Editor's Overview:
- The Winner: WalletHub
- All three apps offer a free plan that gives users access to their credit score and report, personalized credit analysis, credit monitoring, expense tracking, net-worth monitoring, and recommendations for financial products like credit cards and loans.
- WalletHub and NerdWallet offer premium plans with additional perks and advanced features. Credit Karma does not offer a premium plan with advanced features.
- Intuit, Credit Karma's parent company, encouraged former Mint users to sign up for a Credit Karma account when Mint (another company owned by Intuit) shut down. However, Credit Karma does not offer as many budgeting tools as Mint, NerdWallet or WalletHub, lacking basic features like the ability to create budgets and track savings goals.
- WalletHub allows users to share their account with others, making it easy to manage family or household finances. NerdWallet and Credit Karma do not offer this feature.
NerdWallet vs. Credit Karma vs. WalletHub: Key Characteristics
Characteristics | NerdWallet | Credit Karma | WalletHub |
Average App Rating | 4.6 / 5 | 4.8 / 5 | 4.8 / 5 |
Free Plan Available | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Premium Plan Cost | $49 per year | Not offered | $47.90 for the first year, $95.90 after that |
Access to Credit Score & Report | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Credit Score Updated Daily | No | Yes | Yes |
Credit Monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Expense Tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Net Worth Tracking | Yes (included in free plan) | Yes | Yes (included in free plan) |
Investment Tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Identity Monitoring | No | Yes | Yes |
Debt Payoff Plan | No | Yes | Yes (included in free plan) |
Subscription Manager | Yes | No | Yes |
Account Sharing | No | No | Yes |
Budgeting | Yes | No | Yes |
Customer Support | Email & chat support | Live chat | Email (priority support with premium) |
You can get more details about these three finance apps below. We’ll also list which app takes the top spot for each key category.
NerdWallet vs. Credit Karma vs. WalletHub: Cost
Winner: WalletHub
Company | NerdWallet | Credit Karma | WalletHub |
Free Plan Available | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Premium Plan Cost | $49 per year | Not offered | $47.90 for the first year, $95.90 after that |
Free Accounts
WalletHub, Credit Karma, and NerdWallet all offer free plans. WalletHub’s free account gives you the ability to view your credit score and report, access your auto insurance score, manually track expenses, create budgets, develop personalized debt payoff plans, track your net worth, get credit and identity monitoring services, and more.
NerdWallet gives you the ability to view your credit score and report, link financial accounts for automatic tracking, manage your subscriptions in one list, create a budget, and track your net worth for free. Similarly, Credit Karma lets you track your credit scores and reports and sync your financial accounts, but it lacks basic budgeting features.
Premium Subscriptions
NerdWallet’s annual subscription costs $49 per year and gives you a discounted rate on investment management fees and allows you to earn rewards that you can redeem for cash or a gift card. WalletHub’s premium plan starts at just $47.90 for the first year ($95.90 afterward) and allows you to lock and unlock your TransUnion credit report, share your account with up to five other people, and get access to dark web monitoring, $1,000,000 in identity theft insurance, and priority customer service. Credit Karma does not offer a premium plan with advanced features or additional perks.
WalletHub comes out on top in this category due to the number of features included in its free plan and the fact that you can try out a premium subscription for less.
NerdWallet vs. Credit Karma vs. WalletHub: Credit Management
Winner: WalletHub
Company | NerdWallet | Credit Karma | WalletHub |
Access to Credit Scores & Reports | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Credit Score Updated Daily | Not offered | Yes | Yes |
Enhanced Credit Report Insights | Not offered | Not offered | Yes |
Credit Analysis | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Credit-Improvement Plan | Not offered | Yes | Yes |
Credit Score Simulator | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Credit Monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Financial Timeline | Not offered | Not offered | Yes |
Interactive Alerts | Not offered | Not offered | Yes |
All three apps allow you to view your credit score and report, learn from personalized credit analysis, and get access to credit monitoring services. WalletHub and Credit Karma also update your credit score daily and provide a credit-improvement plan, unlike NerdWallet. However, WalletHub has the edge here since it offers enhanced insights on your credit report, provides you with interactive alerts that allow you to address potential issues promptly, and let you view a timeline of important financial alerts.
