Experian Boost® review: How it works
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- Fee
- $0 per month
- Minimum deposit to open
- $0
Our verdict
Build credit with rent, streaming services and more — for free.
Experian Boost® is a free service offered by the major credit bureau Experian®. To use it, you'll first need to sign up for a free Experian membership. It works by adding recurring bills that aren't automatically reported, such as eligible rent, streaming services and phone bills, to your Experian credit file. Reporting these bills with timely payments helps improve your credit score generated by your Experian credit report. The only downside is that this will only affect your Experian credit file, since it doesn't report to the other credit bureaus.
Best for: Those looking to improve their Experian credit history.
Pros
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Free to use
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Reports eligible rent, utilities and streaming services
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Helpful credit-building resources
Cons
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Payment history only added to Experian's report
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Not all bills are eligible
Who is Experian Boost® best for?
Experian Boost® is great for anyone looking for a free way to improve their FICO® Score generated by their Experian credit report. Experian Boost® can let you build payment history for bills you already pay, and there’s no charge whatsoever.
What we like about Experian Boost®
For starters, Experian Boost® is a completely free service. While most other rent-reporting services charge a monthly fee, you don’t have to pay a monthly membership fee to use Experian Boost® or sign up for an Experian account.
Adding recurring bill payments to your credit file can make a huge impact on your Experian-generated credit score: Payment history makes up 35% of your FICO® Score 8.(1) Up to two years of payment history for each bill can be added, and Experian Boost® only considers on-time payments; late payments are ignored. Boost® users see an average FICO® Score increase of 13 points, as reported by Experian.
Get payment history for bills you already pay
Experian Boost® lets you start building your Experian credit history for bills you already pay. You can start reporting your payment history for recurring bills such as:
- Eligible online rent payments
- Utilities, such as gas, electric, water and more
- Telecom, such as phone bills, internet, cable and more
- Streaming services, such as Netflix, Disney+, Hulu and more
- Insurance, such as home, auto or life
Once you set up your Experian account and Boost®, Experian scans your bank accounts for eligible bills. You can also manually add bills, or remove them whenever you’d like.
Experian offers other products and services
As a major credit bureau, signing up for an Experian membership to access Boost® also offers additional perks. Even if you don’t end up getting Experian Boost®, having an Experian account can let you monitor your credit report so you can catch things like identity theft, spot mistakes and learn more about your FICO® Score.
Also, Experian offers the Experian Smart Money™ Digital Checking Account. This account is automatically linked to the Boost® service and has no monthly fees or opening deposit requirements.
Where it falls short
The biggest downside to Experian Boost® is that it only reports to Experian. Payments reported will only be added to your Experian credit report and not the other major credit bureaus like TransUnion or Equifax. If someone checks your credit score using your TransUnion credit report, the payment history generated through Experian Boost® won’t impact your credit score.
Also, to report a bill with Boost®, the bill needs to be recurring. Experian Boost® requires at least three consecutive payments to be eligible, and it must be a bill that’s paid electronically and on a monthly basis. For example, if you pay rent via cash or cashier’s check, it won’t be eligible, and neither will any utilities you pay on a quarterly basis.
Compare Experian Boost® to other credit-building services
Narrow down top down credit-building options by features, fees and more. For a better comparison, tick the Compare box on multiple providers to see benefits side by side.
How to open Experian Boost®
You must get a free Experian account before enrolling in Experian Boost®. Follow these steps to start using Experian Boost®:
- Go to Experian.com, and select Sign up for free or Sign in to start your free Experian membership profile.
- Enter your information, such as the last four digits of your Social Security number (SSN) and phone number. Experian needs your SSN to verify your identity and pull your Experian credit report.
- Sign up for Experian Boost® for free.
- Connect the external bank accounts you use to pay the bills you want to report. If you have the Experian Smart Money™ Digital Checking Account, Boost® connects automatically.
- Experian scans your accounts and locates bills with on-time payments, and you can select which ones to add to your Experian credit report.
Customer experience
Despite Experian being a credit bureau first and foremost, the majority of Trustpilot customer reviews for Experian are in direct reference to Boost® — which has overwhelmingly positive feedback.
There are over 65,000 reviews on Trustpilot, resulting in a decent 3.9 star rating. Nearly all the reviews about Boost® are raving stories of customers saying their credit scores increased dramatically and nearly instantly. A few customers offer so-so ratings and express disappointment that not all of their recurring bills could be reported, but that’s to be expected with Boost®’s somewhat strict eligibility requirements.
Other Experian reviews have to do with credit issues in general, such as being locked out of their Experian account or difficulties removing errors from their Experian credit report. Other negative reviews are from people asking Experian why their FICO® or VantageScore dropped. But Experian doesn’t generate your actual credit score.
On the Better Business Bureau, Experian has over 14,000 complaints, which is quite a lot. However, most of those complaints have to do with unique circumstances around accounts reported to their Experian credit report, such as incorrectly reported late payments, disputing incorrect accounts and troubles with removing accounts associated with identity theft.
Frequently asked questions
What is included in Experian Boost®?
Experian Boost® is a free service that reports a number of recurring bill payments to your Experian credit file, which can include monthly bills paid electronically, such as streaming services, utilities, rent payments and insurance.
Does Experian Boost® impact my other credit reports?
Unfortunately, no. You’ll only see changes in your Experian credit report. Experian Boost® will not add payment history to other credit reports, such as TransUnion or Equifax.
Your reviews
Bethany Finder
Editor, Banking
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