What Is MyFICO and Is It Worth the Cost?
MyFICO is a service that provides FICO credit scores and monitors credit. The best coverage isn't cheap, but you can find free alternatives to some features.
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Updated · 4 min read
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Senior Editor & Content Strategist MyFICO is a credit monitoring platform from the Fair Isaac Corporation, better known as FICO. The company says that 90% of lenders use FICO credit scores to assess the creditworthiness of applicants. So it’s useful to have insight into your FICO scores when you’re planning on borrowing money.
MyFICO has one free and three paid subscription options for consumers to see their FICO scores, access credit reports and receive alerts based on credit report data.
What is myFICO?
MyFICO is a service that gives you access to FICO scores, credit reports and credit monitoring. There are four different subscription plans to choose from.
What credit score do you get with myFICO?
People often talk about "my FICO score" without realizing FICO has several different versions of its scoring model used for different purposes. For example, mortgage lending still uses the older FICO 2, 4 and 5 versions, even as FICO has established newer versions.
Each myFICO subscription includes at least a standard FICO 8 score. The paid plans come with additional scores, including those commonly used for mortgages, auto loans and in credit card approval decisions.
Is myFICO free?
MyFICO has a free version with basic features. The more robust benefits that consumers would likely want, such as getting the larger set of FICO scores, are only available with paid subscriptions.
Here are the plan options.
Free Plan
The no-cost version of myFICO provides coverage from only one of the three major credit bureaus and a single FICO score. You’ll get a monthly credit report from Equifax, and your FICO 8 score based on that report data. You also get credit monitoring and alerts, such as notifications when a new account is opened in your name.
This single-bureau coverage falls short because a lender may check your credit using a different FICO score version or a different scoring model altogether, such as VantageScore. Or it may only check credit using one of the other major bureaus, Experian or TransUnion. So you’re not necessarily seeing the information a creditor will check.
Similarly, for credit monitoring to be most effective, it’s best to have coverage from the three major credit bureaus. Being alerted to potential problems with your Equifax credit report has value, but it won’t help with issues at TransUnion or Experian.
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See the full picture: savings, debt, investments and more. Smarter money moves start in our app.
Basic Plan: $19.95 per month
A Basic Plan costs $4.95 for the first month and then $19.95 a month thereafter. You can cancel at any time.
This plan comes with credit monitoring and 10 different FICO scores, including those used in assessing mortgage and auto loan eligibility. But you only get monthly access to your credit report from a single bureau, Experian. You’ll still have an incomplete picture of how lenders may assess your creditworthiness.
This plan adds features not included in the free version: access to a credit simulator to see how actions might affect your score, plus $1 million in identity theft insurance and assistance with identity restoration.
Advanced Plan: $29.95 per month
The middle-tier paid plan features coverage from all three major credit bureaus. But those credit reports are updated only once every three months. As with all plans, credit monitoring continues daily.
You’ll get access to everything in the Basic Plan, plus identity monitoring for threats such as your personal financial information being exposed on the internet.
Premier Plan: $39.95 per month
The Premier plan carries the highest cost, $39.95 per month, and includes everything from the Advanced Plan. The only difference is you get monthly access to your three credit reports, versus once every three months.
One-time reports: $19.95 to $59.85
If you’re not interested in a monthly subscription, myFICO also has one-time credit reports costing $19.95 for your choice of one credit bureau or $59.85 for all three bureaus.
The one-bureau access has limited utility unless you know which credit bureau a lender will use to check your credit. The three-bureau report is more useful — especially when starting the homebuying process since you get all three FICO scores used in mortgage approvals. But you could get essentially the same service by signing up for the Advanced Plan and canceling after a single monthly charge of $29.95.
Note: You only have access to your one-time report for 30 days, so save or print out copies.
Is myFICO legit, and is it worth it?
MyFICO is run by FICO, so you can trust that it will give you the accurate FICO score or scores your selected plan includes. But there’s the issue of how much you’ll pay — just the Basic Plan costs nearly $225 for the first year.
You may already have access to your FICO 8 score at no charge: Some banks, credit unions and credit card issuers offer customers a free FICO 8 score. It’s usually based on data from a single credit bureau, and it’s only one FICO score, so it’s not a full picture. Still, it will give you an idea whether you’re doing OK or need to work on building credit.
Similarly, each of the three credit bureaus provide weekly free credit reports to consumers. This lets you monitor your credit yourself. You’d have to buy the $39.95 per month Premier Plan from myFICO to get three-bureau access, and it’s updated monthly versus weekly. While the DIY option takes more effort, the financial savings are significant — about $480 a year.
You can also use free services like NerdWallet’s free credit report. But check what credit bureaus are covered for whatever free service you choose. NerdWallet partners with TransUnion, for example, so you may want to seek access to Equifax and Experian from another source.
Stress less. Track more.
See the full picture: savings, debt, investments and more. Smarter money moves start in our app. And while myFICO offers some identity theft protection, it’s not as comprehensive as offerings from vendors whose main focus is identity theft. But freezing your credit is free and can prevent someone from opening new credit accounts in your name.
Weigh the pros and cons before you subscribe to a myFICO plan:
MyFICO pros and cons
Pros
Convenience: If you don’t have time to regularly monitor your credit, one of myFICO’s paid levels with three-bureau coverage makes it easy to keep up with your scores and credit reports.
Comprehensiveness: Paid subscriptions give you access to all of your FICO scores, which show how a mortgage or auto loan lender may view your creditworthiness.
Cons
Cost: To really get value out of myFICO, you’ll need to purchase one of the paid subscriptions with three-bureau coverage, which can add up quickly at $29.95 and $39.95 per month.
Coverage: The identity theft protection and restoration coverage is not comparable to services that focus solely on these efforts.
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