They are three financial companies in Canada that provide access to your credit score for free.
Keeping track of your credit score over time is the first step toward managing and improving your financial health.
With a good credit score, you may be able to get a low-interest mortgage or short-term loan, as well as approval for new services more quickly.
Making an effort to improve your credit score can provide relief – including less stress about mishandling finances and greater empowerment knowing you’re actively monitoring your account.
These three companies offer different services to help you with your finances. They offer customers a different set of products, making it difficult to decide which company is best for you.
- Quick Overview: Credit Karma vs Borrowell vs Mogo
- In-Depth Review: Credit Karma vs Borrowell vs Mogo Credit Score
- Borrowell
- Credit Karma
- Credit Karma vs Borrowell
- Mogo
- FICO vs. VantageScore: Which Is Better?
- FAQs: Credit Karma vs Borrowell vs Mogo Credit Score
- Bottom Line on the Best Free Credit Score in Canada: Borrowell or Credit Karma or Mogo?
This guide compares Borrowell vs Credit Karma vs Mogo in the following ways:
- interest rates,
- free credit score,
- personal loans,
- and more!
We will also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each company so that you have all the information needed to come up with an informed decision.
Quick Overview: Credit Karma vs Borrowell vs Mogo
| Features | Borrowell | Credit Karma | Mogo |
| Credit Score | Free and Updated weekly | Free – Updated monthly | Free and Updated monthly |
| Credit Report | Free and Updated weekly | Free – Updated monthly | Free and Updated monthly |
| Loan Size | $1,000 to $35,000 | $2000-$25,000 | $200 to $35,000 |
| Loan Term | 3-5 years | 2-5 years | 2weeks-5 years |
| APR Range | 5.99% to 29.19% | 15.49%-35.99% | 5.9% to 45.9% |
| Mobile App | Available | Available | Available |
| Other Products | Credit cards, insurance, savings, and investing | Credit cards | Credit cards, mortgage, identity protection,crypto-trading. |
In-Depth Review: Credit Karma vs Borrowell vs Mogo Credit Score
Borrowell
Borrowell is a Toronto-based online financial technology company that provides a range of personal finance products, including free credit scores and credit reports. It was founded in 2014 and currently has partnerships with many major Canadian financial institutions such as EQ Bank, CIBC, BMO, Scotiabank, Power Financial Corporation, Capital One, etc.
Borrowell is Canada’s first fintech company to provide Canadians with access to their credit score for free. They have helped over 1.5 million members and have been recognized internationally in the Fintech 100 list of top fintech companies globally. You can easily get your free score and report in less than 3 minutes.
Simply visit the Borrowell website to open up an account. There is no SIN required. When you log in, your credit score, and report are available–they come from Equifax. You can also download their app from both Android and iOS stores if you prefer being on the go! The web and app versions will always be synced with each other, so there’ll always be a new updated version when you need it.
Borrowell Personal Loans
You can get an unsecured personal loan up to $35,000 at a fixed interest rate between 5.99% and 29.19%. The origination fee and the interest rate after approval are both included in your APR.
Personal loans come in a length of 3 or 5 years and offer you the ability to pay your loan off sooner to lower your interest rate. If approved, funds can be deposited into a personal bank account within two days. Personal loans are unavailable in Quebec.
Borrowell Free Credit Score Monitoring
Borrowell provides users with full access to their Equifax Credit Score and Report at no cost. They also update your score each week (unlike Mogo), so you can track your progress and credit health from your dashboard on the site. Checking your score will not affect your credit score.
Credit Coaching
Borrowell also offers Canada’s first credit coach powered by artificial intelligence– Molly. Molly provides personalized tips and credit education that may help customers understand and improve their credit.
By logging in to your account, you can see an overview of your credit history, including utilization rate any late payments; these are both factors that can hurt your credit over time. Your AI-powered credit coach (Molly) will provide personalized recommendations for how to strengthen your credit based on what’s in your credit history.
Molly also gives you an insight into how your credit score compares to the average Canadian. Alongside this, they developed a sophisticated recommendation engine that analyzes your unique credit profile to provide personalized recommendations for financial products.
Borrowell Financial Marketplace
Borrowell uses AI to find the perfect products for you and your credit profile. By becoming a member, you can compare rates and features from within the app and take advantage of some of Canada’s most competitive offers.
Borrowell’s financial marketplace connects you to the best products for you from over 50 providers. These include credit cards, personal loans, mortgages, bank accounts, insurance for home and auto needs, GICs (Guaranteed Investment Certificates), and automated investment platforms.
