Cheap Credit Repair: The Top 5 Most Affordable, Reliable Services

Written By Jeff Hindenach
Last updated December 20, 2022

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Credit
August 6, 2022

Simple. Thrifty. Living.

Reader question: I need to fix my credit score and I’ve heard about credit repair services, but I’ve heard they can be a scam. Are there any that work? How much does credit repair cost? I’d like to find a cheaper service.

Answer: It depends on your credit situation. If you have legitimate negative information on your credit report that is accurate, credit repair services may not be able to help. Credit repair services are best when used for disputing errors on your credit report or contesting information that may be easily removed or negotiated off your report. Even with that being the case, some credit repair companies tend to have higher reliability for boosting a credit score and offer better value than others. The best, most reliable credit repair services we have found and recommend to consumers are Sky Blue, Credit Saint, The Credit People, Lexington Law, CreditRepair.com.

RankCredit Repair ServiceBest ForMonthly FeeSTL Reliability Rating
1Sky Blue Credit RepairOverall Value$79★★★★★
2Credit SaintTransparency$79.99★★★★★
3The Credit PeopleTrial Period$79★★★★
4Lexington Law Credit RepairReputation$99.95★★★★
5CreditRepair.comFeatures$99.95★★★

Best Credit Repair Companies

RankCredit Repair ServiceSTL Reliability Rating
1Sky Blue Credit Repair★★★★★
2Credit Saint★★★★★
3The Credit People★★★★
4Lexington Law★★★★
5CreditRepair.com★★★

Sky Blue is the most affordable and reliable credit repair option that we looked at. Sky Blue has streamlined their credit repair service so that they offer strictly credit repair (like fixing mistakes on your credit report, good-faith letters to your creditors, etc.) and don’t include extras that raise the price like other credit repair companies do.

Also, Sky Blue has a great feature for the budget-minded customer that allows you to pause your service with the click of a button if you need to take a break or can’t afford a month or longer.

Price: $79 to start, $79/month after

BBB Rating: A+

Reliability?  Sky Blue has been around for several years now, and its reliability has stood the test of time. It has received many positive reviews across the web, but more importantly, it has historically received an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. Sky Blue scores the highest in reliability as it is the only credit repair services that offers a full 90-day refund if you are dissatisfied with its service for any reason You can sign up for Sky Blue Credit Repair here or call (888) 534-1510 to talk to a live person.




Credit Saint is not the biggest name in credit repair but it offers some aggressive services for not a lot of money. It also offers a number of options, depending on what you are looking for, which is good for a budget credit repair service. Credit Saint will dispute late payments, identity thefts, charge offs, collections, bankruptcies and repossessions. It also offers a more expensive option that gets more aggressive with the disputes filled.

Price: $99 to start, $79.99/month after

BBB Rating: A+

Reliability?  Credit Saint is unusual in that in gets a lot of positive reviews online for its services. Generally, credit repair companies have a lot of complaints because people expect miracles when it comes to credit repair, but customers seem pretty pleased with Credit Saint. The company has an A+ rating from the BBB and generally does well in online reviews. It also offers a money-back guarantee if it doesn’t remove any items from your credit report within 90 days.  You can sign up for Credit Saint here or call (855) 559-5762 to talk to a live person.

The Credit People charges $79 a month, but it also has some incentives that knock it into the good-deal credit repair category. First, you can sign up for a 7-day trial for only $19, so you don’t have to commit to anything long-term and can try out the service first.

Price: $79 a month for the monthly service. $19 for a 7-day trial of the services

BBB Rating: B

Reliability? offers the level of reliability guaranteed by the Credit Repair Organizations Act, which is that prospective credit repair consumers don’t have to pay anything upfront for the work that is set to be completed in a given month. An additional level of reliability is in place, however, in that if you aren’t satisfied with any of the work that Credit People has done, you can cancel at any time and don’t have to pay for that month’s work. You can check out The Credit People here or call (866) 323-0104 to talk to a live person.




The best part about Lexington Law is that it is an actual law firm that specializes in credit law, which means they know what they are doing when dealing with lenders. Lexington Law has been around longer than most other credit repair services and includes all of the bells and whistles that come along with their credit repair plan, including credit report monitoring and identity theft protection that comes along with its most expensive package.

If you want to opt for a cheaper credit repair plan, you can always sign up for an expert identity theft protection service like Lifelock. (You can check out our comparison of Lifelock to Experian here.)

Price: $99.95/month (for cheapest plan.)

Reliability? Lexington Law scores high for reliability because it has been around for more than 27 years. It also meets the reliability and legal demands of the Credit Repair Organizations act in that it only charges for the work it has already completed. You can check out more about Lexington Law here or call (844) 259-3376 to talk to a live person. 

CreditRepair.com offers a top tier service for $99.95 per month, which offers all the standard services, as well as identity theft protection and credit report monitoring.

CreditRepair.com actually has a relationship with TransUnion, so they can actually pull your credit score for you, which is extremely helpful. They also have an “A” rating from the BBB, and are known as one of the better credit restoration services. The only downside to CreditRepair.com is the cost. They charge $99.95 a month, although they don’t have an initial fee like most other credit repair services. With the $99.95, you get your standard credit repair services, as well as monthly credit monitoring, a score tracker and analysis, mobile apps and text and email alerts.

