in every element of personal finance management.
STILL ON THE FENCE?
About Our Expert
I write about money. I’ve been reviewing tax software and services as a freelancer for PCMag since 1993. Along the way, I took on reviews of other types of business and personal finance technology. Prior to that, I had spent a few years writing about productivity and entertainment applications for 8-bit personal computers (my first one was a Commodore VIC-20) as a member of the editorial staff at Compute!Â
After working at Lawson Associates, now Lawson Software, I switched my focus to accounting but learned that personal computer applications were more progressive and interesting to cover than mainframe solutions. So I served as editor of a monthly newsletter that provided support for accountants who were just starting to use PCs. I still ghostwrite monthly how-to columns for accounting professionals. From there, I went on to write articles and reviews for numerous business and financial publications, including Barron’s and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine.
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