How much is Equifax per month?

Posted on: 30 Jul 2024

Equifax is a credit reporting agency that is among the Big Three credit bureaus operating in the United States of America. The other two are Experian and TransUnion credit reporting agencies. What Equifax gathers is credit information of consumers which involves loan repayments, credit card usage, bankruptcies, collections, credit details, and more. This is summarized into a credit report that lenders rely on to assess creditworthiness when consumers apply for credit cards, auto loans, mortgages, and any other credit.

But first, let’s talk about the price of checking your Equifax credit score and accessing credit monitoring services. Equifax offers several choices for a consumer to run a credit report and/or enroll in monitoring services. There is a direct correlation between the degree of specialization and the prices for the ordered products.

This means that if you have been approved for a credit card for instance, you must be keen to ensure that the credit report that you receive from the credit bureaus is accurate so that you can be able to monitor the usage of the credit card properly. Under federal law, every consumer is allowed to request a free credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus within one year. You can run your free reports on AnnualCreditReport. com as it is a government-sanctioned website. It enables you to check your credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion for free to conduct your review.

One should review the credit reports from each of the bureaus because they may not hold the same details. It is thus useful to recheck the free reports you receive yearly to identify any errors or indications of fraud that need to be corrected.

While AnnualCreditReport.com gives them for free once a year, Equifax also has the option to check the latest Equifax credit report for free. What you can do is to navigate their website and then click the link which says that you may request for free report by following the instructions. This will only display the information having to do with the credit file at Equifax and will not include any information from TransUnion or Experian. It is not a completely free yearly site like AnnualCreditReport. com but rather offers more frequent check-ins toward your Equifax credit information.

Equifax Credit Monitoring Options Not only can you obtain copies of your credit reports, but also there are ways you can sign up for Equifax credit monitoring services. They have basic, plus, and pro tracking options depending on what you require.

For example:

Equifax Credit Report Lock – This allows you to lock/unlock your Equifax report making it difficult for any new lenders to access your report. This is useful in preventing cases of identity theft and individuals opening accounts using the credit card holder’s details. The fee charged normally stands between $10 for a one-month subscription.
Equifax Complete Premier Plan – It is accompanied by the locked Equifax report, daily bureau alerts when new changes have been made to your reports, credit score, and internet monitoring of your private data. It is relatively cheap with annual subscription costs ranging from as low as $20 per month.
Equifax Complete Family Plan – Same protection as above along with the Minor Child Monitoring which includes SSN Lock and Identity Restoration. This is proudly positioned at $25 monthly when choosing the annual payment cycle.

Thus, although you can get your full credit report from Equifax once a year for free, receiving monitoring and identity protection services costs a different amount of money, averaging $10-$25 per month. The concrete offers and tariffs can change depending on the period or can be unique per customer. Typically, Equifax credit monitoring is less expensive than $30 a month for the most comprehensive services. The monthly format is more effective than the yearly format as it provides a constant record of the bills rather than a yearly report.

What Factors Define the Cost of Equifax Credit Monitoring?

There are a few key factors that influence how much Equifax credit monitoring costs for an individual consumer, such as:

Package Typing – Depending on the needs of the client and the features he or she wants to have in the account, he or she has to choose basic, intermediate, or premium packages. Explaining and monitoring the situation requires more effort and, therefore, is more expensive.
Additional features – Identity restoration assistance, Internet scanning, or inclusion of a family member as a protected individual boosts cost.
Pricing structure – While the monthly subscription may cost slightly less per month than the annual subscription, the latter is cheaper in terms of the overall cost.
Sales and offers - Often, to attract new clients, providers may offer first-month or first-year low subscription prices.

Therefore when it comes to Equifax credit tracking pricing, find out which of the services is more beneficial in your circumstances and which of those services you can be willing to pay for. It is wise to know what comes with the recurring billing policies once you decide to join. Check also if there are currently any existing offers to be able to pay less for your subscription fees.

Equifax Monitoring Services Offering & What Does Equifax Monitoring Services Include?

Depending on which option you choose for monitoring from Equifax, you typically get a selection of the following key services:

Free Equifax credit report – Get your score and the latest credit information.
Credit alerts - Receive notifications whenever some events happen such as new accounts credit.
Credit tracking – This entails regular tracking of your current credit score on a given monthly period.
Cyber-vigil - Search for your details on the black markets of the Internet.
Fraud alerts - This is a special notification that is created on your credit reports to help you be protected.
Credit lock – The ability to freeze your Equifax credit report so that no one can run a new credit check on you.
Identity protection – Support the person with the stolen identity in recovering his/her identity if that is necessary.
Insurance – An identity theft insurance that offers financial protection to the policyholder for some of the losses resulting from identity theft after the occurrence of a covered event.

Since it is clear what is offered with the monthly fee for each Equifax package, it may be easier to see whether the services are worth the costs when it comes to the budget and credit. The right credit monitoring approach ensures that you have the confidence that your important data is being monitored while at the same time avoiding the waste of your hard-earned money.