Price: $99.95/month

BBB Rating: A

Reliability? CreditRepair.com scores high for reliability due to its many high ratings, its solid track record and its previously awarded rating of A from the Better Business Bureau. Further bolstering the reliability of CreditRepair.com is that fact that you can cancel at any time if you feel the work that you agreed upon is not being completed. Sign up for CreditRepair.com here or call (844) 764-9863 to talk to a live person.

Pyramid is one of the most expensive of the reliable credit repair companies. You pay $99 as the monthly price, which includes your own personal advisor, unlimited bureau disputes, as well as dispute management, as well as validation and goodwill letters to help you improve your credit.

Remember, if you are having issues with your debt, credit repair companies can not help you. Try a debt relief program. Check out our Freedom Debt Relief reviews here and Accredited Debt Relief reviews here to see two of our top-ranked services.

Price: $99 a month.

BBB Rating: N/A

Reliability? Pyramid is a fairly new credit repair service, so it has not rating from the Better Business Bureau. It does, however, allow dissatisfied customers to cancel at any time and does not charge them the monthly fees for that month. Put simply, if Pyramid doesn’t do the agreed upon work in a given month, you get a refund for that month. You can check out Pyramid here.




If you really want to save some money, you should try repairing your own credit. Most of what credit repair companies do is contest negative items on your credit reports, which you can also do from the comfort of your own home. Here are four easy steps to doing this:

  1. Get your reports: Request your credit reports from the three credit bureaus.
  2. Find negative items: Highlight the negative items in your report and figure out which ones will be easiest to remove. These can include items that are errors, items from lenders no longer in business or any items that cannot easily be verified.
  3. Prove your case: If there is any proof to back up your request to remove the items, gather that before sending off your request.
  4. Send your dispute: Each credit bureau has a form on its website that will allow you to dispute items on your credit report. Download the form, fill it out, include your proof and send it off to the credit bureaus.

From there, the credit bureaus will have 30 days to do their own research and respond to your request. You should get a response shortly after that whether the item was removed or not.

When sending these requests, here are a couple things to keep in mind.

  • Don’t overload the credit bureaus. If you contest too many items on your credit report, they may send them back to you. Since the credit bureaus only have 30 days to respond to requests, they can reject too many requests from one person.
  • While you don’t need any proof to back up your disputes, it can help.
  • Be as formal and polite as possible; angering the credit bureaus may not be in your best interest.

If the cheapest option is to do it yourself, why should you pay for credit repair? Here are a couple of reasons that people use credit repair services instead of doing it themselves.

  1. More experience: Repair companies have years of experience doing, across thousands of customers. They know what works and what doesn’t, and may have more success removing negative items than you could yourself.
  2. Less work: Disputing items can take up a lot of your time, especially if you have a lot of items to dispute. It can take months to go through all of your negative items and repeat the same process of filing out forms, gather proof and mailing off disputes. Repair services do all that work for you. This is one of the main reasons people pay for the services.
  3. Law background: Most reputable credit repair companies have lawyers working behind the scenes who have vast knowledge in credit law. They can use loopholes and aggressive tactics to get items removed from your credit reports, in ways you would never be able to do.
  4. Better results: This is not always the case, but anecdotally, it seems that people get better results when going through a credit repair agency. The companies seem to have more experience and more people going to bat for you, instead of just you trying to fix your credit.

Whether you use a repair company or not is up to you. If you are a diligent self-starter, it might be worth it to save some money and do it yourself. If you know you might never get around to disputing your items, an agency might be a better pick. Just remember that there are no guarantees in credit repair. Whether you use a service or not, there is no guarantee that your score will go up. All you (or the agency) can do is dispute the items; the rest is up to the credit bureaus.

To increase credit repair company reliability and protect consumers, the Credit Repair Organizations Act says that credit repair services cannot make any false or misleading claims. This is why no credit repair service can offer a guarantee on its work or potential results.

Even so, we can still make an educated guess at the reliability of a credit repair service based on the reviews it has received, its BBB rating, and whether it offers any kind of refund if consumers are unhappy with their results.

We believe Sky Blue, Credit Saint, The Credit People, Lexington Law and CreditRepair.com are among the best credit repair services out there when it comes to cost and reliability. Sky Blue leads the industry in reliability with its 90-day money-back policy, but all of the other services listed here follow close behind.

About the Author

Jeff Hindenach

Jeff Hindenach is the co-founder of Simple. Thrifty. Living. He graduated from Bowling Green State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism. He has a long history of financial journalism, with a background writing for newspapers such as the San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Examiner, as well as writing on personal finance for The Huffington Post, New York Times, Business Insider, CNBC, Newsday and The Street. He believes in giving readers the tools they need to get out of debt.

  • Can you tell me if any of these have any kind of guarantee?

    • Hi Patty, Sky Blue and Credit Saint have a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you aren’t happy with the service, you can get a refund. I hope that helps!

  • I dont have any credit, can you build my credit from scratch? If you can how much does it cost?

    • Sadly, credit repair companies cannot build credit for you. The only way to build credit is to apply for a loan or credit card. Since you don’t have any credit yet, I would suggest applying for a secured credit card to start building your credit.

  • Lexington law charges $99.00 a month and does not make a guarantee on fixing a persons credit.

  • Ending up going with SkyBlue, so far I’ve had a great service! Thanks!

    • Have you been paying a monthly service?

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