Mint.com vs. Credit Karma: Personal Finance Showdown

Mint.com and Credit Karma are two popular personal finance apps that take a few similarities, but a number of key differences. Here, I compare the two, noting what each service does, how information technology works, and how each can do good y'all. While I put Credit Karma and Mint head-to-head, they are non mutually exclusive apps, and there's a strong example for using both of them. However, they differ in how and when yous should rely on them.

What Is Credit Karma?

Credit Karma is a personal finance service that lets you lot retrieve your credit study and score from two credit reporting agencies, updated as oft as once per calendar week. Credit Karma also offers a few other features, which I explicate later, just credit reports and scores are the primary attraction.

Can you become your credit report for free elsewhere, without having to sign up for Credit Karma? Yes. As per the Off-white Credit Reporting Deed, US consumers can access their credit reports (only not scores) for free, once per year, from each of the three credit reporting bureaus, via a site called AnnualCreditReport.com. To exist sure y'all're reaching the right site, it'southward best to first from the .gov site for credit reports, which links to AnnualCreditReport.com.

If yous space out your three free requests guaranteed by law over the course of a year, yous can bank check your credit report one time every four months. With Credit Karma, however, the reports and scores update as often every bit once per week. Therefore, Credit Karma has ii central benefits: (1) Information technology helps you keep an heart on your credit report more oft for errors, and (2) it provides y'all credit scores, which you lot do not get for free through the other method.

The credit scores come from Equifax and TransUnion, which use a system called VantageScore 3.0. That score is non the same as a FICO score, although they use many similar data points and the same scale. A FICO score is the rating most lenders employ to assess whether you are a high-risk client or a safe bet. The term FICO comes from the organization that created it, Off-white Isaac Corporation, in the 1950s. For several decades, FICO had no real competitors, as VantageScore has only been around since 2006. To understand the differences betwixt FICO and VantageScore, run into personal finance writer Bev O'Shea's explanation.

What Is Mint.com?

Mint is also categorized as a personal finance service. Its principal attraction is how it gives you visibility into all your financial accounts in one place.

Mint shows you both the large movie and the fine details. Y'all get a single snapshot of your fiscal health across the many accounts you have at dissimilar institutions, such as credit cards, checking and savings accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts, loans, and so forth. Mint consolidates the activity and balances into one place, meaning you can easily see your net worth and total debts owed.

You go fine details, also. Mint displays every line item transaction that occurred in your accounts; in fact people who avidly employ Mint often check the app only to review their spending. You can hands verify that each and every transaction was one that you authorized or knew occur, including late fees, pending charges, credits to your accounts, and then forth.

Mint offers a lot more, too, as information technology strives to exist a ane-stop store for all your daily personal finance needs. It has tools for creating monthly budgets, managing bills, setting long-term financial goals, and more.

Mint also offers a costless credit score and a full credit report, although information technology doesn't advertise the credit report as such. More on that in a bit.

Price and Availability

Both Mint and Credit Karma are free to use. Their associated apps are free to install, too. In setting upward the accounts, you are non asked for a credit card number, so y'all tin be certain there will never exist whatever sneaky charges from either company.

Both have apps for iOS and Android, as well as a web app. Some functionality is only available in the spider web app, and that's true for both Mint and Credit Karma.

Security and Privacy

Mint and Credit Karma have fairly transparent terms of use, plus detailed security and privacy statements. If y'all are very concerned about your privacy and security, you should take the time to read these statements before deciding whether to apply either service.

Are Credit Karma and Mint 100 percent foolproof? No. I say that because no online service can be 100 percent infallible. Both companies accept serious measures to keep your personal information secure. Neither Mint nor Credit Karma stands out to me every bit being markedly improve or worse than the other in this category.

Mint is owned past Intuit, a large software visitor that specializes in business concern and fiscal services. Intuit has a long and solid reputation in the financial software sector, as it is the same visitor backside QuickBooks, TurboTax, likewise equally accounting and payroll software. Credit Karma's history and experience in the financial services sector isn't quite as deep, although the visitor has had some form of credit monitoring service on the marketplace since 2008. Information technology is non a fly-past-dark startup.

As with most sites, you lot should ever protect your account with a strong username and password, and never reuse that password for whatever other account, as that'southward the easiest way to get hacked. Use a password manager, many of which are free, and then that you don't have to invent difficult passwords and remember them yourself.

Information technology seems pertinent to mention that Equifax (used by both Credit Karma and Mint) doesn't have a stellar reputation as of late. In September 2022, the company appear a data breach, later additional investigation, potentially affects 147 million people. That is virtually half the adult population of the entire United States. (The alienation primarily puts United states of america residents at risk, only a small number of people in the UK and Canada are included, too.) If Equifax's alienation leads you to desire to avert using the company'south services, the sad fact is that information technology would have a lot of conscientious reading of fine impress and perhaps a fourth dimension machine to practice so. If you've ever applied for any kind of credit bill of fare, fiscal business relationship, or personal finance app, it might already be too late.

