Borrowell vs Credit Karma (2026): two bureaus, and only one builds credit

Borrowell vs Credit Karma is mostly a question of which credit bureau you want to see. Borrowell shows your Equifax score and report. Credit Karma shows TransUnion. Both are free, both hand you the whole report rather than just a number, and the two scores won’t match, which is what sends most people looking for a comparison in the first place. One difference goes further than the bureau, though. Only Borrowell can put something new on your credit file.

What’s the difference between Borrowell and Credit Karma?

Both are free Canadian credit apps. Each one shows you a credit score, the full report behind it, and alerts when something on it changes, and each one makes its money by recommending credit cards and loans. The difference is the bureau. Borrowell reads Equifax, Credit Karma reads TransUnion, and only Borrowell sells tools that report back.

Borrowell is a Toronto company used by more than four million Canadians. The number it shows you is the Equifax Risk Score 2.0, updated weekly along with the report, and Borrowell’s own page (opens in a new tab) says signing up needs no credit card and no SIN.

Credit Karma is owned by Intuit, the company behind TurboTax. The number it shows is the TransUnion CreditVision Risk Score (opens in a new tab), which runs from 300 to 900 and is built on trended data, so TransUnion reads how your balances moved over the past 24 months, not just where they sit today.

Borrowell: Equifax, and the tools that report back

Borrowell’s free tier is an Equifax score and report, refreshed every week. What separates it from Credit Karma is what it sells on top. Rent Advantage files your rent with Equifax, and Credit Builder opens a small instalment loan for the same purpose. Both are optional, and both cost money.

Rent Advantage (opens in a new tab) is $10 a month, or $8 bundled with past-rent reporting, which files up to 24 months of your past rent for a one-time $99 ($69 bundled). Rent is the biggest payment most Canadians make and it normally reaches no bureau at all, so filing it builds a payment history out of something you’re doing anyway.

Credit Builder (opens in a new tab) starts at $5 biweekly and hands you no cash. Borrowell describes it as a 48-month instalment loan at 0% APR that isn’t a cash loan, so what you’re buying is the reporting itself, plus cash-back rewards and some financial education. It reports to Equifax too, and it isn’t offered in Saskatchewan or New Brunswick.

One limit runs through all of it. Everything Borrowell reports goes to Equifax and nowhere else, so a lender who pulls TransUnion won’t see any of it.

Credit Karma: TransUnion, and the half you can’t get for free

Credit Karma’s Canadian product is the TransUnion score, the full TransUnion report and free monitoring, with nothing to buy alongside it. It doesn’t report anything to a bureau or sell a credit-building product. What it gives you instead is the bureau that’s hardest to see on your own.

That last part is the real argument for it, and it comes from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. FCAC’s page on ordering your credit report (opens in a new tab) lists the free credit score as available from Equifax “in all provinces and territories”, and from TransUnion “if you live in Quebec or Ontario (as part of your Consumer Disclosure)”. So in B.C., Alberta, the Prairies, Atlantic Canada and the territories, Equifax will show you your score for nothing and TransUnion won’t.

It’s narrower than it sounds, though. The credit report is free from both bureaus everywhere, online or by mail. It’s the score that TransUnion holds back outside those two provinces, and that’s what Credit Karma hands you.

Why your Borrowell and Credit Karma scores don’t match

Because they’re two different files, scored two different ways. Equifax and TransUnion each collect from the lenders who report to them, and plenty of Canadian lenders report to one and not the other, so a card that’s on one file can be missing from the other. On top of that, the Equifax Risk Score 2.0 and the TransUnion CreditVision Risk Score weigh your history differently. A gap between the two numbers is normal and doesn’t mean either app is broken.

Neither number is the one your lender sees, either. Banks buy their own scores, sometimes on an older model, sometimes on a custom one built from their own default data. What these apps are actually good for is the direction your score is moving and the detail on the report behind it: a collection you’d forgotten, a card you thought you closed, an address that isn’t yours.

Which is better if you’re trying to build credit?

Borrowell, and it isn’t close, because Credit Karma doesn’t compete here. Borrowell is the only one of the two that can add anything to your credit file. Rent Advantage files your rent with Equifax, and Credit Builder opens an account that reports every month, so a thin file picks up a payment history it didn’t have.

The tools cost money, though, and the free score doesn’t, so don’t buy one by reflex. Rent Advantage at $10 a month is $120 a year, which is worth it to someone rebuilding and pointless to someone whose credit is already fine. And everything Borrowell files lands at Equifax only. If you want a tradeline that reaches both bureaus, the credit-building apps roundup covers the ones that do.

Which is better if you just want to keep an eye on your credit?

Credit Karma, for most people outside Quebec and Ontario, and the reason is the bureau rather than the app. Equifax will give you your score free wherever you live, so the number Borrowell shows you is one you can already get from the source. TransUnion won’t, unless you’re in Quebec or Ontario. Credit Karma is the free route to the half you’d otherwise have to pay for.

That isn’t a knock on Borrowell’s free tier, which is genuinely good: weekly updates, the full report, and no SIN or credit card at signup. If you’d rather run one app than two, and you’d rather not deal with Equifax directly, Borrowell does the job well.

Credit Karma’s monitoring is the other part of the case. It alerts you when the TransUnion file changes, which is how you catch a problem early. An account you didn’t open turns up as an alert rather than as a surprise at your next mortgage renewal.

Can you use both?

Yes, and most people who pay attention to their credit end up doing exactly that. Both are free, neither runs a hard inquiry, and holding two accounts can’t cost you points. They’re reading different files, so one of each is the only way to see both sides without paying a bureau.

It matters because you don’t get to choose which bureau a lender pulls. Some check Equifax, some check TransUnion, some pull both. If there’s an error on the file your lender happens to use, watching only the other one is how you find out about it at the application.

Both apps also pay for themselves the same way, by recommending credit cards and loans and collecting a fee when you’re approved. That’s how a free credit score exists at all, and it’s worth remembering when an offer appears under your number. We go through the models in how free money apps make money.

The other side of a tight month

We make Lodavo, and it runs alongside either one. It’s a free app that connects read-only to the savings or chequing account you already use, and every $25 of your balance earns you a free ticket in a weekly cash draw worth up to $10,000, with at least $100 going to a user every week. None of it touches your credit.

Credit trouble and savings are the same problem from opposite ends. A missed payment is usually a short month rather than carelessness, and the buffer that prevents one is the hardest thing to build when money is tight. That’s what Lodavo is for: the $200 you manage to leave alone earns eight tickets, and Sunday gives you a reason to leave it there. That beats another reminder to build an emergency fund. The draw is independently verifiable, and the odds are in the contest rules. If you want the head-to-head, we’ve written Lodavo vs Borrowell too.

Neither Borrowell nor Credit Karma paid to appear in this comparison.

So which one?

If you’re building or rebuilding, it’s Borrowell, because it’s the only one of the two that can put a payment history on your file. If you’re watching, it’s Credit Karma, because TransUnion is the bureau you can’t see for free anywhere else outside Quebec and Ontario. And if you can face two apps, run both. They’re free, and they’re reading different files.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.