No single business credit score is the one every lender uses, and no regulator names one. Lenders choose their own data, which can include a bureau's business report and the owner's personal credit, and the SBA's guidance on this topic starts earlier, with a distinct legal entity, a free EIN and a separate business bank account. Experian sells its own reports from a published price list, while Equifax sells its business reports only through approved resellers, so Experian is the easier of the two to price directly.
Which business credit score do lenders actually look at?
There is no single answer. Lenders set their own underwriting, and the factors can include a bureau report on the business, the owner's personal credit, and other information the lender chooses. No regulator names a single score or threshold.
What the SBA does lay out is the groundwork. The agency's guidance says the first step in keeping business and personal finances separate is to start building credit in the company's own name. A business with no entity, no account and no reporting vendors gives a lender little to score, which is how a personal guarantee ends up asked for.
Two names come up often on this question: FICO's Small Business Scoring Service and Experian's Intelliscore Plus. Their scoring formulas, ranges and how lenders weigh them are set by the companies that own them and are not described in this article.
What should be in place before paying for any business credit report?
The SBA lists five steps. First, choose a business structure, since making a business a distinct legal entity means selecting a structure such as an LLC, LLP or corporation. Second, obtain a federal tax ID, an EIN. Third, open a business bank account. Fourth, establish credit with vendors and suppliers that report to the bureaus. Fifth, monitor the business credit reports.
Steps one and two are the formation work that ZenBusiness handles, and it offers a free accounting consultation to customers who form with it. ZenBusiness does not sell credit reports, scores, monitoring or any credit-building service, so it is not an alternative to either bureau. For an owner who has already formed and opened an account, it has nothing further to add here.
The IRS issues the EIN at no cost, and the SBA points applicants to the IRS assistance tool for it. Paying a third party for the number itself is never necessary. Monitoring is the last step in the SBA's order, which means a report bought before the first four steps have any data in it shows very little.
What does Experian publish?
Experian lists four products with prices, as of 2026-10-06. CreditScore Report is $59.95 one-off, ProfilePlus Report is $69.95 one-off, Business Credit Advantage is $199 a year, and Business CreditScore Pro is $1,995 a year.
Those prices describe what Experian charges to sell reports and monitoring to a business. They do not describe what a lender pays or which report a lender pulls. Where Experian publishes a scoring factor on its own pages, it is Experian's statement and not a government fact, and no factor is reproduced here.
Experian suits an owner who wants to read the business report a lender may see and is willing to pay for a one-off copy or an annual plan. An owner with a thin file may get little from the higher-priced plan until vendors have started reporting.
What does Equifax publish?
Equifax is one of the three bureaus that own business credit data, and its pages are cited alongside Experian's and Dun & Bradstreet's on this topic. Equifax does not sell business credit reports directly. They are sold through approved resellers: a one-time report costs $49.99 through eCredable, and monitoring starts at $39.99 a month through Nav, as of 2026-10-06. That is a real difference from Experian and Dun & Bradstreet, which sell their own.
A reader who wants to compare it with Experian should open Equifax's own small business pages and read the product names and score details directly.
How do Experian and Equifax compare side by side?
The two are listed alphabetically, which is not a ranking. Figures are as of 2026-10-06.
| Equifax | Experian | |
|---|---|---|
| One-off report price | $49.99 through eCredable | CreditScore Report $59.95; ProfilePlus Report $69.95 |
| Annual plan price | Monitoring from $39.99 a month through Nav | Business Credit Advantage $199; Business CreditScore Pro $1,995 |
| Score name and range | See Equifax's own pages | See Experian's own pages |
| Which one lenders pull | Set by each lender | Set by each lender |
The honest reading is that the published pricing favours nobody on its own. The deciding question is which bureau a particular lender queries, and that is answered by the lender.
What other providers come up on this question?
The providers below are listed alphabetically. None of these entries states which score a lender uses.
American Express business card annual fees vary by card, so no single figure applies and none is stated here.
Bank of America lists Business Advantage Fundamentals Banking at $0 or $16 a month and Relationship Banking at $0 or $29.95 a month. Fundamentals has no monthly fee for the first 12 months, after which the fee is waived by a $5,000 combined average monthly balance, $500 in new net qualified debit card purchases, or Preferred Rewards for Business membership.
Brex offers Essentials free, Premium at $12 per user a month, and a quote-only Enterprise tier.
Chase lists Business Complete Banking at $15 a month, Performance Business Checking at $40 a month and Platinum Business Checking at $95 a month, each waivable on stated balance or activity conditions.
Dun & Bradstreet sells D&B Credit Insights, with a Free tier at $0, Basic at $49 a month or $499 a year, Plus at $149 a month or $1,499 a year, and Premium at $199 a month or $1,999 a year. The older CreditSignal name is retired.
Nav lists Free at $0, Track at $39.99 a month, Build at $49.99 a month and Expand at $74.99 a month. The free tier shows business credit summaries from all three bureaus, which makes it a low-cost way to see what Equifax and Experian each hold before buying either bureau's own report.
Ramp lists Free at $0 per user a month, Plus at $15 per user a month and a quote-only Enterprise tier. The corporate card itself is free on every tier.
Does the D-U-N-S number still matter?
Partly, and most online content gets this wrong. The GSA announced that SAM.gov and all other GSA systems would switch to the Unique Entity ID on April 4, 2022, and that identifier is obtained at SAM.gov. It is what the federal government now uses.
The D-U-N-S number still exists as Dun & Bradstreet's own commercial identifier and still matters for D&B credit files. It is a separate record from anything Experian or Equifax hold.
How can a score-boosting pitch be recognized?
The FTC says banks and other legitimate lenders will not promise or guarantee a loan or credit before an application is made. The same logic applies to any service that promises to raise a business score. No official source supports a claim about how many points an action moves a score.
The FTC's advance-fee guidance adds that an up-front fee collected before a loan is granted is a cue to walk away, especially when it is described as insurance, processing or paperwork. Its examples of scam copy include "Bad credit? No problem," "No hassle, guaranteed," and "We don't care about your past. You deserve a loan!"
Which suits which owner?
An owner who has not formed the business or opened a separate account should start there, since the SBA's order puts the entity, the EIN and the account ahead of monitoring. ZenBusiness covers the first two of those steps and nothing after them.
An owner who has the foundation in place and wants to see the file could start with Nav's free tier, then buy a single Experian report if a lender asks for it. The one honest concession is that for the pricing question specifically, Experian is the only one of the two that sells its own reports directly, while Equifax's reports are bought through its resellers.
What should be checked before applying?
Ask the lender which report it pulls and whether personal credit is checked as well. Confirm whether the owner must sign personally. Make sure the business name, EIN and bank account match across the application, and that any vendor accounts being counted actually report.
No step here promises approval, and no figure on this page is a lending requirement. Lenders decide, and the terms they publish are the authority.
Sources
- U.S. Small Business Administration, "How to Build Business Credit Quickly: 5 Simple Steps"
- Internal Revenue Service, "Get an Employer Identification Number"
- U.S. General Services Administration, "GSA Systems Switch to Unique Entity ID (SAM) on April 4, 2022"
- Federal Trade Commission, "What To Know About Advance-Fee Loans"
This is general information rather than legal, tax or accounting advice, and requirements vary and change.