Bill-Tracking
Borrowell has recently released Borrowell Boost, a helpful tool that allows you to connect your bank account to the app and see expected bills and balance to not overspend on your cash flow.
This feature helps avoid NSF (Non-Sufficient Funds) fees which, in turn, can help protect your credit score. One way it does this is by sending alerts and reminders about upcoming bills – helping you prevent late payments that usually result in NSF charges (up to $50 per transaction). Since payment history decides 35% of an Equifax credit score, this feature can help protect your credit score during months with irregular cash flow.
Borrowell Credit Cards and Mortgages
Borrowell features a portal that helps you easily compare various types of credit cards and apply for them. It also shows mortgage rates from different lenders for different mortgage rate types (fixed vs. variable), terms, and conditions. Borrowell receives referral fees from banks or financial providers who own these products.
How Does Borrowell Make Money?
Being a free credit report service, one might wonder how the Borrowell company makes any money. Borrowell makes money by providing you periodic recommendations.
Some of the recommendations Borrowell makes include:
- Credit card recommendations (credit cards tailored to you and with a high likelihood of being accepted)
- Banking recommendations
- Personalized products
If you sign up for a product that Borrowell recommends, they are paid a commission by the financial service provider as compensation and at no additional cost to you. Additionally, Borrowell earns a fee on each personal loan they provide. For the Borrowell loan process, they charge between 5.99% to 29.19% yearly depending on your credit score.
How Safe is Borowell?
To keep their users’ information safe, Borrowell uses the same level of encryption as what’s used at big banks. You don’t have to enter your credit card information or any other personal details to get your free credit score report.
Pros
- Loan origination fees are clear and straightforward on the website
- Lump-sum payment or prepayments for interest rates won’t incur any penalty charges
- Checking your potential interest rate does not impact your credit rating in any way.
- Making full and on-time payments will help to raise the score
- There are many products and services are available
Cons
- NSF (non-sufficient funds) attracts a $25 – $54 penalty.
- You can only make payments monthly.
- Getting approved is harder if you have a bad credit score (300-600), low income, or debt-related problems.
🏆 Free Equifax Credit Report & Credit Score
📌 Get Your Free Credit Score in Canada
✔️ Get your credit score and credit report for free – in under 3 minutes!
✔️ Free weekly updates on how your score has changed.
✔️ This is a soft credit check and, therefore, won’t hurt your credit score.
Credit Karma
Credit Karma is a U.S.-based credit monitoring company that has expanded domestically to Canada. Credit Karma offers free credit scores, credit reports, and credit monitoring services for residents of Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, British Columbia, Ontario, PEI, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Labrador in Canada.
U.S. residents also have access to additional services like tax filing and credit card recommendations. Credit Karma will pull your credit information from TransUnion and Equifax, two of the three major consumer credit agencies. (The third one is Experian). It will be based on VantageScore ratings and provide you with a report with more details about your credit history.
Free Credit Score Monitoring
Credit Karma provides free access to TransUnion credit scores and reports, as well as free credit monitoring. Borrowell and Mogo both provide scores from Equifax, but only Credit Karma provides reports and free credit scores from TransUnion.
Personal Loans
Credit Karma has partnered with LoanConnect, a Canada-based search engine, to connect users with several loan options. The loans range from small short-term loans for unexpected emergencies to long-term installment loans suitable for major purchases.
It also offers open-ended credit lines. However, Credit Karma and LoanConnect are different platforms, so you cannot use your Credit Karma account to monitor your application or offers on Loan Connect.
Credit Karma Credit Cards
Alongside their search engine for loans, Credit Karma also provides a credit card search and filter option. Users can search for the best credit card for them depending on their credit history and score. You can search or filter by student credit cards, secured or unsecured, bad credit cards, etc.
How does Credit Karma Make Money?
Like Borrowell, Credit Karma benefits from referrals. Credit Karma recommends certain products to you based on your credit score. If you follow these recommendations and apply through their website, they will receive a commission from your application at no additional cost to you.
Credit Karma’s complex algorithm generates financial products for you based on your credit history. It also uses your credit score to help you find loan products most likely to be approved by financial service providers.
If you don’t sign up for a credit product through Credit Karma, your credit score will still be checked for free.
Pros:
- It’s easy to use. There’s a credit simulator tool that helps you see how repaying or borrowing impacts your credit score.
