Best Business Credit Report Service in 2024
Are you looking for the best business credit report service? We’ve reviewed the best business credit report services in 2021 to help you decide which business credit report service is best for ensuring your business credit score stays high.
Recommended: Nav is an online business credit report service with free monitoring and more
Best Business Credit Report Services
Our Approach:
Selecting the best business credit report service for your small business comes down to three things:
- Results
- Features
- Price
In this review, we’ll look at some of the best business credit report services to figure out what makes them the top choice for businesses.
Our Top 5 Best Business Credit Report Companies for 2024:
- Nav: Best Overall Business Credit Report Service
- Dun & Bradstreet: Largest Business Credit Report Agency and Services Firm
- Experian: Best for Deciding Who to Do Business With
- Equifax: Best for Small Business Risk Assessment
- CreditSafe: Best for Making Better Business Decisions
The Best Business Credit Report Service:
Nav is the best overall business credit report service. Nav offers access to all your reports and valuable analytics and insights to help you make the best business decisions possible. Nav also provides low-cost straightforward pricing!
Best Business Credit Report Services: Breakdown
1. Nav: Best Business Credit Report Service
Nav understands how frustrating it can be to worry about your finances constantly. With its service, you can monitor your business credit score efficiently and handle any financial situations before they turn into a problem.
Nav's goal is to ensure peace of mind so that you have the energy and creativity to run your business without worrying deeply about every dollar. Nav even offers free business credit reports and an account that lets you track your business credit activity for free.
Here is a quick summary of Nav's business credit report services:
- Summaries of Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax business credit scores and reports
- Summary of Experian personal credit score and report
- Alerts for business and personal credit scores
- Premium reports for paid users, such as Experian Intelliscore, D&B Paydex Score, Equifax Business Delinquency Score, TransUnion personal credit VantageScore, Experian personal credit VantageScore, and FICO SBSS
Take these steps to open a paid or free Nav account:
- Visit Nav Credit Scores & Reports
- Select "Business Credit Scores & Reports" from the menu at the bottom of the page
- Select the "Get Your Free Scores" button
- Complete your business credit profile
- Access your credit reports and scores
- Start working to build business credit through the business credit bureaus
Extra Perks: Nav offers additional services that can help you build business credit and improve your business credit score:
- Small business loans
- Business credit cards
- New tradeline with business credit bureaus including Experian and Equifax
Pros
- Offers a solution for what you should do if you want to avoid the risks of bad credit but want to build a high business credit score and get access to comprehensive business data and your business's financial history.
- Lets business owners view their business credit reports and business credit scores to judge their own credibility so that they can get loans for expansion or new ventures without having to borrow from banks. The Nav website is also the perfect place for accessing lines of credit, including business credit cards.
- Allows businesses with low scores on their credit reports to see why, gives them a chance to improve scores by taking steps like making timely payments, and helps them avoid repossession by working with creditors.
- Customers are given access to an online dashboard that they can use as a way of managing their credit reports and correcting any mistakes. This is particularly useful for companies that want strong business credit.
- Helps in managing debt by providing services like business loan negotiation, debt consolidation, and debt relief.
- Provides customers with free resources to help them make informed decisions about whether they should choose Nav’s services or not.
- Provides customers with tailored information about business credit reports.
Cons
- Free credit reports do not include many of Nav's premium business report service offerings, like business credit reporting and access to identity theft and subsidiaries' historical data. Its monthly premium plan is $39 per month, which gives you access to everything Nav offers.
- You must verify your identity by providing personal information to Nav business when you first use the service.
- You only get one account that you can access from any device at any time, which limits how many people can access the account at once.
Open a Nav account to start building your business credit scores and ratings to qualify for business loans and credit cards.
2. Dun & Bradstreet: Largest Business Credit Report Agency
Dun & Bradstreet is the largest commercial credit reporting agency. They are the go-to business credit report agency for businesses of all sizes. You have to manually set up a business credit file to start building your business credit score and adding tradelines to your Dun & Bradstreet business credit report.
Dun & Bradstreet offers several priced packages for small business credit reports; the two primary options are CreditSignal and CreditSignal Plus.
