Experian Boost Review 2025

Unless you already have an excellent credit score, you'd probably jump at the chance to easily improve your credit score for free. After all, the higher your credit score, the better your options for savings, favorable interest rates, credit cards, and more.

Experian Boost is a service that can raise your FICO score instantly. It's a free service from Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus. Business Insider's personal finance team compared Experian Boost to our best credit builder loans and found it to be a strong offering based on its ease of use and the fact that it's free. Read on to see how it works and exactly what it can and can't do.

Experian Boost Pros and Cons

Experian Boost Pros

• Credit boost opportunity: Experian Boost offers a great opportunity for building payment history. The average FICO score increase is 13 points per user, and Experian says many have users jumped into a new score range.
• Experian Boost is free: Experian Boost is a free service, and it allows you to build credit on payments you're already making. Meanwhile, credit-building products like credit builder loans or secured credit cards grant you new lines of credit that you must pay off.
• Experian Boost doesn't report late payments: With no late payments reported, Experian Boost can't hurt your credit score. On the other hand, missed payments on secured credit cards are often reported to the credit bureaus, which will lower your credit score.

Experian Boost Cons

• Doesn't repair negative information: Experian Boost can't fix damaged credit or reduce the impact of an excessive level of debt. It will also not affect previous bankruptcies or foreclosures. You can find our guide to the best credit repair companies here.
• Experian Boost only boosts Experian score: Experian Boost doesn't affect your credit reports from the other two credit bureaus, Equifax and TransUnion. Any benefit gained from Experian Boost will be negated if your lender happens to pull your credit report from one of those other two credit bureaus.
• You need a pre-existing credit file: In order to report payments on your credit report, you need to have a report in the first place. This means you'll need to have already taken out a line of credit previously. Alternatively, you can use another of Experian's services, Go, to create a credit file.

Experian Boost Overview

Experian Boost is a free credit-building product offered by Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus. It reports various on-time payments to your Experian credit report, such as utility payments, phone bills, streaming service subscription fees, and monthly rent.

By reporting these monthly payments, Experian Boost builds up the "payment history" portion of your credit report. Payment history is the most important factor considered by credit scoring algorithms from data companies FICO and VantageScore, making up 35% and 40% of your overall score, respectively. 

How Experian Boost Works

To start with Experian Boost, you first need an Experian account. This account, on its own, gives you access to several free tools, including your FICO Score 8 credit score. Experian's free credit monitoring service is also included in our guide to the best credit monitoring services.

With your Experian account activated, you can navigate to Experian Boost through the Credit Tools tab. You'll be prompted to add any bank accounts and credit cards for utilities reporting. Note that Experian doesn't store login credentials and gains read-only access to your statements, so it cannot make any changes.

Experian Boost scans your bank and credit card accounts for eligible recurring charges. You can choose which accounts to connect and which to exclude. You must have paid a bill for three months within a six-month timeframe for it to be eligible for reporting.

Once you've approved each payment, Experian will recalculate your credit score on the spot so you can see any credit score improvements as a result of your additional payment history. It will continue to track eligible payments and update your credit report.

Experian Boost does not report late payments to your credit report, so the service won't hold any missed payments against you. The same can't be said for the people you're making those payments to. They may report your payments as delinquent when they're 30 days late, so it's best to keep up with those payments.

Key Features of Experian Boost

Experian Boost will report a wide range of monthly payments. You can select which payments you want to be reported and opt in or out at any point. 

• Mobile and landline phone
• Internet
• Cable, satellite, and television bills
• Streaming services (Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Disney+)
• Utilities
• Insurance
• Residential rent with online payments

Experian Boost Costs and Fees

Experian Boost is a free service. It doesn't charge users any fees for connecting their bank accounts, adding payment information, or accessing their FICO score.

Experian Boost Reviews and Ratings

There are a significant number of complaints filed against Experia, including Experian Boost, with the Better Business Bureau, but Experian overall has a 4.1 rating on the Trustpilot website.

While Experian Boost is designed to potentially help consumers with credit scores, many reviews suggest it may not be as effective as advertised, and the potential for significant score increases in real time is not always realized.

Experian Boost Alternatives

Experian Boost vs. secured credit cards

Secured credit cards are an option for building credit, but they are not free and require a deposit to set your credit limit. Also, if you miss a payment with a secured credit card, it can negatively impact your credit. If you miss a payment on one of your accounts with Experian Boost, it will not be reported to the credit bureaus.

Experian Boost vs. credit builder loans

Credit builder loans are also an option, but are not free. You will make a monthly payment just like any other loan. Experian Boost is free and does not require you to take out a loan to improve your credit. Experian Boost again does not report late payments to your credit report, so the service won't hold any missed payments against you.

Why You Should Trust Us: How We Reviewed Experian Boost

The most important factors influencing our review of Experian Boost were availability, flexibility, and affordability.

• Availability: by state, and whether the company reports your payments to all three credit bureaus
• Flexibility: the types of plans the lender offers, including limits, monthly payments, and payment periods, as well as the borrower's ability to pay off their loans early or cancel their account before their loan is fully paid off
• Affordability: how much money you spend to build credit, in the form of interest paid, origination fees, or additional costs such as membership fees and early cancellation fees

See a full explanation on how we rate credit builder accounts.

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