Checking your credit on a regular basis is important, whether you’re a consumer looking to make better credit and financial decisions, or a small business owner hoping to do the same.
With dozens of places where you check and monitor your credit reports and scores, you may not be sure what service will work for you. Here we’ll analyze two options: Nav and WalletHub.
Keep in mind that Nav is designed for small business owners, while WalletHub is focused on personal credit only. Read on for a more in-depth breakdown of Nav vs WalletHub* for business owners.
Does Nav Help Build Business Credit?
Services offered
With Nav Prime™, the paid offering, you’ll get business credit scores** and Detailed Credit Reports from two leading business credit reporting agencies: Equifax® and Experian™, along with business credit scores Equifax® Business Delinquency Score® and Experian™ Intelliscore PlusSM V2.
Personal credit is also important to lenders, and with Nav Prime you’ll get personal credit scores and detailed reports from Experian™ and TransUnion®. Scores provided are the TransUnion® VantageScore® 3.0, and Experian™ VantageScore® 3.0.
Reports and scores are updated monthly when you log in. Understand what information companies are reporting about your business, and view both business and personal credit in one dashboard.
In the Credit Health hub, see aggregate trends in your credit, key factors having the most impact on your scores, and keep track of new progress you’ve made.
You’ll also see details on public records, including UCC filings, that can directly and indirectly impact financing or other opportunities.
Nav Prime offers a tradeline submitted monthly to the major business credit bureaus to help you build and maintain a strong business credit history. Get the Nav Prime Card*** for a second tradeline.
A free Nav account offers summary credit reports and grades from two business credit bureaus, and one personal credit report score and summary. However, it does not provide tradeline reporting.
Both types of accounts feature real-time notifications to help you understand and act on what’s holding you back from business funding or new options.
User experience
Sign up for Nav online at Nav.com or through the mobile app.
Whether you sign up for a free Nav account or upgrade to Nav Prime, you’ll provide personal information, including your address and Social Security Number. You’ll need to answer questions about your credit experience to verify your identity and access personal credit information. When you create a Nav account for the first time, there is a soft credit check that does not affect your credit scores.
You’ll also be given the opportunity to claim your business, so you can access your business credit reports and scores.
You can connect your business bank account to get cash flow insights. Email alerts will let you know about important changes in your credit history.
Pricing
A free Nav account provides business credit summary reports and grades from Equifax® and Experian™, and a personal credit score and summary report from Experian™. This information** is updated monthly when you log in.
Nav Prime, the paid version, is $49.99/month with discounts available for quarterly or annual payments. With Nav Prime you’ll get Detailed Credit Reports, including both business and personal reports and scores**, updated monthly when you log in.
A FICO score for business— the FICO Small Business Scoring Service (SBSS) score— is also available for an additional fee.
Nav is the only source for free and paid credit monitoring services for both business and personal credit in one dashboard.
Customer support
Nav offers support by chat, email and phone.
Security features
Nav processes sensitive data with at least 128-bit encryption..
Reviews
Nav has 334 reviews with Trustpilot with an average rating of 3.9, as of this writing.
Does WalletHub Help Build Business Credit?
Services offered
WalletHub does not offer business credit reports, scores or monitoring. Instead its services are geared towards personal credit and finances.
With a free WalletHub account, you’ll get a credit score from TransUnion® (VantageScore® 3.0), updated daily. You’ll also get a complete TransUnion® personal credit report, an analysis of your credit score that assigns a grade to each of the main factors affecting your score, a credit improvement plan, and a credit timeline that summarizes credit activity in chronological order from the most recent activity.
You’ll also get access to a credit score simulator that will estimate what happens in a variety of scenarios, including opening a new account, refinancing debt, making payments on time or missing a payment, requesting a credit increase, or even filing for bankruptcy.
WalletHub also provides credit alerts and one free dark web monitoring search on your email address, as well as password monitoring to check if your passwords have been exposed in data breaches monitored by WalletHub.
Premium accounts offer additional benefits such as dark web monitoring and identity theft restoration. Those services are described below in the pricing section.
User experience
Sign up online at WalletHub.com, on the WalletHub app. You’ll provide personal information, including your address and Social Security number, then answer questions about your credit and financial accounts to verify your identity. A soft credit check will be used to provide your reports and to show financial products; it does not affect your credit scores.
Once you have signed up, you’ll get instant access to your TransUnion® VantageScore® 3.0 personal credit score and summary TransUnion® credit report along with the other information mentioned above. You can also provide additional information about your spending and financial assets to get a WalletScore, a proprietary score that analyzes your credit, spending, emergency preparedness and retirement savings, along with suggestions to improve your financial health.
Pricing
You can get a WalletHub account for free simply by signing up.
WalletHub Premium costs $6.49 a month and offers all the benefits of the free plan along with a spending Tracker, TransUnion® Credit Lock (with alerts and scheduling), identity protection and ID theft restoration, dark web monitoring, $1,000,000 identity theft insurance, enhanced loan monitoring, lost wallet assistance, USPS address monitoring, priority customer support, and premium settings.
