Credit Karma (for iPhone) - Review 2022

Credit Karma is a free mobile finance app that provides your credit report and score from two of the three credit reporting agencies. Information technology also contains educational textile about personal finance, such every bit what makes a credit score become up or down. You can use Credit Karma on the web or as a mobile app, although in that location isn't much in the iPhone version that caters specifically to the mobile experience. The web version has everything that's in the iPhone app and then some. I'd only apply Credit Karma for iPhone if I were a mobile-commencement person, meaning my phone was my primary computing device. If that's your situation, information technology's a proficient app to have.

This review looks specifically at Credit Karma's iPhone app. For additional details about the service, see my thorough review of Credit Karma. Additionally, there is a Credit Karma Android app, which has slightly dissimilar features than the iPhone app, and then see that review if you're an Android user.

Cost and Information Required

The Credit Karma app is costless to download and apply. At no point during the signup procedure does it even ask yous to enter any credit card details. For the service to work, however, you need to provide some personal information, such as date of nativity and the last iv digits of your social security number. You also take to verify your identity past answering questions such every bit "Which of these phone numbers take you never had?" In signing upwards, you must concord to permit Credit Karma pull your credit report from TransUnion and Equifax.

Credit Karma iPhone app

How does Credit Karma make money? Credit Karma takes the information yous provide, as well as the information it gets from your credit written report, and uses them to show you lot highly targeted advertising. For instance, Credit Karma knows if you have a credit card with a rest. It knows the interest rate yous pay on that residual, whether y'all've been charged late fees, and and so forth. The app can therefore show you an advertizement for credit cards that offering a actually skillful deal for people who transfer balances.

Credit Karma isn't the only app to pull your credit report and score. WalletHub is like, and it updates your score daily. Mint provides a credit score and report, too, updated monthly. In that location are others too, including Credit Sesame and NerdWallet. Credit Karma is unique in that it pulls your VantageScore and credit reports from two agencies rather than merely i, although how much value there is in getting your score from two sources that utilise the same formula instead of one is questionable.

Security and Privacy

At the app level, Credit Karma requires a iv-digit PIN. The Android app has a default setting that prevents screenshots of the app, which y'all tin bypass in the settings. The iPhone version permit me freely snap pictures of my fiscal reports.

I recommend reading the visitor's terms of service and privacy policy, especially if yous take concerns most giving any visitor your personal details or access to fiscal information about you.

The only function of Credit Karma's policies that caught my centre is related to "canceling and deactivating" your membership. You lot can abolish and deactivate your membership, but doing so does non wipe your data from Credit Karma'south system. Upon deactivation, the visitor disables your account and stops sending communications, simply it keeps your information for 2 years, and some time after that anonymizes it.

What's in the Credit Karma iPhone App?

The Credit Karma iPhone app doesn't have as much to offer as the website. The app focuses almost exclusively on credit reports and scores, whereas the site has a few boosted features. The app does provide good level of detail with your credit reports and scores, though. For instance, the home screen of the app displays a credit score, and below information technology you lot come across the proper name of the source (such as TransUnion or Equifax), engagement when information technology was last updated, whether information technology's gone upward or down since the score was terminal updated, and a summary of what the score means (excellent, skilful, and so on).

Credit Karma iPhone app offers

From the dwelling screen, you can scroll downwards to run across offers or swipe for other options. When you swipe, customized screens announced that alter all the time. Recently, mine independent an offer for a personal loan, information almost how the balance on one of my credit cards increased, and a final page that let me link to even more data (View Accounts, Get Score Details, Become My Recommendations, and Run into Offers).

Credit Karma tells you a lot about factors that impact your credit report and score. In that sense, it'due south highly educational. Information technology provides personalized data about you and your credit history, besides equally an overall assessment of what the different factors mean. Information technology explains what a hard inquiry is, for example, while also showing y'all if you take any on your credit report.

One of the main reasons to check your credit report is to make sure nix fishy is on it that shouldn't be. You can do that with the Credit Karma app because yous tin see your unabridged credit report. Ameliorate are the alerts Credit Karma sends you lot when it notices a change on your credit report. Unfortunately, those alerts come via e-mail, not phone notifications, which seems like a missed opportunity. Mint, however, uses push button notifications to alert you lot of changes to your account, including an updated credit score, but also anything you sign up to receive, such equally when a charge greater than a certain corporeality hits your credit menu. Credit Karma does offer other kinds of alerts, but, again, just past electronic mail, and you have to manage those alerts via the Web app, as they aren't accessible via the iPhone app.