Personal Data Required

To sign up for Mint, you need an email address, and you have to create a password. Across that, how much personal information y'all provide is up to you, as many of the site's features are optional. For example, when it comes to connecting your financial accounts, y'all are under no obligation to connect them all. If you don't want Mint to know that you have a undercover investment account, you can choose to not add it. Likewise, if you don't desire to receive gratuitous monthly updated credit scores, which requires additional personal information, you don't take to opt into the credit score feature.

Credit Karma is quite dissimilar. Its cadre service is to give you your credit reports and scores, and to get those you have to provide a lot of particular, including engagement of nascency, terminal four digits of your social security number, current address, and more. Additionally, you lot must respond questions to verify your identity, such equally, "Which of these has never been your phone number?" These questions are common for any credit report inquiry. If you don't provide these details, yous can't get an account with Credit Karma.

How Practise Mint and Credit Karma Brand Coin?

Credit Karma and Mint both make coin through targeted advertising. When you lot use these services, they tin see all kinds of details about your financial situation, such as how much interest you lot pay on loans and how much interest y'all earn with savings accounts. Because Mint and Credit Karma know this kind of information, they tin evidence you lot ads for new financial services that are better. For example, if you have a credit menu with a high involvement rate, you'll probably see an ad for a credit card with a lower interest rate. When you really sign up for a new account through one of these targeted offers, Mint or Credit Karma get paid by the company offering the product.

When I emailed with a spokesperson from each visitor, they went into further detail. Mint'due south spokesperson explained that Mint "does not sell, publish or share data entrusted to us by a customer that identifies the customer or any person." I interpret this statement to say that whatsoever data Mint sells or shares almost its customers is anonymized. The spokesperson added, "Mint now has advertizement on its website and as well maintains revenue sharing relationships with select partners."

Credit Karma's spokesperson told me past e-mail, "We have never and will never sell or share our members' data, including with our banking partners." I followed upward to inquire whether that includes anonymized information, and the representative confirmed that information technology does.

1 piece of the puzzle I still couldn't identify is how Credit Karma manages to get people'south credit reports and scores so oft and give them away for free. The spokesperson confirmed, "Substantially, we buy them from the bureaus and give them abroad for free."

A consumer credit expert I spoke with, Barry Paperno, speculated that Credit Karma and other companies like information technology (WalletHub, Credit Sesame, and so forth) buy these credit scores in majority at a low rate and make upwardly for the cost with all the money they earn on revenue-sharing from targeted advertisements and offers.

Both Mint and Credit Karma'south spokespeople offered more specifics on why their companies' targeted advertising is unique. When someone with a Mint account signs up to become credit scores through the app, a short intake course asks questions about their financial goals and plans. If that person is using the credit score aspect of Mint in social club to go a mortgage or motorcar loan, Mint won't show credit card offers in that context, because applying for credit cards isn't the best style to fix your credit for a mortgage application.

Credit Karma's spokesperson made a example for why that app's targeted offers are unique. She said that Credit Karma uses data from its threescore meg members' credit profiles and tax information to testify the right ads. "Credit information is a huge factor in knowing if you're likely to be approved for a credit menu or loan. Nosotros as well work very closely with our partners, so we have unique insights into their underwriting processes, which also allows us to make better recommendations for saving people money."

Targeted Offers, A User'due south Perspective

As for whether the targeted ads are truly useful from a user'southward perspective, I've had mixed experiences with both sites.

Mint, for example, clued me in that I could bump up my credit score a few ticks if I opened a few more credit cards. And then I did. I used one of Mint's recommendations considering I trusted that it knew a lot almost my habits and personal financial situation. And information technology does, but there are limits. The card I got charges a foreign transaction fee (that's on me for not reading all the fine print closely). I make a lot of credit card purchases that are not in USDs. Mint sees my transactions, but it wasn't smart enough to weed out menu offers that penalized me for shopping abroad.

Credit Karma at outset impressed me with a little section information technology includes on its advertisements that lists the pros and cons of the offer. In item, I noticed it had flagged foreign transaction fees every bit a con. However, Credit Karma messed upwards when it tried to play on my fears by telling me I could be saving around $700 if I were to get a credit bill of fare with a lower interest rate. Credit Karma didn't seem to realize that I pay all my credit cards in total, and e'er take. Then I pay $0 in interest. A new card with a lower charge per unit wouldn't do me whatsoever good.

Credit Scores, Reports, and Monitoring

Credit Karma is focused on giving details about your credit scores and written report, whereas Mint provides less in that area. Credit Karma pulls your full credit written report and credit score from two sources, Equifax and TransUnion, every bit frequently as once a week.