NerdWallet vs. Credit Karma vs. WalletHub: Budgeting
Winner: WalletHub
Company | NerdWallet | Credit Karma | WalletHub |
Expense Tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Automatic-Account Sync | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Automatic Categorization | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Customized Spending Categories | Not offered | Not offered | Yes |
Budgeting Templates | 1 | 0 | 5 |
Subscription Manager | Yes (included in free plan) | Not offered | Yes |
While Credit Karma offers you the ability to track your expenses by category, it does not offer as many budgeting features as WalletHub or NerdWallet, such as the ability to create budgets or a subscription manager. NerdWallet allows you to make a budget based on the 50/30/20 rule, but WalletHub takes the lead in this category since you can choose between five different budgeting strategies.
With WalletHub, you can create a budget based on the 50/30/20 rule, envelope budgeting, micro-envelope budgeting, the pay-yourself-first method, or simple budgeting (with your income and expenses only). WalletHub also allows you to create custom categories, so you can organize your budget in whatever way makes the most sense for you.
NerdWallet vs. Credit Karma vs. WalletHub: Investment Tracking
Winner: NerdWallet
Company | NerdWallet | Credit Karma | WalletHub |
Investment Tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Investment Recommendations | Yes | No | No |
Financial Advisors Recommendations | Yes | No | Yes |
All three apps let you sync your investment accounts so you can track your account balances. Being able to track your investments makes it easy to monitor your net worth. Both WalletHub and NerdWallet also provide recommendations for financial advisors, unlike Credit Karma, but NerdWallet takes the lead here since it offers recommendations on things like the best brokage accounts and crypto exchanges.
NerdWallet vs. Credit Karma vs. WalletHub: Identity Theft Protection
Winner: WalletHub
Company | NerdWallet | Credit Karma | WalletHub |
Identity Monitoring | No | Yes | Yes |
Password Monitoring | No | Yes | Yes |
Change of Address Alerts | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Social Security Number Trace Alerts | No | No | Yes |
Dark Web Monitoring | No | Yes | Yes |
Identity Theft Restoration Service | No | No | Yes |
Identity Theft Insurance | No | No | Yes |
WalletHub and Credit Karma offer users identity theft protection services that will monitor the internet and dark web and notify them if their personal information has been compromised. However, WalletHub takes the lead here since it includes identity theft restoration services, which will help Premium members restore their identity if they become a victim of identity theft. Premium users also get access to $1,000,000 in identity theft insurance.
Credit Karma doesn’t offer identity theft restoration services or identity theft insurance. NerdWallet does not directly provide any identity theft protection services.
NerdWallet vs. Credit Karma vs. WalletHub: Account Sharing
Winner: WalletHub
Company | NerdWallet | Credit Karma | WalletHub |
Number of Authorized Users | 1 | 1 | 6 |
Separate Logins | Not offered | Not offered | Yes |
Available for Free | N/A | N/A | No |
WalletHub easily takes the top spot in this category since it is the only app here that offers an account-sharing feature, allowing you to give access to family or friends. With a WalletHub Premium account, you can share your account with up to five other people, and everyone on your account will get their own separate login so there is no need to share login credentials. Being able to share your account makes it very convenient to budget collaboratively with others.
NerdWallet vs. Credit Karma vs. WalletHub: Customer Support
Winner: NerdWallet
Company | NerdWallet | Credit Karma | WalletHub |
Customer Support | Email & chat support | Live chat | Email (priority support with premium) |
[email protected] | Not offered | [email protected] |
NerdWallet and Credit Karma both have chat support. However, NerdWallet also allows users to contact them by email. That’s why NerdWallet wins this category.
NerdWallet vs. Credit Karma vs. WalletHub: Overall Financial Management
Winner: WalletHub
Company | NerdWallet | Credit Karma | WalletHub |
Financial Health Score | Not offered | Not offered | Yes |
Debt Payoff Tool | Not offered | Debt repayment calculator | Debt payoff plan |
Net Worth Tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Savings Goals | Yes | Not offered | Yes |
While all three apps let you track your net worth, WalletHub is the only app that offers tools to help you manage all aspects of your financial life, from paying off debt to saving for the future. This helps WalletHub take the top spot in this category.
WalletHub offers debt payoff plans that can help you find the cheapest and fastest way to become debt-free. It also has a feature that allows you to set and track savings goals. In addition, WalletHub will give you a WalletScore, which indicates how financially healthy you are overall, and it will tell you what you need to do to improve.
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