There’s an app for everything these days—including credit building. Whether you’re ready to start building credit for the first time or you’re looking for an easy way to give your credit a little boost before taking out your next big loan, there might be a credit app offering what you need.
Plenty of credit-building apps have recently been developed to meet the demand for quick, easy, and digitalized credit building, but five stand out from all the rest. Here are the very best credit-building apps you should consider downloading, plus other options to explore.
Table of Contents
Not all credit-building apps have the same functions or perks. To help you choose the right app, we’ve selected the best credit-building apps in five categories and listed alternatives for comparison. We also explain a bit about how these apps work at the bottom of this article.
1. Kikoff: Best for financing online purchases
Why it’s great
Kikoff is a low-cost mobile app that offers to two lines of credit, which will appear on your credit report and bolster your credit history.
These lines of credit come in two types. You can get a Kikoff credit account (a line of credit, like a credit card) and a Kikoff Credit Builder Loan. Many other apps just offer one type of credit. This gives you double the credit-building power.
However, one word of warning: memberships are 1 year ($60 for the full year), and if you decide to cancel you’ll membership, you’ll still need to pay the cost of the remaining months in your 1-year membership.
Pros and cons of Kikoff
Other apps like Kikoff
- Credit limit: $1,000 (on average)
- Credit reports affected: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion
- Notable features: You can only pay by direct deposit from your paycheck
2. SeedFi: Best free credit-building app
Why it’s great
SeedFi wins hands down as the best free credit-building app because of the sheer simplicity and flexibility of their services. Their Credit Builder Prime program will get you access to a revolving line of credit that grows each time you put away money into your SeedFi savings account.
This app is a double win if you want to build credit and save up money for a large loan like a mortgage or auto loan. Their business model is designed to give you more control over your credit by doing what the credit scoring system often fails to do: reward you for being financially responsible.
Pros and cons of SeedFi
Other free apps like SeedFi
- How it builds your credit: Adds monthly bills like utilities and subscriptions to your credit file
- Cost: Free
- Eligible bills: Streaming services (e.g., Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO), cell phone plans, and rent
- Notable features: Only affects your Experian credit report, and won’t affect the credit score that mortgage lenders use
3. Brigit: Best credit-builder loan app
Why it’s great
Brigit is one of the incredibly rare apps that allows you to get an installment credit-builder loan with a 0% interest rate. The app’s combination of low cost, high flexibility, and wide access to financial tools makes it a truly unique service that’s particularly valuable for users with a tight budget who have poor credit or no credit score.
Even if you have no money at all, you can still access some of Brigit’s financial and budgeting tools with their free plan. But if you have the $9.99/month to pay for their subscription service, you can unlock other benefits, such as $1 million worth of identity theft insurance. If you have any doubts, just take it from Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Durant, who both back Brigit.
Pros and cons of Brigit
Other apps like Brigit
- How it builds your credit: Adds an installment loan or revolving credit line to your credit file
- Loan amount: $1,000–$10,000
- Loan period: 12–36 months
- Cost: $15–$110/month, depending on the plan selected
- Interest rate: 5.86%–13.50%
- Credit reports affected: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion
- Credit score increase: 25+ points in 3 months
- Notable features: No prepayment or cancellation fees. Provides FICO 8 scores. Not available in Wisconsin or Vermont
- How it builds your credit: Adds an installment loan to your credit file
- Loan amount: Up to $1,000
- Loan period: 12 months
- Cost: $19.99/month
- APR: 5.99%–29.99%
- Compatible systems: iOS and Android
- Credit reports affected: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion
- Credit score increase: Potential for 42+ points within 60 days
- Notable features: Get some of your loan immediately. Credit monitoring. Late fees but no prepayment or cancellation fees. Not available in Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, or Vermont
- How it builds your credit: Adds an installment loan to your credit file
- Cost: One-time fee of $9
- Loan amount: Monthly payment of $25–$150
- APR: 15.65%–15.97%
- Credit reports affected: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion
- Credit score increase: 32 points
- Compatible systems: iOS and Android
- Notable features: Also offers secured credit cards
4. Grow Credit: Best for building credit by paying your regular monthly bills
Why it’s great
You can’t normally build credit by paying utilities and other monthly bills, even though contracts with utility providers are technically open credit accounts (one of the three main types of credit). Bill-reporting apps like Grow Credit fix this problem by adding these bills to your credit file to extend the length of your credit history and build up your payment history.