Mint says it only shows your credit score, not your credit report (that's non completely authentic; I'll explain in a moment), and the score is only from i source, Equifax. Mint updates your credit score no more than in one case per month. While Mint doesn't technically provide credit reports, you see virtually everything that would exist in a full credit report as y'all drill into the details of your credit score. In Mint, I can see credit inquiries made, derogatory remarks, credit usage, and so forth.

At the account level, Mint once again displays everything I'd expect to meet in a full credit written report, such equally business relationship usage (equally a percent), account status, business relationship blazon, appointment opened, limit, balance, highest balance, a chart showing usage over fourth dimension, a tabular array showing status for each month'south payment over the last several years, and so forth.

I asked Mint's spokesperson how this information differs from a total credit study, and effectively, she said it doesn't. It'due south actually a affair of design. Currently, the information doesn't look similar a credit report, then rather than misfile people, Mint doesn't draw attention to it. "We're working to present the credit score and study data in a holistic view," she told me by email.

As mentioned, neither app shows your FICO score. The numbers they provide are based on the VantageScore 3.0 system. Depending on your financial past, your FICO score and VantageScore could be totally different. You can pay to get your FICO score (or really, scores, plural, because there are more than i), merely information technology's expensive. MyFICO.com charges $29.95 per calendar month. You lot get credit monitoring and a whole bunch of other stuff, but my god, is that expensive!

Credit Karma says it offers both credit and identity monitoring, in improver to providing credit scores and reports. If yous elect to receive updates, the service emails y'all when it notices changes to your TransUnion or Equifax reports. In my experience, information technology works all right, simply it'south slow. For example, I recently received a notice from another credit monitoring service called MyIDCare about a week afterwards I had filed a modify of address with the U.s.a. Post Role. Credit Karma hasn't gotten that memo all the same, however. Previous address changes from several months earlier did appear on my credit written report, giving me hope that the new i will somewhen prove upwards. In any event, the lag time for the update is longer with CreditKarma than what I experienced with MyIDCare.

Mint doesn't include credit monitoring. You tin can purchase it as a split service for $16.99 per month.

Does Using a Credit Score App Lower My Credit Score?

You may have heard that someday someone checks your credit report, it lowers your score. So, it's easy to believe that using Mint or Credit Karma, which both go your credit scores frequently, will continually lower your score. That's not accurate. The system is a picayune more complicated. When you lot apply Credit Karma or Mint, those credit reports are considered soft inquiries. Soft inquiries practise not affect your credit score or report. When individuals desire to check their own credit reports, those are soft inquiries. Other examples of soft inquiries are when a banking concern pre-approves y'all (and usually a agglomeration of other people in your demographic) for a loan or a credit carte du jour. When you actually utilise for a new account, that's a hard research, which does bear on your credit report and score.

I asked Paperno why people sometimes go pre-approved for an account, merely and so at the indicate of difficult enquiry, they're denied. He gave a number of reasons.

For starters, your credit score tin fluctuate daily, although usually not by more than a few points. If you were a borderline "pass" on the soft inquiry, a few weeks later on when the visitor runs your numbers again, your score might swing in the other direction and dip to the "neglect" side. Another reason is that the soft research could have been based on VantageScore, while the difficult inquiry might use FICO. Yet another reason is that the criteria are tougher at the hard inquiry. A soft research might just show your credit score is a "pass," while a closer look during the difficult enquiry might reveal that you filed for bankruptcy viii years ago. Certain credit scores just look at so many years' worth of data, while other kinds of inquiries can pull your entire, unfettered history.

Everything I just explained is relevant, because it leads to the question, "Practise you need to check your credit score every single calendar week?" which is the frequency that Credit Karma advertises. The reply is... it depends. For virtually people, the answer is no. Paperno confirmed that big changes in your credit score take months or years to attain. But equally mentioned, smaller fluctuations tin happen daily (credit carte du jour usage, for example, tin cause your score to rise or drop a few points in a short amount of fourth dimension). There may be cases in which people need to know their credit score more than frequently than that, but then they would accept to consider whether tracking their FICO score would be a amend option.

Manage Coin and Go on a Upkeep

Mint offers tools for tracking all your spending and for setting budgets. It suggests budgets in unlike categories based on your spending history. With Mint, you can carefully allocate all transactions. For example, if you take dinner at a hotel restaurant, the charge volition likely be categorized automatically equally "hotel" or fifty-fifty "travel." With Mint, you tin can change information technology to "eatery." When you lot appropriately allocate all your transactions, it becomes actually easy to see where and how yous spend your money and so set limits on sure categories of spending to see financial goals.