CreditSignal: Free
- 14-day access to four D&B scores and ratings
- Alerts for credit inquiries and changes to business credit scores and ratings
CreditSignal Plus: $15/month
- Unlimited access to five D&B scores and ratings
- Alerts for business credit inquiries, changes to credit scores and ratings, and new business events
- Ability to generate additional missing scores
Take these steps to access Dun & Bradstreet credit reports:
- Visit Dun & Bradstreet
- Click on the plan that makes the most sense for your business
- Make your purchase and get immediate online access to your business credit scores and credit risk
Pros
- Offers access to your payment history and business credit scores.
- Ability to access payment history and the business credit scores of other businesses
- Offers access to multiple Dun & Bradstreet reports, including the Failing Score, which rates how much credit or financial obligations a company has before deciding to do business with respective owners.
- CreditSignal is a free option for basic credit reporting
- The CreditSignal Plus report is less expensive than most other business credit reporting agencies, costing only $15 per month.
Cons
- No access to other business credit reporting agencies, such as Equifax or Experian.
Open a Dun & Bradstreet account, access your Dun & Bradstreet credit scores and credit file, and start building business credit.
3. Experian: Best for Deciding Who to do Business With
Unlike personal credit scores (or your personal credit report), business credit reports are accessible to anyone. Potential business partners may have pulled credit reports on your business, so we advise every small business to do the same.
Experian Business Credit Advantage is a great place to pull credit scores when deciding which businesses you may want to do business with. Experian reports are third-party verified and completely unbiased, presenting only the facts regarding a business's financials.
Use Experian Business Credit Advantage to find out how financially secure a prospect is and how they compare with other potential partners. Experian can clue you in on whether you'll be paid back on time or if a company is one you should partner with or not.
Here is a quick summary of what Experian Business Credit Advantage includes:
- Access to a business fraud resolution support specialist to help businesses resolve fraudulent activities
- Access to Experian's Business Credit Dashboard with three months of credit trends
- Credit monitoring and email updates on credit report updates
- Access to CyberAgent identity monitoring technology
- Monitoring of credit factors like trade payments, collection filings, UCC filings, judgment filings, tax lien filings, and leasing
- Access to Experian Financial Stress Rating and Score Improvement Tips to help better business credit
Take these steps to open an Experian Business Credit Advantage account:
- Visit Experian
- Click on the plan that makes the most sense for your business
- Make your purchase and get immediate online access to your business credit score and personal credit and business credit report.
Pros
- The package is only $189 per year, which averages to about $15 per month
- Provides real-time credit scores and ratings
- Receives third-party verification on all business credit reports
- Offers public records and data public filings
- Accounts reporting detail analysis
Cons
- No access to other business credit reporting agencies, such as Dun & Bradstreet or Equifax
Choose Experian to decide who best to do business with.
Choose Experian to decide who best to do business with.
4. Equifax: Best for Assessing Small Business Risk
Equifax's team of experts can help you find the information you need on your credit report and help you build a solid financial track record, sure to please any lender. You can find all the information you need to fix your business's problems in one place — your business credit report.
With so many businesses using Equifax's services, it should be one of the easiest places to start discovering which data and documents need rebooting.
Here is a quick summary of what Equifax Business Credit Monitor includes:
- Unlimited credit reports for businesses
- Notifications on what's happening in your industry as it happens.
- Easy, secure login
- Access to multiple alert options, including Bankruptcy Alert, Derogatory Alerts, New Inquiry Alerts, and Equifax Score Drop Alerts
Take these steps to open an Equifax Business Credit Monitoring account:
- Visit Equifax
- Click "Contact Us"
- Get pricing and details and get started
Pros
- Ability to access your business credit score, reports, and specialized products to monitor and manage your business finances.
- Use of AI algorithms provides analysis of various data types, including business income, spending habits, debt level, business checking account balances, etc.
- Provides a broad range of information to help quickly determine a business's financial profile to create a budget plan that will help management reach their goals.
Cons
- Must call for pricing and plans
- No access to other credit reporting agencies, such as Experian and Dun & Bradstreet
Pull your Equifax report to assess the risk your business poses to lenders and other businesses.
