My Experience with CMS Apps (FICO and FAKO)

This topic comes up so much on Reddit, and during the course of my rebuild, I think I've literally tried about every app there is, free and paid, FICO and FAKO. Thought I'd share my thoughts. If you can get past the fact that VantageScore 3.0 scores are largely irrelevant, and focus on the fact that many of the FAKO apps are excellent tools for credit monitoring, then many of the FAKO apps are really worth having. Currently, I have Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, Capital One Credit Wise, Chase Credit Journey, and Nerd Wallet. I have developed a system for the redundant apps that monitor the same bureau to where they update on different days of the week. You may or may not know that recently CK's 'daily' update of TU is about as reliable as the postal service. It'll get there eventually, but it's certainly not a 'daily' update as advertised anymore. Still, the TU updates sporadically and the EQ is like clockwork once per week. So, I open CK every Monday for my EQ update, and the TU updates whenever it wants to. Credit Sesame is TU once per month, but I'll get around to why I keep it in a minute. I open Chase Credit Journey every Wednesday for the weekly update of EX. Nerd Wallet every Thursday for TU. Cap One Credit Wise every Friday for TU. I get at least a weekly update of all 3 CRA reports with nothing but free FAKO apps. Now, here's the biggest advantage of FAKO apps in my experience. As I've gone on my recent spree, anytime I applied for credit and a hard inquiry or any other change hit my reports, within seconds of the change reporting the FAKO apps start going crazy with notifications letting you know instantly that something is hitting your reports. Credit Sesame gives you a notification every time your TU report sneezes. You know how many of the free or paid FICO apps I have did that? Sporadically...one. Experian. So, while the FAKO scores are largely irrelevant in these apps, I've always found the actual tradelines on my reports to be accurate, and the notifications happen so fast I often get scared that something unauthorized has hit my reports when MF, Experian, credit.com, or Discover Credit Scorecard gives me a notification hours or even the next day after the FAKO apps have long since notified me that there was a change. As for the paid apps...Experian is my favorite. I saw a thread has already been created here to show how to endlessly use the free trial, and that's what I do. It works like a charm, the daily updates of EX are great, the notifications are fairly reliable, and you can get TU and EQ every 10 days or so with FICO 8 scores for all. Not too shabby for free. credit.com I thought was good for all seeing all 28 FICOs, but at $30 for just a monthly update, if you don't need all 28 scores monthly, I didn't find it that great. The notifications were virtually non-existent, and I cancelled very quickly. As for the evil empire (MF), the notifications are almost always a full day behind when they actually happen, and the 3B reports got all kinds of stuff wrong for me (and many others from reading the forums). For $40 per month, and the Fair Isaac brand name, you'd sure think it would be a better service. Again, the 28 scores are great, and the FICO 8 does update whenever a change occurs, but it's usually the next day before it finally catches up. I can get almost the same service (and better) for free using Experian and the FAKO apps. Anyway, that's my 2 cents on the CMS apps I currently or have used in the past. As always, I love the discussion, so let me know what you think too.