Credit Score Basics > Is Experian free?

Is Experian free?

Wollit Team3 minute read · Updated 1st July 2024

Experian offers a free credit score service in the UK, allowing you to check your credit score without paying anything.

Besides this, Experian has other services as well, some paid and some free.

Which Experian services are free in the UK?

Experian is free to join. Once you create an account, you’ll have access to three free services:

Free access to your credit score. All you need to do is create an account, and you’ll see how your score evolves over time. However, it’s only updated once a month and won’t tell you what influences your credit score.
Free statutory credit report. This is a basic credit report that is available online and provides a snapshot of your credit history. While it’s free, it doesn’t give you as much detail as your full Experian credit report.
Experian Boost. This is a free service that allows you to instantly “boost” your credit score by adding certain recurring bill payments to your Experian credit report. This can help you make the most of your regular utility bills, council tax, and streaming subscriptions. However, not all lenders care about this “boosted” version.

Which premium services does Experian offer in the UK, and how much do they cost?

While Experian’s free services are great, it also offers a few premium subscriptions that can come in handy.

The first one is CreditExpert.

CreditExpert is a paid service that provides unlimited access to your credit report, credit score, and email alerts about any changes to your file. CreditExpert costs £14.99 a month after the initial 30-day free trial.

Here is the full list of what CreditExpert offers:

Credit score updated daily.
Credit report updated daily.
A full list of all the factors influencing your credit score, as well as tips on what you should do to improve it.
Phone line for any questions or concerns they may have about your credit report or score.
Credit alerts are available every time a company searches your Experian credit file.
CreditLock: This lets you “lock your credit report” so that fraudsters can’t make applications in your name.
Daily web monitoring for fraud and leaked personal data. Experian will alert you to any suspicious activity or if your passwords were found on the “dark web”.

The second premium service is called Identity Plus.

Identity Plus is a subscription service that focuses only on web monitoring and dedicated fraud support.

Because the features offered by Identity Plus are already included în CreditExpert, Identity Plus is only available if you have a free Experian account, and costs £10.99 per month after a 30-day free trial.

How does Experian compare with other websites where you can get your credit score and report for free?

In the UK, there are many websites where you can get your credit score and even report for free.

The main difference is in which credit report and credit score they let you access.

Experian is one of three main credit reference agencies in the UK, along with Equifax and TransUnion. Each agency has its own credit score system and formula, which is why you’ll see your credit score vary between them. Lenders also prefer different credit reference agencies – some will look at your Experian report, others at the Equifax or TransUnion one.

To see your other credit report and create a score for free, you can use websites like:

ClearScore for your Equifax credit report and score.
Credit Karma and MoneySuperMarket for your TransUnion credit score and report.

While these do not offer access to your experience credit report and score they do give you more access for free then the Experian free account.

The Experian free account only gives you access to your Experian credit score, not your Experian full credit report.

However websites like ClearScore, Credit Karma, and MoneySuperMarket actually give you full access to your credit report and credit score. It’s just that they’ll use Equifax and TransUnion instead of Experian.

This is fine – to understand how lenders see you, you will have to look at all three credit scores and credit reports. The best solution is to combine them.

Also, at the end of the day, the most important thing is not necessarily checking your credit score but working on improving it.

The good news is that now there are many apps that can help you build and improve credit.

One such app is Wollit. Wollit works by reporting a fixed-fee monthly subscription as a loan repayment to all credit reference agencies. This helps you build a history of timely debt repayments, which is the main factor that matters for your credit score.