- Credit Karma offers free credit scores on a demand basis. Unlike other platforms, it does not limit how many times you can see your score during the year, which is great for building up good credit or monitoring your credit use.
- Bonus Financial Services. For free, Credit Karma offers a tax service and an online savings account. If you want to consolidate features on the same website for easy access in the future, these deals might be of interest to you.
Cons
- You’ll see a lot of ads which can get annoying. However, given the benefit of access to your credit scores, it is worth the price.
- Credit Karma displays only two credit scores (VantageScore 3.0 credit scores from TransUnion and Equifax)
🏆 Free Equifax Credit Report & Credit Score
📌 Get Your Free Credit Score in Canada
✔️ Get your credit score and credit report for free – in under 3 minutes!
✔️ Free weekly updates on how your score has changed.
✔️ This is a soft credit check and, therefore, won’t hurt your credit score.
Credit Karma vs Borrowell
Credit Karma uses Transunion to report users’ credit reports, while Borrowell uses Equifax. Credit reporting agencies have different preferred credit bureau. For example, CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) favours Equifax, and American Express prefers Transunion.
Borrowell has a feature that lets you review which credit cards you have open, when they were closed, and when the account was first created. Credit Karma does not offer this feature – if you want access to these details, sign up for Borrowell.
Since these two credit reporting agencies use different credit bureaus, the numbers can starkly differ between the two. But they are both free to sign up for, so you might not mind signing up for them both. And email notifications usually just come when a new offer is available or your score has changed.
Below is a summary of Credit Karma vs Borrowell:
- Both Credit Karma and Borrowell have a blog section that provides financial advice and tips.
- Credit Karma has a more minimalist design.
- Borrowell checks your credit score using Equifax, while Credit Karma checks using TransUnion.
- Both Credit Karma and Borrowell are free to use
- Borrowell offers more features, such as “Molly” the credit coach and a 7-day email course regarding how to improve your credit score.
- Checking your credit score with either Borrowell vs Credit Karma won’t affect or lower your score because it is a soft inquiry.
🏆 Free Equifax Credit Report & Credit Score
📌 Get Your Free Credit Score in Canada
✔️ Get your credit score and credit report for free – in under 3 minutes!
✔️ Free weekly updates on how your score has changed.
✔️ This is a soft credit check and, therefore, won’t hurt your credit score.
Mogo
Another fin-tech company in Canada, Mogo, offers services similar to those of Borrowell Credit Karma. Founded in 2003 by David Feller, Mogo is a Vancouver-based fintech company that offers free access to credit scores, personal loans, mortgages, identity theft prevention, prepaid Visa debit cards, cryptocurrency trading, etc.
The Company is publicly traded and was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2015 and NASDAQ in 2018. In addition to these features, Mogo provides an app for both Android and iOS users.
Mogo Personal loans
Mogo Financial offers two types of loans – MogoLiquid and MogoMini. MogoLiquid offers loans of from $2,000 up to $35,000 for a fixed-rate period of 5 years. MogoMini, on the other hand, is a short-term loan and can be up to $3,500 at only 13 cents interest/day per $100 borrowed.
This loan is flexible because the customer can pay it back anytime without penalty and without being denied based on credit score. To qualify for these loans, you’ll need to prove your income, bank account information, and employment history.
You’ll also need proof that you’ve been working for at least 30 days before being eligible. Since Mogo reports their customers’ credit scores to Equifax, when you apply for a loan with Mogo, they may also perform a credit check to determine your eligibility.
This is so they can figure out how you’ve paid previous debts, whether or not there have been any recent delinquencies such as bankruptcy and whether the client has completed an insurance proposal from previous debt.
Mogo Credit Score Monitoring
Mogo provides customers with FREE access to their current Equifax FICO score and reports. Like Borrowell, the score is updated each month, and checking your score does not impact it.
Identity Theft Monitoring
MogoProtect is a paid service that alerts you to potential threats to your Equifax credit bureau account for $8.99 per month. This is more affordable compared to traditional services that cost up to $20 per month. You should regularly look through your credit report to make sure there are no transactions or credit sources you don’t recognize.
MogoMortgage
MogoMortgage lets you apply for a mortgage online quickly and keep track of your mortgage on their dashboard. The Mogo team will support you through the mortgage process, and they offer competitive rates from the lenders they’re partnered with.
MogoMortgage offers a smooth application process, and the Mogo team is available to support you throughout. They partner with lenders to offer competitive interest rates to mortgage borrowers. You can monitor your mortgage on their digital dashboard.
