Skip to content

Vantage Score Explained

Vantage Score was create and launch in 2006 by the three major credit bureau‘s to compete directly with the FICO score. It has not supplanted FICO, but many of the free credit websites such as NerdWallet and Credit Karma use this score. In my opinion, it is not really comparable to FICO as it has many different criteria and the scores are sometimes 50 to 100 points off the FICO.

Vantage Score

Additionally, the score goes all the way to 990 so a 720 on Credit Karma is not reflective of the same score on a FICO model.

 Vantage Score Range

GradeScore Range
A901–990
B801-900
C701–800
D601–700
F501–600
Vantage Credit Scores differ from FICO

Vantage Credit Score

The actual scoring algorithm is the same for all three credit bureaus. Keep in mind, the data inside the report will slightly vary from report to report, so this could create a change in the score you see.

Below are the scoring factors your Vantage score is based on:

Rating FactorDescriptionWeight
Payment HistoryAre you on time? Do you have any late payments?32%
Credit UtilizationThis is your debt to credit limit available.23%
Credit BalancesTotal credit card balances.15%
Depth of CreditThis is your length of credit history.13%
Recent CreditRelated to how many recent hard inquiries on your credit report.10%
Available CreditHow much credit do you have in general?7%
Vantage Scoring Criteria

This article was last updated on December 26, 2022