The offers are solid, and in some means, I like them more than than Mint.com'south offers, because Credit Karma's give more explicit details. A credit card offering showed three key points highlighted in their own boxes: annual fee, introductory purchase APR, and regular buy Apr. Below that were additional details well-nigh the perks of the card. If you click through to read more well-nigh the offer, you'll see Credit Karma'due south Take with a few points on "What to Like" and "Expect Out For." That information can help y'all spot a card that's not a good fit.

In one instance, Credit Karma flagged that a credit card would accuse me international buy fees. As much as the app knows about my fiscal data, it doesn't know that the majority of my credit carte spending happens overseas. I'thousand glad I didn't use for that carte! Conversely, the final time I applied for a new credit menu through Mint, at that place were no pros or cons mentioned, and I forgot to read closely for data about foreign transactions. At present I'm stuck with a card that I never use.

Yous also see your "approval odds" next to some of the ads, significant Credit Karma tells y'all whether it thinks your awarding for the offer would be successful.

Non all the offers are 100 percent spot on, though. One pop-upwardly told me: "Your credit card rest may be costing y'all as much every bit $767 in involvement." Alarming! The app wanted to evidence me an offer for a credit bill of fare with a lower interest rate. Still, information technology failed to notice that I pay off all my credit cards in full every month, and I always take. Because I never comport a balance, I pay $0 in interest. So while the offers announced smart and customized, you lot all the same need to know enough near your own financial situation to competently gauge the offers.

One other scrap of functionality that'due south buried and hard to find in the iPhone app is a search tool that helps you look for unclaimed money owed to you (or anyone else'due south name you search) in various states. Type a full name, and wait for results. If there's a match, Credit Karma tells you lot some details, such every bit the amount, source of the money, and the city and country on file for the person who'south owed the money. To make a claim, Credit Karma sends you off to the appropriate website for that state. This function works fine on the mobile app, just once Credit Karma pushes you to an outside page where you can endeavour to merits the coin, you may find it's not mobile optimized.

What's Missing

Missing from Credit Karma's mobile app are any features that are unique to the mobile feel. The Credit Karma website has a groovy credit prediction tool that shows how your credit score might be afflicted if certain events occur. For example, what will happen if I apply for a loan and become denied, or open a new line of credit? The Credit Karma spider web app tells you what would happen and anticipates how much it would hurt or aid your credit score. That would be a nice tool to accept on a mobile device, for the next time you're stuck in an airport for iii hours with a guy trying to push a credit menu application on yous, for instance.

The web app too has some rudimentary tools for tracking your spending, and these aren't in the Android app, but they do appear in the iPhone app…sort of. The tools expect like they are existence pulled straight from the website and scaled down to iPhone size, rather than beingness ported and reformatted to exist legible on the smaller screen. Information technology'southward not much of a loss, because the tools aren't very good notwithstanding, anyhow. They have potential, but they're in the early on stages of development.

These spend-tracking tools are a crude facsimile of Mint'due south tracking tools, which are much more developed and are superbly tailored for use on the service's mobile apps. They give yous immediate insight into the residual of all your accounts, and then y'all know earlier you make a buy whether you lot're going to overdraw a debit business relationship or max out a credit carte du jour. Mint also alerts yous if you're nearing your monthly upkeep in whatsoever given spending category, helping you think twice before you blow $iv on another latte.

Mint also has bill payment features that alert y'all earlier your bills are past due. Y'all can make a payment direct from the Mint mobile app, and, in many cases, the transaction goes through within 24 hours. Because the app helps y'all pay bills immediately when you are reminded that they're due, it finer helps you avoid late fees and other financial issues. Credit Karma doesn't accept anything like that. It sends an e-mail reminder when a bill is nearing due, but that's non nearly the same affair.

Useful, but Not Daily

Credit Karma's iPhone app won't rip y'all off, and it does provide value, but really merely in limited circumstances. If you need to know your credit study and score, it can tell you. Just it doesn't have all the tools or alerts that have a personal finance mobile app from expert to indispensable. Mint does, and for that reason, it's a PCMag Editors' Pick. Credit Karma is a fine tool for what it does. At that place's no reason yous can't use both information technology and Mint. But y'all'll get more daily employ from Mint.