Raise your score by an average of 21 points in 3 days.¹

When you open Credit Builder, we open a Credit Builder Savings Account and Line of Credit in your name. These banking services are provided by our bank partner, Cross River Bank, Member FDIC.

You decide how much you want to save each paycheck, and that amount is transferred from your Line of Credit to your locked Credit Builder Savings Account every pay period. This transfer is done automatically when you enroll in our optional AutoSave Program or can be manually initiated by you.

Every statement period (which we align to your pay periods), you pay off the total amount of savings you have added from your Line of Credit to your locked Credit Builder Savings Account during that period. We report your payments to all three credit bureaus.

Every time you save $500 that amount is available for you to use. Want to access the money to cover expenses? Go for it. Want to keep that $500 safe for a rainy day? Kudos.

Credit Builder impacts three of the largest contributors to your credit score: credit utilization, payment history, and account age. The Line of Credit that comes with Credit Builder has a limit of $1,000, which increases your overall credit limit, gives your lower overall credit utilization, and could help build your credit. In addition, Credit Builder utilizes a Line of Credit to help you save money. Every payment you make to pay off the balance on your Line of Credit is reported as a payment to the Credit Bureaus. On-time payments to your Credit Builder help strengthen your payment history which could help your credit. Finally, the Credit Builder plan has no fixed term length, so you can keep it active as long as you want. The longer you keep your Credit Builder open, the longer your average account age will be and the more it could help your credit.

In order to get your Credit Builder plan started you must Open a Credit Karma Money™ Spend checking account and select how you would like to fund your Credit Builder Savings Account. Choose between (1) linking your external bank account (2) successful connecting your paycheck or (3) direct deposit at least $750 into a Credit Karma Money™ Spend account.

It is really free, no catch! Credit Karma Credit Builder charges no fees or interest. We believe building credit should be free and flexible. We want to invest in building a positive relationship with you, so we make our Credit Builder free!

Once you’ve decided how much you want to save each paycheck, you can set up the AutoSave Program, which will automatically transfer money from your Line of Credit to your locked Credit Builder Savings Account every statement period.
We recommend that you set up the AutoSave Program so that you are making automatic contributions to your Credit Builder Savings Account. You can set up autosave by providing your Credit Karma Money™ Spend account details. Every payment date, autosave will pay off your Line of Credit balance from your Credit Karma Money™ Spend account, ACH payments may take 1-2 business days, but payments made before midnight Pacific Time are processed on the same day. You can always turn off autopay or change the account before the day of your payment. You can also still make one-time payments without disrupting autopay.
If you wish to manually save and make payments, you can initiate them from your Credit Karma Money™ Spend account in the Credit Karma Credit Builder Account Center once you have your Credit Builder set up.

We want to help you to invest in building credit and saving money. Every time you pay a total of $500 towards your savings account, we unlock that amount for you. The $500 is transferred to your unlocked Credit Karma Money™ account. As you keep saving, we keep unlocking your account in $500 increments.

We report on-time payments and your Line of Credit to the Credit Bureaus. The more on-time payments you make, the more you save, and the longer you have your Credit Builder active, the more likely it is to help build your credit history. Of course we can’t guarantee that Credit Karma Credit Builder will increase your credit score, but we’re helping set you up for success.

You don’t have to save every month if you don’t want to. One of the advantages of Credit Builder is flexibility. Save when you want! Saving every month will help you reach your savings goal faster and unlock your money faster, but how and when you save is entirely up to you. As long as you keep your account active*, you will be building credit.

*In order to maintain an active account, we require that you use your Line of Credit to make a transfer to your Credit Builder savings account and pay off your outstanding balance at least once every 3 months after opening.