What’s the Difference Between FICO and VantageScore, Really?

FICO and VantageScore are both credit scoring models, but they are separate brands and may be used by different lenders or creditors. FICO is a long-standing industry leader that licenses its models to the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). 

VantageScore, on the other hand, was developed by those “Big 3” credit bureaus as an alternative to FICO. 

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It may be easier to think of FICO and VantageScore as competing, but similar brands, like Pepsi and Coca-Cola or Ford and Chevrolet.

They also share some similarities. Both models only use data from your credit report and don’t consider external factors such as your income, job title, or net worth. And both FICO and VantageScore primarily use a scoring range of 300 to 850.

Editor’s Note: This answer is from an in-depth video Q&A with John Ulzheimer, one of the leading experts on credit reporting and identity theft. He has more than 33 years of experience in the industry, working for giants like Equifax and FICO, and he brings a unique insider perspective that few others have. You can see the full conversation on our YouTube page.

“FICO is a brand. VantageScore is a brand. FICO is a brand of credit scores. It’s also a company. And there are literally countless scoring systems that would fall underneath the umbrella of being a FICO-branded score. 

We most commonly talk about or, as a consumer, are most familiar with the FICO credit bureau risk scores. So the FICO scores that, you know, Chase may get from Equifax or Discover may get from Experian. Those are the FICO that we talk about the most because those are the ones that are most commonly used. 

They’re used literally tens of billions of times every single year, which is multiple times the Earth’s population, if that gives you any sort of idea of just how many times these scores are calculated and used annually. 

VantageScore is a completely different credit scoring platform. It’s a joint venture between the three credit reporting agencies, and they collectively built the VantageScore credit scoring system to compete with the FICO credit scoring system. 

FICO is built, obviously, by the company, FICO, or Fair Isaac Corporation, which is a publicly traded company that’s been around for many decades, and they have a partnership with the credit bureaus.

And the credit bureaus, through a licensing agreement, are allowed to use FICO’s credit scoring software to calculate credit scores on their credit reports and then sell those to creditors. And so the difference is they’re completely different scoring platforms, think Pepsi and Coke or iPhone and Android.

They kind of do the same thing, but no one would ever say that they are the same thing. Those are the differences. 

Here are some of the similarities. Number one is that they’re both based entirely off of information on your credit report. So if something is not on your credit report, like your income or your net worth, things like that, level of education, employment, none of that stuff is on a credit report, and therefore it does not have any influence on your credit score because it can’t. 

Credit scoring systems are very smart. They also have blinders on them. So, if information is not on a credit report, it can’t affect your credit score. And that applies both to FICO and to VantageScore. 

Second is the scaling of the score or the range. So the published range of both FICO and VantageScores is 300 to 850. So that’s another thing that I think, from my perspective anyway, it confuses consumers because if you see a score and it’s a 700, well, that could be a FICO score or could be a VantageScore. 

And really, the only way you would know is to look at the fine print on whatever website you’re on or whatever paperwork you’re looking at. Or if there’s any overt branding that indicates your FICO score is this, then obviously, you know which score it is. 

FICO vs. VantageScore Ranges
FICO Score Categories	Score Range	VantageScore Categories	Score Range
Exceptional	800-850	Superprime	781-850
Very Good	740-799	Prime	661-780
Good	670-739	Near prime	601-660
Fair	580-669	Subprime	300-600
Poor	Below 580

But if you’re on some websites, you may be looking at a VantageScore credit score, which is fine. It’s still a legitimate tri-bureau credit score that’s ECOA-approved to use in the United States, and it’s used quite often. 

But if you don’t see the big four letters FICO, then you’re not looking at a FICO score. So, if your intent was to check your FICO score, then you’re probably going to want to gravitate to some of the places where you can get a FICO score. If you don’t really care, then you may end up on some websites that are giving away VantageScores.

It’s Ford and Chevrolet, right? There’s nothing wrong with either of them. They’re both perfectly fine. They both do the same thing, but they are not the same thing.”