Kovo Credit Builder review
- Fee
- $10 per month
- Minimum deposit to open
- $0
Our verdict
Pay to build a better credit history and access personal and business online courses.
Kovo is a public benefits corporation that offers a credit-building plan with monthly installments over 24 months. There are no monthly service fees, interest charges, late fees, prepayment penalties or failed payment fees — plus, there’s no hard credit check. While there are no fees, you’ll pay $10 in monthly installments, which are reported to the major credit bureaus to boost your credit history. These payments also unlock online personal and professional courses covering lessons on improving self-esteem, stress management, programming and business plan essentials. However, unlike most credit-building loans, Kovo doesn’t release your funds back to you after the term ends. And while the product advertises rewards gift cards, earning those requires signing up with Kovo’s partners.
Best for: Those who want to build credit history.
Pros
-
No fees
-
No hard credit check
-
Reports to four credit bureaus
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Access various digital courses
Cons
-
Won’t receive funds at the term’s end
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Autopay isn’t optional
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Gift card rewards require signing up with Kovo’s partners
Who is Kovo best for?
Kovo is best for someone who needs to start building a payment history or those on the road to credit repair.
Kovo is rather affordable. While there’s no monthly fee, you’ll make $10 in monthly installments to add up to two years of payment history to your credit reports. Overall, it’s best for someone who wants to improve their credit score and avoid taking on debt.
How Kovo Credit Builder works
Most credit-building loans involve making monthly payments into a savings account. At the end of the term, the lender releases the funds back to you minus interest and fees.
Kovo works a little differently than regular credit-building loans — its plan is more like a subscription service that builds credit history.
The Kovo credit-builder plan involves making $10 monthly payments for 24 months. Kovo automatically withdraws the payments from your linked payment method. You’ll gain access to a library of educational courses, and Kovo reports your payments to major credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, TransUnion and Innovis. The payments factor into your payment history, which makes up 35% of your FICO 8 score. With timely payments, a Kovo credit-builder plan could help improve your credit score with reported payments.
Unlike other credit-building loans, you won’t get the $240 back once the term is over, and unlike a traditional personal loan, Kovo won’t give you any funds upfront. In a nutshell, you’re paying $240 for two years for lifetime access to educational courses, the ability to build payment history, and for ID protection over the course of the term.
If you want to cancel the Kovo credit-builder plan, you can do so without any penalties and get a refund within 30 days of signing up. However, cancelling early means you won’t get the full two years of payment history reported. Kovo also states there are several options if you want to close your account outside the 30-day window.
What we like about Kovo
Kovo offers a straightforward way to build a payment history that can increase your credit rating. It also reports to the major credit bureaus, including Innovis, a lesser-known bureau. Some credit-building products only report to one or two major credit reporting agencies, such as Experian Boost, which only reports to Experian.
Signing up for the Installment Credit Account also gets you 24 months of Kovo ID Monitoring. And Kovo offers referral bonuses: up to $30 for each friend you successfully refer.
There are actually no fees
We dug hard for hidden fees with this service and came up short — the only thing you have to pay is the $10 monthly installment for the credit-building plan.
There are no interest charges, late fees, prepayment penalties or early closure fees. There’s also a 30-day refund guarantee if you’re unsatisfied with the service starting from the day you sign up. If you cancel outside the 30-day refund period, there still aren’t any fees to do so (you may not get your money back, though).
While there are no late fees, being more than 30 days late on your Kovo payment can be reported to the credit bureaus, potentially harming your credit score. You can avoid late payments by setting up your account with autopay.
Various digital courses
When you get a Kovo Credit Builder plan (Installment Credit Account), you’ll gain access to its interactive, digital courses, which Kovo states are valued at $400 altogether. You get access to the full library of courses indefinitely.
A few courses include:
- Self Confidence & Self Esteem: Confidence via Self-Awareness
- Entrepreneurship: How To Start A Business From Business Idea
- Stress Management With Time Management for Burnout & Anxiety
- Business Plan Essentials: Roadmap to Success
- Intro to Programming
Credit Boosts
There’s also something called Credit Boosts. In a nutshell, eligible customers with at least four on-time payments gain access to a Revolving Credit Builder account.
The Revolving Credit Builder account is a single-purpose credit line with a $500 limit that you can only use at Kovo. Adding another credit account to report can further help build credit history by improving your credit utilization ratio – provided you keep the balance low.
