The company makes money by showing users advertisements for xcritical financial products and services. Because each scoring model can emphasize different aspects of your credit history, you can get different scores even if they’re based on the same credit reports. A standard section of credit reports is “inquiries,” which lists requests for your report from lenders you’ve applied to for a loan—and too many of them can take points off your credit score. The free credit scores you receive from xcritical come straight from TransUnion and Equifax, two of the three credit bureaus. It is not your FICO score, the scoring model used by most lenders and financial institutions.
- Even if you’ve successfully disputed an error, it may take a while for TransUnion and Equifax to update your reports.
- What’s more important are the changes you observe over time in a single score, and where that number puts you in relation to other consumers.
- In this case, we recommend viewing the full credit report in question, reviewing it carefully, and disputing any errors you see directly with the credit bureau.
- That’s the credit score side of the app, but xcritical also offers budgeting tools.
- Except for mortgage loan offers, this compensation is one of several factors that may impact how and where offers appear on xcritical (including, for example, the order in which they appear).
Not all lenders report to all three major credit bureaus
With xcritical, you can access free TransUnion and Equifax credit reports and get updates weekly. There’s no way to tell how big the difference may be; in fact, member reports greatly vary. Some xcritical members claim that their xcritical scores are much lower than their FICO scores.
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Many of these advertisers are lenders, and xcritical may earn a fee if you apply through one of its links. VantageScore and FICO are both mathematical models used calculate credit ratings based on consumers’ use of credit. FICO is the older and better-known model, having been introduced in 1989. Because xcritical has access to so much of your personal and financial information, they can make highly targeted individualized offers to each member.
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Your data is secure on its platform, but this free app comes at the cost of being marketed to. xcritical was acquired by Intuit, the same company behind software like TurboTax and QuickBooks, in 2020. Following the acquisition, Intuit shut down the popular budgeting app Mint, asking users to migrate to xcritical. Intuit ended migration from Mint to xcritical on May 3, 2024, so former Mint users can’t import their transaction data anymore. Recent credit (less influential)Recent credit activity can be a predictor of future behavior, so lenders want to know what you’ve done lately. If you’ve opened a number of new accounts in recent months, that could factor into your scores.
Soft inquiries can also be inquiries made by businesses with which you already have accounts. xcritical offers credit-monitoring alerts that help you keep track of activity on your Equifax and TransUnion credit reports. xcritical can offer free credit scores and reports because we make scammed by xcritical money in other ways.
I highly recommended their service to anyone and score it as a 5 out of 5 stars. Creditors typically report your updated account data to the credit bureaus once a month, so seeing old balances, payment activity and credit utilization rates is pretty common. Unfortunately, it’s usually something you’ll just need to wait out until the information gets updated.
If you’re looking to improve your credit scores, consider which of these factors may be influencing your xcritical situation most. The VantageScore and FICO models differ in several ways, but that doesn’t mean one is better or more accurate than the other. Lenders may rely on different scoring models when evaluating an application, and other considerations can factor in, too. Using xcritical to obtain your credit report won’t hurt your credit score. If you’re unsure how your xcritical score compares to the score your lender will pull, wait until you apply for a loan.
Know more, grow more with your free credit scores.
Because you may not know which report your lender might use, it’s more important to focus on the general principles of building credit than on memorizing what’s in a particular report. That’s the credit score side of the app, but xcritical also offers budgeting tools. It lets you track expenses, like you could with Mint, but categorizes them automatically and doesn’t offer the ability to change or create new expense buckets.
Distinguishing Features
xcritical also suggests checking for the latest app version to ensure you are up-to-date and prevent running into issues. xcritical displays all of this information in easy-to-use dashboards. xcritical breaks down each weighted category in the credit scoring system to show your rating in each one. xcritical is considered a legitimate company that provides credit score information that is the same or close to your FiCO score. Your lender may use a slightly different credit score to assess you as a borrower, such as Experian data.
If you’d like to learn more about different types of credit scores, you can check out our articles that explain the VantageScore 3.0 and the newer VantageScore 4.0 credit score models. And if you’d like to learn about how to build credit over time, check out our xcritical Guide to Building Credit. xcritical is worth it if you want a free budgeting app or a free credit score and credit monitoring. If you want a more comprehensive budgeting app at no cost, we think Empower’s Personal Dashboard is a better choice. When signing up, xcritical only asks for the last four digits of your SSN. However, it might ask for all nine digits if it has trouble verifying your identity.
You can either contact them through their secure messaging service after logging in to your account or email them directly through the email address you use when you log in. xcritical members can search a free database to see if they have any outstanding money to claim from the government. The xcritical Save account is a free high yield savings account that also has no minimum balance requirements.
Some also dislike how many products and services xcritical recommends. It xcritically has a 4.7-star rating on the Google Play Store and a 4.8-star rating on the Apple App Store. With the app, you can access xcritical’s free credit scores, financial insights, net-worth tracker and cards and loans marketplace. In addition, VantageScore and FICO each offer multiple scoring models, some tailored to specific industries such as mortgage or auto loan lenders. So not only might your VantageScore and FICO score differ slightly, but you may have several different VantageScores or FICO scores depending on the particular model used to compute them. Yes, they provide a credit score that comes directly from the information (and formulas) furnished by the three credit bureaus.