Presently, MogoMortgage only offers high-ratio mortgages when the down payment is less than 20% of the property’s value. They provide fixed-rate and variable loans with terms up to 10 years.
Prepaid Visa Debit Card
With the app’s spending and budget management features, you will be able to stay on top of your monthly expenses. You can monitor your spending, set spending plans, and automate your budget.
One caveat for those who plan to use their Mogo Debit Card at an ATM is the hefty $1.50 fee for domestic withdrawals and the 3$ fee for international withdrawal. There’s also a 2.5% foreign currency transaction fee. These fees can accumulate based on your usage.
MogoCrypto
Of the three fintech companies mentioned, Mogo offers a unique crypto exchange service unavailable in Borrowell or Credit Karma. MogoCrypto is a mobile-friendly cryptocurrency exchange where you can purchase and sell coins on your phone.
MogoCrypto’s most desirable feature is fast money transfer between your primary bank account and Mogo, which typically takes 30 minutes. Withdrawals can take a few days, and they charge a 1% fee for bitcoin transactions.
How Does Mogo Make Money?
Mogo makes money by charging interest and fees on the products they provide.
Pros
- The Mogo membership includes several perks such as pre-approval etc.
- You will not be charged for early repayment of loans.
- Interest rates and repayment terms are flexible.
- Responsible payments help you build your credit.
- Getting approved is relatively easy and fast, no matter what credit level you are.
- Mogo offers a 100-day money-back guarantee.
- They offer relatively large loan amounts, which is beneficial if you have many expenses or unpaid debt.
Cons
- You may experience a high-interest rate if you borrow a substantial amount or have weak financial credentials.
- If you default on any payments, two penalties will be applied: two NSF fees of $20 – $50 on your bank account from your bank and lender and extra interest charges.
🏆 Free Equifax Credit Report & Credit Score
📌 Get Your Free Credit Score in Canada
✔️ Get your credit score and credit report for free – in under 3 minutes!
✔️ Free weekly updates on how your score has changed.
✔️ This is a soft credit check and, therefore, won’t hurt your credit score.
FICO vs. VantageScore: Which Is Better?
FICO and VantageScore are both credit-rating models. FICO was created by the parent company, Fair Isaac Corporation, in 1989, while VantageScore was developed by the three leading consumer credit agencies – Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.
Though they’re very similar, there are a few discrepancies between them that come to light when you compare them side by side. Because they have different scoring models, your VantageScore will likely be different from your FICO score.
You may get a different FICO score from various sources at a given time, depending on which variant of the model is being used and which version is in use. The most important point is that your score should be within a close range on any or all of those models. For example, you shouldn’t have a “good” VantageScore and only a “fair” FICO score.
FAQs: Credit Karma vs Borrowell vs Mogo Credit Score
Bottom Line on the Best Free Credit Score in Canada: Borrowell or Credit Karma or Mogo?
We hope this information has helped you decide which credit score monitoring service to use.
It can be difficult to decide what company is the best one for your needs, but we’ve done some of the work for you by comparing Borrowell vs Credit Karma and Mogo against each other so that you don’t have to do all the research yourself.
Any products you use should align with long-term goals and not negatively affect your financial health.
To summarize, Borrowell is a better choice for those who want free access to their Equifax credit score and also full details of their current credit report at any time.
Mogo lets its users check their Equifax credit score for free. But it’s geared towards those who want lots of features all in one place, with some included as standard services, such as identity fraud protection with MogoProtect and the ability to exchange cryptocurrency.
Credit Karma allows you to see your TransUnion credit score as many times as you want in a year., which is excellent for building up good credit.
Finally, you can choose to sign up for all three of them and take advantage of each service’s free aspects.
AUTHOR
Charity (Charee) Oisamoje is the founder of TheFinanceKey - TFK. She leads the editorial team, which is comprised of subject-matter experts.
Her professional competencies and expertise make her qualified on this topic. She is an expert at collecting details, verifying facts, and making complex subjects easy to understand.
Backed by Solid Credentials: 
MBA in Finance Canadian Investment Funds (IFIC) Graduate Masters Degree in International Business Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) Candidate ✔️Chartered Insurance Professional (CIP) ✔️BSc Accounting
Learn More >> About Page
🏆 Free Equifax Credit Report & Credit Score
📌 Get Your Free Credit Score in Canada
✔️ Get your credit score and credit report for free - in under 3 minutes!
✔️ Free weekly updates on how your score has changed.
✔️ This is a soft credit check and, therefore, won't hurt your credit score.