Unlike other bill-reporting services, Grow Credit offers free and low-cost memberships and also reports your bill payments to all three credit bureaus. This makes it one of the best apps to use if you want to quickly build credit on a budget.
Although your spending limit may start off on the lower end, Grow Credit performs periodic balance increases, so you’ll also have the opportunity to upgrade to a higher spending limit after a certain number of on-time payments.
Pros and cons of Grow Credit
Other apps like Grow Credit
- How it builds your credit: Adds subscriptions, utilities, and rent to your credit file
- Credit reports affected: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion
- Cost: $4.99–$19.99/month
- Spending limit: $500–unlimited
- Notable features: All plans come with credit reports and scores, and you have the option to pause your membership
- How it builds your credit: Adds rent payments to your credit file
- Cost: $2.00/month
- Credit reports affected: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion
- Compatible systems: iOS and Android
- Credit score increase: 5 to 100 points
- Notable features: Option to add up to 2 years of past rental payments for $25. Your credit score will update in 10 days
- How it builds your credit: Adds rent and utilities to your credit file
- Cost: $6.95/month
- Credit reports affected: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion (rent payments) or TransUnion (bills)
- Compatible bills: Works with rent, cell phone bills, and utilities (e.g., electric, gas, and water bills)
- Other features: Option to add up to 2 years of past payments for $49.95. Comes with credit monitoring from TransUnion and $1 million worth of identity theft Insurance.
5. Extra: Best for building credit with debit card purchases
Why it’s great
Extra is a pioneer in the world of credit-building apps in that they developed the first debit card that consumers can use to build and establish credit. This is very unusual, since generally speaking, debit cards don’t affect your credit score. Perhaps one of the card’s biggest appeals is its 0% interest rate and the opportunity it gives you to earn rewards the same way you would with a credit card.
There’s also good news if you’re in a hurry—you can get approved for a line of credit instantly with no credit check, and since it’s a digital card rather than a physical one, you can begin using it immediately.
Anyone can use Extra because it’s a credit-building app for Android and iOS devices. This sets it apart from competitor apps like Grain that are only available for devices with one type of operating system.
Pros and cons of Extra
Other apps like Extra
- How it builds your credit: Adds a revolving credit line to your credit file
- Credit limit: Up to $1,000 with opportunity for increase after 6 months
- Cost: 1% withdrawal fee
- APR: 15%
- Compatible systems: iOS (Android coming soon)
- Credit reports affected: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion
- Notable features: Your credit limit is determined according to your cash flow, and late payments will incur a penalty fee of $5 or 5% of your minimum payment (whichever is less)
- How it builds your credit: Adds loan payments to your credit file
- Credit limit: Variable
- Cost: $7.40–$9/month
- APR: 0%
- Compatible systems: iOS and Android
- Credit reports affected: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion
- Credit score increase: 20 points in one week (on average)
- Notable features: Feminist app designed to financially empower women (although men are also eligible). Credit is provided through the financial company Stilt.
Credit-building app FAQs
In this section we’ve answered a few of the most common questions about the apps listed above.
How do credit-building apps work?
The apps listed above work in one of two ways:
- By opening a credit account: Most credit-building apps are attached to either a line of revolving credit (essentially a credit card) or a loan. This loan, which you can generally manage and check on through the app, will be added to your credit report, building your credit score.
- By adding bills to your credit report: A few credit-building apps, such as Credit Grow and Experian Boost, aren’t associated with a line of credit. Instead, they add data to your credit reports that wouldn’t normally be there—often regular bill payments, such as utilities. These also make your credit file more well-rounded and contribute to your score.
Should you get a credit-building app?
Credit-building apps aren’t for everyone, and they probably won’t solve all your credit problems overnight. However, when used alongside long-term strategies for building credit, credit-boosting apps may be able to speed up your progress establishing a credit history and improving your credit score.
If you’re someone who uses apps a lot, then the ones above may be just what you need to take your credit to the next level. Whether you’re looking for a free credit-building app or a premium service for the maximum credit boost you can get, there’s something for everyone.