Additionally, the Credit Boost includes a fraud insurance policy and 24/7 ID theft services.
Where it falls short
Kovo’s plan is a little different from most credit-building products or loans in that you won’t receive the funds at the end of the term. A major draw with most credit-building loans is that you’re building a nest egg and improving your credit score at the same time — Kovo really only offers payment history building. So unless you enjoy educational courses, the $10 monthly payment for those courses might not be worth it.
Some rewards are gift cards
It’s true that Kovo offers rewards, but they’re not like the rewards you’d find with a credit card.
You can earn gift cards from Kovo. You become eligible for gift card rewards once you’ve made at least four on-time payments on your credit-building plan. When you open a loan or credit card offered by one of Kovo’s partners, which can include lenders and credit card issuers, you can get a gift card that’s 1% of the amount you’re taking out.
For example, if you were to take out a $5,000 personal loan with a Kovo partner, you could earn a $50 gift card. However, each reward can only be redeemed once per category, and each category has limits:
- Personal loan up to $500 gift card
- Student loans up to $250 gift card
- Auto loan refinancing up to $150 gift card
- Credit card up to $75 gift card
Earning a gift card comes at the cost of committing to a loan or credit card, so make sure you’re really ready to commit. We wouldn’t say that taking out a loan for the purpose of getting a gift card always makes sense, so use your best judgement. Kovo offers these lending products from its partners, and states these options are there to help you along your credit-repair journey.
Kovo’s fees and access
| Type of fee | Fee details |
|---|---|
| Monthly installment payment | $10 |
| Monthly service or membership fee | $0 |
| Minimum deposit | $0 |
| Credit score requirement | No credit check |
| APR | 0% |
| Other fees |
|
Compare Kovo to other credit-building products
Narrow down top credit-building options by cost and benefits. For a better comparison, tick the Compare box on multiple providers to see their features side by side.
What is the Finder Score?
The Finder Score crunches over 300 checking accounts from hundreds of financial institutions. It takes into account the product's monthly fees, overdraft fees, opening deposit, customer support options, ATM network and features — this gives you a simple score out of 10.
To provide a Score, Finder’s banking experts analyze hundreds of checking accounts against what we consider is the best option: no monthly fees, no overdraft fees, a large ATM network of 50,000 or more, additional features outside of typical banking services, and the optional perk of earning interest. Accounts that are nearly free to maintain and use are scored the highest, while accounts with costly fees and few features are scored the lowest.
How to open Kovo credit-builder account
You can head to KovoCredit.com to get started, or download the mobile app for iOS or Android. Here’s how to get started with Kovo on a browser:
- Create an account with email and password creation, and verify your email.
- Apply for the credit-building account. Eligibility depends on identity verification and income qualification.
- If approved, link your preferred payment method to cover the $10 monthly payments for 24 months. Payments are set to autopay.
- Access digital courses on various topics.
There are no fees if you need to cancel your account before the 24 months are up. If you cancel within the 30-day refund period, you may qualify for a refund.
Customer experience
Kovo holds the highest possible rating with the the Better Business Bureau (BBB) of A+, and and only has a few dozen complaints.
Like other companies with credit-building loans and products, some complaints are from customers who were under the impression they were applying for a loan or say that Kovo incorrectly reported late payments. Kovo makes an effort to respond to all positive and negative reviews to resolve them or clear up confusion around its credit-building product.
Those few complaints are quickly outshined by Kovo’s very positive Trustpilot page. It holds a stellar 5-star rating — very rare for a financial services company. Customers are very pleased with the product, reporting a marked increase in their credit scores, and lots of customers thanking Kovo for their better credit score. They also praise the easy signup and the autopay, and they like that Kovo reports to all the major bureaus.
Frequently asked questions
Do you get your money back with Kovo?
No, you don’t get your monthly installments back from Kovo once the 24-month term ends. The monthly installments are used to pay for the digital courses you can access, and Kovo reports the payments to the major credit bureaus.
How much does Kovo credit builder cost?
You’ll pay $10 in monthly installments. There are no interest charges, membership fees or late fees — just the monthly payment for the credit-builder plan.
Credit building card ratings
★★★★★ — Excellent
★★★★★ — Good
★★★★★ — Average
★★★★★ — Subpar
★★★★★ — Poor
Read the full methodology of how we rate credit building cards.
Your reviews
Bethany Finder
Editor, Banking
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