Purchasing a FICO score can get expensive, because you need to buy one from each agency to know how lenders really view you as a risk. It also is not included in your free annual credit report. If you just want to know whether you are generally a good or bad risk and do not care about the specific score, you can estimate it for free.
Identification
Several FICO score estimators abound on the Internet, one even from the Fair Isaac Corporation itself -- designer of the FICO score. Jim Wang, financial expert and owner of Bargaineering claims that the score estimator gives a good gauge of where your credit falls. Since you receive one free credit report each year, you can probably get close to your actual FICO rating for free using data from that profile.
Benefits
An estimated FICO score might be just as good as one from the major credit bureaus, because lenders do not necessarily use the FICO score you can purchase from the major bureaus. Some creditors use an older version of the FICO scoring software, the VantageScore developed by the national credit agencies or come up with their own custom-tailored formula.
Disadvantage
Most FICO score estimators give a 50-point spread in which your credit score likely falls. This is a significant range, because you could have a range that falls between a good and excellent score. Since mortgage providers often set rates on your FICO score, going in with only an estimate could mean the difference of thousands of dollars during the course of the loan. Thus, you want to get as close as possible to your actual FICO score to determine if you need to bump it up before applying for a large loan.
Tip
In 2010, the Fair Isaac Corporation released an application for iPhone and iPad users to estimate their score, according to CreditNet. This app also links users to credit score educational material from FICO. Also, try to be as accurate as possible with an estimator, because you do not benefit from fudging on numbers.
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