Credit Karma (for Android) - Review 2022

Consumer credit reports and credit scores are confusing. Figuring out how to get them can be as confounding. Credit Karma makes it easier. This costless mobile finance app pulls your credit report and credit score direct from ii major credit-reporting bureaus, updating them every bit ofttimes as one time per week. The Android app has fairly limited utilise in the mobile context, although it does allow y'all to keep an eye on your credit report at any fourth dimension. It doesn't accept financial-management features that would exist useful on the go, such every bit budget-limit alerts or bill-payment services. The app is worth using if you're a mobile-first kind of person. Otherwise, stick to the Credit Karma website instead.

The present review looks specifically at Credit Karma's Android app. For additional details about the service at large, meet my thorough review of Credit Karma.

Price and Data Required

The Credit Karma app is free to download and use. At no point during the signup process does it even enquire you to provide a credit card. Simply for the service to work, you need to provide some personal data, such equally your engagement of nascence and the last four digits of your social security number. You're also asked a few questions to verify your identity, such as "which of these phone numbers accept you never had?" In signing upward, you lot too agree to let Credit Karma pull your credit written report from TransUnion and Equifax.

Credit Karma Android app

Credit Karma takes the information yous provide and information from your credit study, and uses it to prove you highly targeted advertising. For example, Credit Karma knows if you accept a credit card with a rest. Information technology knows the interest rate you lot pay on that balance, whether you've been charged tardily fees, so forth. The app can therefore show yous an advertisement for, say, credit cards that offer a actually good deal for people who transfer balances.

In pulling your credit reports and credit scores, Credit Karma meets a adequately niche need. And it's non the merely personal finance visitor to practice so. WalletHub is like. Similar Credit Karma, information technology's complimentary to employ and focuses on credit reports and scores. There are others, also, including Credit Sesame, NerdWallet, and Mint.

Security and Privacy

At the app level, Credit Karma requires a four-digit PIN, which is good, but I was disappointed that it didn't offer a fingerprint unlock option. By default, it prevents your telephone from taking screenshots, though you tin disable this feature in the settings.

Every bit to the company'southward terms of service and privacy policy, I recommend reading them, specially if you accept concerns most giving whatever visitor your personal details or access to financial data nearly you.

The just part of Credit Karma's policies that jumped out at me is related to canceling or deactivating your membership. You can cancel and deactivate your membership, but doing so does not wipe your data from Credit Karma's system. Upon deactivation, the company disables your account and stops sending communications, but it keeps your data for two years, and some time after that, will anonymize it.

What's in the Credit Karma App?

The Credit Karma app doesn't have as much to offer equally the website, focusing exclusively on credit reports and scores. Even the iPhone version of the app has a little more than. Credit Karma for Android does provide a skillful level of detail for the information it contains, even so. For example, when the dwelling screen of the app displays a credit score, you lot too come across the proper name of the source (such as TransUnion or Equifax), the date when it was last updated, and a summary of what the score ways (excellent, proficient, etc.).

Credit Karma Android app score details

From the dwelling screen, y'all tin roll downwardly to see offers or swipe for summary details about factors that are affecting your credit score, such as the total amount of debt you owe or percent of credit card usage against full credit.

Credit Karma tells yous a lot nigh factors that affect your credit written report and score, so in that sense, it'southward highly educational. It provides personalized information about you lot and your credit history, as well as an overall assessment of what the dissimilar factors mean. It explains what a hard inquiry is, for instance, while too showing you if you have whatsoever on your credit report.

The offers are solid, and in some ways, I like them more than Mint.com'south offers, because Credit Karma'southward requite more than explicit details. A credit card offer showed three key points highlighted in their own boxes: annual fee, introductory purchase APR, and regular purchase April. Below that were additional details about the perks of the carte. If you click through to read more about the offering, you'll see Credit Karma's Take, with a few points on "What to Similar" and "Wait Out For." That information tin help y'all spot a card that'due south not a good fit. In one instance, Credit Karma flagged that a credit bill of fare would accuse me international buy fees. As much as the app knows about my financial data, information technology doesn't know that the majority of my credit card spending happens overseas. I'yard glad I didn't apply for that carte du jour! Conversely, the concluding time I practical for a new credit bill of fare through Mint, there were no pros and cons mentioned, and I forgot to read closely for information about foreign transactions. Now I'm stuck with a carte that I never use.

You also encounter your "approval odds" next to some of the ads, meaning Credit Karma tells you whether it thinks your application for the offer would exist successful.

At that place is i more characteristic, but it's buried and hard to find. It's called Unclaimed Coin, and it helps y'all search databases of unclaimed coin in different states. To use it, you merely enter someone's total proper name. The app will search for a match on the proper name and offer a proposition for the state if unclaimed money is establish. You can meet the source of the funds, reason the funds are being held by the land, and a link to the site where you lot can effort to merits it. Once yous follow that link and leave Credit Karma's app to attempt to claim the money, all bets are off on whether the interface volition exist mobile-friendly. Just it's a nice tool to have. The Credit Karma website has information technology, too.

What'south Missing

What's missing from Credit Karma's mobile app are any features that are unique to the mobile experience. The Credit Karma website has this neat credit prediction tool that shows how your credit score might be affected if sure events occur. For example, what volition happen if I apply for a loan and become denied, or open a new line of credit? The Credit Karma web app tells you lot what would happen and anticipates how much it would injure or assistance your credit score. That would be handy on a mobile device, because yous could use information technology the next time you're stuck in an airport for three hours with a guy trying to push a credit carte application on you. You'd know how an acceptance or rejection might affect your credit, should you employ.

The web app also has some rudimentary tools for tracking your spending, which aren't in the Android app either. Some of these tools are in the iPhone version of Credit Karma, but they are difficult to discover and seem to be a port of the web content, rather than an feel congenital for the mobile platform specifically. These tools are a rough facsimile of Mint'due south spend-tracking tools, but Credit Karma'south are in way too early a stage to be considered useful.

Mint's tools, yet, are superb to apply on a mobile app. They give you immediate insight into the residual of all your accounts, so you know earlier you make a purchase whether you're going to overdraw a debit account or max out a credit carte du jour. Mint likewise alerts you if y'all're nearing your monthly budget in whatsoever given spending category, helping y'all think twice before you blow $4 on a java.

Mint also has nib-payment features that warning you before your bills are past due. You 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 you pay bills immediately when you are reminded that they're due, the app effectively helps you lot avoid late fees and other financial problems. Credit Karma doesn't have anything similar that, although if you lot apply the web app to connect your financial accounts, information technology sends bill reminder emails, which isn't most the same thing. All the app does is tell you your credit report and score, with a hearty side dish of fiscal literacy data.

Useful, Only Not Daily

Credit Karma has a practiced app that won't rip you off and that does provide value, simply really only in limited circumstances. If you need to know your credit report and score, it can tell you. But it doesn't have all the tools or alerts that take a personal finance mobile app from skillful to indispensable. Mint does, and for that reason, it'southward a PCMag Editors' Choice. Withal, Credit Karma is a fine tool for what it does. There'due south no reason you can't use both it and Mint. But you'll get more daily use from Mint, for sure.