Excellent question.

Equifax includes the FICO score. As you may know, the FICO score is the basis for lending decisions made by most financial institutions (the actual scores used by lenders are typically unique to that lender, but more lenders use FICO criteria to establish their score than any other method).

Experian's FreeCreditReport.com product only includes an Experian credit score. While having access to this score is better than nothing, it is not as representative of what lenders may use to make decisions about your creditworthiness as the Equifax FICO score is.

I will also note that we have also rated Experian's CreditCheck Total product, which includes all three credit reports and all three credit scores five stars. This is the same rating we gave Equifax's FICO product.

Regarding the source of the reviews, our editorial team produces the reviews and ratings after many hours of using the products as consumers. Our criteria is standardized and extensive. In this example, it may seem that products that offer only one score should all be rated the same, but from our editorial perspective, not all scores are created equal. We believe that given the choice of only one score option that most consumers should choose the FICO score.

I hope this answers your questions fully.

Thanks,

Joe Fahrner
NextAdvisor.com