The best credit monitoring services are here to protect you against fraud and identity theft. They also offer a variety of features including dark web monitoring, and identity theft.
The best credit monitoring services have access to a lot of information from a wide variety of sources. Investing in one of the best credit monitoring services will also help defend yourself from fraud, keeping you alerted to any problem immediately.
Best Credit Monitoring Services
There are two types of service available today, basic credit monitoring services that offer free but have limited coverage, and premium service, which, comes with a modest fee but can provide greater peace of mind.
The service keeps an eye on your accounts, lets you know when someone opens a line of credit with your social security number and can help protect against fraudulent activity.
If you’re thinking about protecting your credit and individual info from fraud, here are the best credit monitoring companies of 2022.
Best Free Credit Monitoring Services
Free service may still be a good fit for consumers who plan to monitor their own credit reports more actively while relying on the platform for alert and monthly score updates.
However, Free credit monitoring services generally come with fewer features than their counterparts. Below are some of them:
Credit Sesame Service
PROS:
- Users receive an alert when their score changes
- Provides guidance on how to improve credit score
- Provides up to $50,000 of identity insurance
Credit Sesame offers a free plan that includes information as reported by TransUnion-only one of the three major credit bureaus. This service guidance can help consumers improve their credit scores in addition to receiving an alert when then their score changes.
Users also get references on how to save money on loans, mortgages, and credit cards, plus relevant credit card and loan offers. Customers who want triple-bureau monitoring can pay for Credit Sesame’s Premium plan for $15.95 per month after a seven-day free trial.
Experian Free Credit Monitoring
Pros:
- Notifies users of spending increases and decreases
- Includes a FICO Score tracker
- Simplifies the process of submitting a credit report dispute
Subscribers can access and track their FICO Score based on Experian data and receive alerts regarding new credit inquiries, account balances, and other suspicious activity.
Experian is one of the services that offers consumers free access to basic credit monitoring services. They also offer 30 days and send notifications when shopping increases or decreases and when credit utilization changes.
It doesn’t require you to enter a credit card number to sign up and provides a great range of features. You can use the credit score to check the potential effects that certain actions.
Credit Karma Monitoring Service
Pros:
- Monitors Equifax and TransUnion credit reports
- Provides a credit report card and weekly score updates
- Check credit score for free
- Monitors credit
- Shows credit factors and how they affect your score
This service is a personal finance company. You can use it to check your credit score as often as you’d like for free.
Users also get access to credit reports from TransUnion and Equifax, plus insights into how they can improve their credit scores.
Monitoring information can be viewed through the platform’s mobile app or online, making it easy to track credit scores over time.
Best Paid Credit Monitoring Services
You need to be paid monitoring services if you want a more comprehensive credit monitoring plan. You will need to pay a monthly fee to get more comprehensive protection.
The following are some of the paid credit monitoring services which are not available with free plans:
Identity Force Credit Monitoring service
Pros:
- Provided through TransUnion
- Offers a family plan
- All plans include up to $1 million in identity theft insurance
This credit monitoring service offers through one of the major credit bureaus-TransUnion. It also offers two packages; customers must opt for the Ultra Secure+ Credit monitoring services.
This package cost $23.99 per month (or $239.50 per year), and includes three-bureau credit monitoring, three-bureau reports and scores, and a credit score tracker and simulator.
identity protection services are also robust and include everything from the dark web and social media identity monitoring to bank and credit card activity alerts, plus the standard $1 million in identity theft insurance.
ID Watchdog Credit Monitoring Service
Pros:
- Provided by Equifax
- Plans include up to $1 million in identity theft insurance
- Offers 24/7 customer support
ID Watchdog offers a service to lets consumers choose from two plans which are selection and premium. It is an Equifax-backed credit card monitoring service.
the $21.95 per month Premium plan includes three-bureau credit report monitoring, and the less costly Select plan ($14.95 per month for individuals) only includes monitoring of one bureau—Equifax itself.
The company offers 24\7 customer support and fully manages identity resolution in the case of identity theft. Customers can also get data breach notifications, public record monitoring and Equifax blocked inquiry alerts.
Privacy Guard Credit Monitoring Service
Pros:
- Includes monthly three-bureau credit score tracking
- Offers 24/7 triple-bureau credit monitoring
- 14-day trial available for $1
This service offers identity protection tools protection plan that includes both services. The Privacy Guard Credit protection plan costs $19.99 per month and includes monthly triple-bureau credit reports, scores, and tracking plus 24/7 daily triple-bureau monitoring.
Consumers can also combine credit monitoring with identity protection by selecting the total protection package. This includes dark web scanning, social security monitoring, debit and credit card monitoring, and other features standard in some credit monitoring services.
Things To Consider Before You Sign Up for Credit Mentoring Service
There are some things to consider before you pay for a service. You can consider:
- The cost is billed monthly.
- Consider how many credit bureaus are monitored.
- The credit scoring model is worth using.
- Consider the identity theft insurance that covers eligible expenses.
- Dark web scanning: If your name, social security number, address, and other personal information.
Here are all you need to consider before you pay for the credit monitoring service.
Note that credit monitoring services can only alert you of changes to your credit file, not fix or prevent any errors.