Best Credit Monitoring Services

PrivacyGuard provides credit monitoring for your reports from all three credit bureaus. It sends you alerts by text, email, or phone anytime your credit report information changes.

You can try PrivacyGuard for just $1 for the first 14 days. After that, you’ll be charged the monthly subscription fee based on the plan you choose. PrivacyGuard offers basic ID Protection for $9.99 per month. ID Protection watches for signs of identity theft by monitoring both the public and Dark Web, public records, and more. Up to $1 million in ID theft insurance is included.

Credit Protection for $19.99 per month includes your three-bureau credit reports and scores, daily credit monitoring, and a credit score simulator. The Total Protection plan is $24.99 per month and includes all the features of the Credit Protection and ID Protection Plans.

Credit Karma provides the only truly free credit monitoring service on our list. There’s no trial subscription and you’ll never have to give your credit card number. Credit Karma allows you to monitor your TransUnion and Equifax credit report score at no cost.

Your credit score—the VantageScore 3.0—is updated daily. Your credit report information is updated weekly. Along with monitoring of your credit score, you can receive alerts when unusual activity is suspected on either of your two credit reports.

While the service is free, one of the drawbacks is that you will only get access to two of your credit reports and credit scores. You’ll have to use another service to monitor your credit report from Experian.

IdentityForce has two basic identity and credit monitoring products. The UltraSecure plan includes identity monitoring services only. And the UltraSecure+Credit plan monitors both your identity and your credit.

The UltraSecure plan, for $17.99 per month and $179.90 per year, includes a host of features that monitor your personal information and alerts you if your information is compromised. You’ll also receive $1 million in identity theft insurance, which is useful for covering expenses related to clearing up identity theft.

The UltraSecure+Credit Plan is $23.99 per month or $239.90 annually. It includes all the identity protection features of the UltraSecure Plan, plus three-bureau credit monitoring, credit reports, and scores, as well as a credit simulator to show you how your actions might affect your credit score. Learn more by visiting their website or calling 877-694-3367.

The parent company of Identity Guard has served over 47 million customers since being established in 1996. The credit monitoring company keeps a close eye on your credit files from all three of the major credit bureaus.

You can choose between the Value, Total, and Ultra Plans either for yourself or your family. All plans include $1 million of identity theft insurance, a U.S.-based case manager to work with you if your identity is stolen, a mobile application to access your membership information, and alerts when your personal information is detected on the Dark Web. The Total and Ultra Plans add a monthly credit score report, three-bureau credit monitoring, and bank account oversight.

Plans range from $7.50 to $25/month for individuals and $12.50 to $33.33/month for family protection. If you decide not to keep your subscription, make sure you cancel during the money-back guarantee period or free trial period (if one of these is part of your subscription) to avoid being charged. TheBalance.com readers receive at least 20% off and as much as a 33% discount.

Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus, offers IdentityWorks credit monitoring service that monitors all three of your credit reports. In addition to monitoring your three credit reports and credit scores for changes that signal identity theft, IdentityWorks provides a number of other credit and identity monitoring services.

It scans the Dark Web for your personal information, notifies you if a sex offender moves into your neighborhood, and detects when crimes are booked in your name or reported in the court system. It also detects when payday loans are opened in your name, informs you of changes of address with the U.S. Postal Service, watches for account takeover, and alerts you when any accounts are opened using your Social Security number.

Choose a plan for one adult starting at $9.99; one adult and up to 10 children, starting at $14.99; or two adults and up to 10 children, starting at $19.99. Plans include a 30-day trial subscription, so you can decide whether you want to keep the service or cancel.

Keep tabs on the credit scores that most lenders use with the FICO Advanced credit monitoring service. You’ll get instant access to your three-bureau credit reports and up to 28 versions of your credit score that are used in mortgage, auto, and credit card lending. You’ll get alerts for changes to your credit information, including newly opened accounts, new inquiries, new public records, new addresses, newly listed collections, and changes to your account balances.

The FICO Advanced subscription is $29.95 per month. You can cancel your subscription at any time, but you won’t get a partial refund for the monthly or annual subscription you’ve already paid. The Premier plan for $39.95 provides monthly credit score updates plus everything you get with Advanced.

With TransUnion Credit Monitoring, you’ll receive real-time alerts whenever there are changes to the accounts listed on your credit report. Because only your TransUnion and Equifax credit reports are being monitored, you won’t receive any alerts to changes on your Experian credit report unless it's deemed critical.

TransUnion Credit Monitoring also comes with other features like debt and credit score tracking, which can help you see how your financial situation and credit score have changed over time. The subscription for TransUnion Credit Monitoring is $24.95 per month.