5. CreditSafe: Best for Making Better Business Decisions
CreditSafe helps you find out what your financial status is, gives you access to your business credit report on demand, and helps you make more informed decisions for your company’s future.
Get a credit report for your business in just minutes with CreditSafe. Get access to your company’s financial state in seconds and use the tools they give you to make better business decisions.
Here is a quick summary of CreditSafe's credit report features:
- Access to US and international Creditsafe Credit Score
- Access to CreditSafe Credit Limit recommendations
- Analysis of days beyond term (DBT), payment trends, business spending trends, and inquiry trends
- Core Business Data, including company information, legal filing history, and compliance indicators
- Payment data, including tradelines and financial statements
Take these steps to open a CreditSafe account:
- Visit CreditSafe
- Click "Claim Your Free Reports"
- Enter your business information and select "Claim Your Free Credit Report"
Pros
- Free trial that includes up to five domestic US credit reports
- All-in-one business information approach
- International and domestic credit reporting
Cons
- No upfront pricing information
Choose CreditSafe to pull your reports and make better business decisions.
Conclusion
The best overall business credit report service is Nav — they get you the best results, offer the most features, and have the most straightforward pricing of any of the business credit report services.
The other company's services may work better for different types of businesses. Obviously, it will be up to each business to determine their business credit building needs.
Pick a service that fits your business best, and start building your business credit now!
Note: If you want to learn more about building credit for your small business, check out our How to Build Business Credit guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
A business credit report is a document that contains information that goes into a company’s financial and credit history. Lenders can use this information to help determine whether to provide loans or not. The better a company's business credit report, the more likely a business may be approved for a business loan.
When businesses want to monitor their credit for fraud, they can use a service such as Equifax.
Other companies offer credit monitoring services that work on a subscription basis. A good way for businesses to monitor their credit is by setting up automated alerts on various credit reports and comparing them with other companies’ credit reports.
A small business can and should voluntarily report its profits and other business information to business credit bureaus. This ensures it is building business credit to get higher lines of credit, which will increase the overall value of the business.
The easiest way to look up a business credit score is to use a business credit monitoring service like Nav. Companies like Nav monitor your small credit reports and each business credit score making them available in real-time.
Alternatively, you can approach each independent business credit bureau separately to find out your scores this way. However, this process may cost more and consume more of your time, so it's not recommended.
Credit scores are usually an important factor that lenders use to determine whether a business is a good risk to loan money to (e.g., business credit cards, etc.). They typically consider credit, income, assets, a business’s formation structure, debt-to-income ratio, and other factors when deciding whether or not to approve a loan.
There are four main sources of credit scores:
- Dun & Bradstreet Paydex Score
- FICO score
- Experian Small Business Score
- Equifax Business Score
To access your business credit report, contact Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Small Business, or Equifax and request a copy.
Business credit reports help evaluate a company’s financial health and financial stability. They are also helpful in keeping track of your company’s debt and credit rating to monitor for unexpected changes.
Note that each company will have different requirements you'll need to comply with to obtain a copy of your report. The easiest way around this time-consuming and often frustrating process is to subscribe to a business credit monitoring service like Nav.
The easiest way to look up a company's credit report is to go through a business credit monitoring service like CreditSafe. CreditSafe gives you access to all major credit reports for businesses.
Alternatively, you can contact Dun & Bradstreet to look up a business's credit report and its Paydex score for free.
The short answer to which business credit reporting agency is most accurate is, “it depends.” There are a lot of different factors that can impact the accuracy of business credit reports.
Some things you can do to improve your accuracy rate are:
- Keep track of all your credit limits and make sure that your accounts are listed on accurate records
- Pay your bills on time and in full every month to avoid late payments and high interest rates
- Maintain a good credit score by paying off debts, keeping balances low, and using revolving accounts sparingly
Each business credit bureau has a different credit scoring system. The higher the score in each rating system, the better a company's business credit rating and the more options a business has to build business credit.
A high credit score will allow you to borrow money more easily, which allows you to grow your business and get ahead of the competition (e.g., getting a business credit card).
A high credit score will also give you the upper hand in negotiating with suppliers or even getting a loan from the bank.