WalletHub Premium+ is $11.99/month and includes the Basic and Premium benefits, plus bank account takeover monitoring, checking and savings account application alerts, and criminal activity monitoring.
Customer support
WalletHub offers a free Q&A support center online, or you can email customer support. Premium and Premium+ plans offer priority support.
Educational resources
WalletHub offers information on a variety of credit card and financing topics in its answers section, which is available regardless of whether you have signed up for an account or not. While many answers are geared toward personal credit or financial topics, it also has articles on a variety of business topics such as business credit cards, business credit scores and/or business lending.
Reviews
WalletHub has 1149 reviews on Trustpilot, with an average rating of 3.9, as of this writing.
Nav vs WalletHub: Credit Reporting Agencies Used
Nav
A free Nav account provides business credit grades and summary business credit reports from business credit reporting agencies Equifax and Experian, and a summary consumer credit report and credit score from Experian (Experian™ VantageScore® 3.0)**.
Nav Prime provides Detailed Credit Reports from business credit reporting agencies Equifax and Experian. Consumer credit reports and scores are provided by Experian and TransUnion®.*
WalletHub
With WalletHub, you’ll get a VantageScore 3.0® credit score and full credit report from TransUnion®. This is a personal credit report and score, not a business credit report or score.
Nav vs WalletHub: Frequency of Credit Updates
Nav
Both Nav Prime and free Nav accounts are updated monthly when you log in.
WalletHub
Log in to WalletHub to get your credit score updated daily from TransUnion®
Nav vs WalletHub: Mobile App Availability Features
Nav
Check up on your financial health anywhere with the Nav Business Financial Health app available for Android or iPhone. It has more than 100,000 downloads in the Google Play store, with an average rating of 4.7 (out of 5), as of this writing. In the Apple App store, it has more than 13,000 reviews with an average rating of 4.9.
Features include:
View your Detailed Credit Reports and credit scores (with Nav Prime), or summary reports and credit grades with a free account. Monitor real-time alerts to better position your business for funding. Forecast cash flow. Get recommended small business loan and credit card offers.
WalletHub
The WalletHub app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times in the Google Play store, and has an average rating of 4.7, as of this writing. In the Apple App store, it has more than 9,000 reviews with an average rating of 4.8.
Features include:
A free credit score and report from TransUnion®updated daily, as well as a plan for improving your score. See how you can improve your credit scores and save money. Get matched with offers based on your credit score.
Nav vs WalletHub: Credit Building Features
Nav
Nav Prime is reported to all three major business credit bureaus as a monthly tradeline to help you build business credit history.
Nav is the only place you can build business credit history with up to two tradelines while simultaneously seeing the impacts in your Nav Credit Health hub and detailed reports.
WalletHub
WalletHub offers a credit score simulator with both the free and premium (paid) accounts. You can use this to simulate the effect of various actions on your credit reports.
It also offers an analysis of your credit to help you understand the factors impacting your scores.
It does not report WalletHub paid plan payments to credit bureaus and does not offer its own credit or debit cards.
Nav vs WalletHub: Pros and Cons
There are pros and cons to each service. Here are a few key benefits to consider:
| Nav/ Nav Prime | WalletHub / WalletHub Premium and Premium+ | |
| Personal credit reports/scores | Yes | Yes – TransUnion® only |
| Business credit reports/scores | Yes | No |
| Personal loan/credit card offers | Yes | Yes |
| Business loan/credit card offers | Yes | Yes |
Why Should You Choose Nav or WalletHub for Your Small Business Needs?
Both Nav and WalletHub offer free and paid credit monitoring, insights, and credit offers. Both offer insights and reviews to help you choose the best credit cards, and match you to offers. And both provide tools to help you manage and monitor your credit for a better financial future.
But only one of these services is laser-focused on small business owners.
Best for small business
We realize we’re putting our own service first here, but small business owners will get more value from Nav.
That’s because Nav was designed for small business owners. Nav provides the most comprehensive view of business and personal credit of any service available, along with tools to help small business owners improve their financial health and reach their business financial goals
For personal finances only
WalletHub’s service focuses on personal finances. Much like Credit Sesame or Credit Karma, it can be helpful to individuals who want to check and monitor their personal credit report and score, and view relevant offers. WalletHub provides a free credit report and score with daily updates from TransUnion®. That can be helpful for monitoring personal credit, and for working on improving your credit, but you won’t get business insights and this service won’t help you build business credit.
*Information about WalletHub was gathered independently by Nav.
**Nav provides access to Experian™ Intelliscore PlusSM V2, Equifax® Business Delinquency Score®, TransUnion® VantageScore® 3.0, and Experian™ VantageScore® 3.0. VantageScore is a registered trademark of VantageScore, LLC.
***Nav Technologies, Inc. is a financial technology company and not a bank. Banking services provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. The Nav Prime Charge Card is issued by Thread Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used everywhere Visa cards are accepted. See Cardholder Terms for additional details.
This article was originally written on August 6, 2024.
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