Credit Karma doesn't have anything nearly then advanced. It has a rudimentary spend-tracking feature on its website, and a version of that characteristic is visible in the iPhone app, although it's not optimized for a telephone screen. The tools are rudimentary, and equally of this writing, they aren't worth using.

Alerts

Mint is hands-down more adept with alerts than Credit Karma. Credit Karma has email alerts that tell you when your credit report changes, but information technology doesn't accept whatsoever mobile alerts for other financial transactions.

Mint does. You tin customize alerts, as well. For example, you could create an alarm so that your telephone notifies yous whenever any transaction greater than $1,000 occurs. Mint can remind yous when bills are due, when you're nearing your budget in any given category, and more. Information technology also alerts you when a new credit score is bachelor.

Find Unclaimed Money

One slap-up service that Credit Karma offers only Mint does not is a search tool that looks for unclaimed money owed to you in different states. You enter your name, or anyone'south name really, as well as the country y'all want to search, and the tool looks for possible matches.

When I searched for my proper name in several states where I lived, I didn't find any unclaimed money, but I did hit enough of results for people with a proper noun similar to mine. For nigh states, yous can see the name, metropolis, and state of the person, plus the corporeality they're owed. You can also drill down to see who is obligated to pay it. Money can come from many different sources, such every bit tax refunds or credits issued to you if you were always charged for services you lot didn't utilise.

Mint doesn't take any tools for helping you find and reclaim money owed to you.

Pay Your Bills

Mint offers bill payment and Credit Karma does not. Mint's opt-in service allows you to fix up connections between your payment methods and service providers you employ, so that you tin pay multiple bills from the Mint app or website. You accept the option to prepare up automated pecker pay or to log into Mint each fourth dimension a bill is due, to customize and initiate the payment. When you employ Mint Bills, equally information technology's called, you tin also track and manage bills that are offline and greenbacks-based, such as paying babysitters, dog walkers, and so forth.

Once your bills are logged and saved in Mint, the app begins sending y'all reminders earlier each payment is due. Because you have the power to initiate the payment on the spot, Mint helps yous avoid late payment fees. And because you tin meet all your account balances in Mint, it's easier to brand sure yous don't overdraw an account when making payments.

Mint Bills is one of Mint's newest features, and information technology'southward the only office of the app that lets y'all initiate money transfers. It's optional to employ, so if you aren't comfortable with making payments from a third-party app, you lot can certainly skip it. Just it's a valuable service that makes Mint a well-rounded personal finance app. Credit Karma, which focuses on credit reports and scores, doesn't offering anything similar this.

Set Fiscal Goals

Mint has tools for setting financial goals. In Mint, you tin can ready a goal and get help defining it. For example, you can tell Mint that your goal is to purchase a home. Mint offers calculators for figuring out the amount you lot need to save and what yous can afford. You tin besides prepare a borderline for when you want to have the coin, and Mint suggests a monthly amount to set aside. Over time, it keeps track of your progress. Mint has specialized tools that are similar for saving for retirement and other common financial goals.

Credit Karma doesn't have specific tools for setting or managing fiscal goals.

Manage Your Money, Control Your Credit

On a solar day-to-24-hour interval ground, Mint is a more useful personal finance app than Credit Karma. Mint gives you lot visibility for every not-cash transaction that occurs across all your accounts, also equally tools for manually adding greenbacks-based exchanges. Budgets update in existent time in accordance with your actual spending, which ways Mint provides data that can steer your spending. Information technology's like shooting fish in a barrel to glance at the Mint mobile app for personalized data well-nigh your financial situation earlier making any purchases.

Additionally, Mint lets you enter your financial goals, whether that means getting out of student loan debt or saving up for a down payment on a belongings. The mere fact that they exist in the app at all means yous stop up looking at them and thinking nearly them regularly, and that'due south an important feat when information technology comes to long-term fiscal goals.

Credit Karma, meanwhile, focuses almost exclusively on your credit report and credit history, which is much less useful on a solar day-to-mean solar day footing. Maintaining a good credit score and report, or fixing a poor 1, takes time and is a long-term effort. Credit Karma does a good job educating people nearly what goes into a credit report and how those factors bear on your credit. Credit Karma also pulls your credit report and score from two sources, whereas Mint uses but one. Information technology besides alerts you via email when something on your credit report changes.

Every bit I stated previously, Mint and Credit Karma are not mutually sectional services. Both can add value to one'southward fiscal life. Mint does a better task of providing assist at the daily level, whereas Credit Karma comes in handy much less regularly. That doesn't mean y'all shouldn't utilize it, though. And there's no reason you lot can't sign up for both services. It won't hurt your credit written report or credit score to practise so. Still, Mint is the app you want to keep on your phone for checking transactions, budgets, bills, and managing all the minutiae of your financial life.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/feature/20979/mintcom-vs-credit-karma-personal-finance-showdown

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