Nav Business Credit Building & Monitoring Review 2024: Is It Right For You?

Diane RolandJanuary 7, 2024

Nav is an online platform that offers business credit building with tradeline reporting and monitoring services for small businesses from four major credit bureaus. With the help of its business credit builder, your business will be in a better position to qualify for funding options at favorable rates and terms. 

Along with Nav’s credit builder, its credit monitoring services allow you to check an updated version of your personal and business credit reports every month and alerts you of any changes to your credit profile. This feature allows you to promptly identify and dispute inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and fraudulent activities that negatively impact your report.

Overall rating

Reviews

Features

HQ	13693 South 200 West, Suite 200, Draper, UT, 84020
Credit Bureau(s)	– Business credit reports and scores from Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax  – Personal from TransUnion and Experian
Credit Report Frequency	Monthly
Personal Credit Score	Available
Dispute Credit Errors	Available
Identity Theft	Available
Fees	– Free: $0 – Business Boost: $39.99 per month – Business Loan Builder: $49.99 per month
Free Trial	No free trial

In depth review on Nav

Nav gives business owners a fast, easy, and trusted path to financing. With years of experience helping businesses monitor and build stronger credit scores, Nav is uniquely positioned to help businesses build trust with lenders for credit approvals.

Nav offers free access to personal and business credit reports from major credit bureaus, including Experian, Dun & Bradstreet, Equifax, and TransUnion.

The free standard account has several features, including giving you access to a summary of your personal and business credit reports. A paid account will serve you better if you want to build up your credit profile, track your financial progress, set cash flow targets, and look for future financing opportunities.

Nav is best for

• Building business credit: Nav provides essential tools to develop your business credit profile that lenders can trust. One of these tools include establishing trade lines – a record of activity for any type of credit extended to a borrower and reported to a credit reporting agency. Credit bureaus use tradelines as an important part of how they calculate a borrower’s business credit report.

• Accessing 24/7 credit alerts: Alert notifications when key changes occur, such as new inquiries, inconsistencies, and suspicious activity detected on your credit report.

Nav benefits

• Personal and business credit information: Knowing your personal and business credit score is important when approaching lenders for business financing. Nav provides this information at low costs and keeps you up-to-date on your credit reports and scores.

• Multiple credit bureaus: Depending on your account, you can have access to full business credit reports from Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax, and personal credit reports from TransUnion and Experian

• Identify protection: As technology becomes more involved in our everyday lives, so does identity protection from cyber hackers. Nav offers identity theft insurance with maximum coverage of up to $1,000,000, along with identity restoration, monitoring, and experts to solve issues that may arise.

• Credit education: Nav regularly works with the U.S. Small Business Administration and local small business development centers to host presentations, webinars, and more.

Nav drawbacks 

• No free trials: Nav does not offer a free trial on its premium accounts, but it has a free standard account that provides a couple of free services, including credit monitoring.

• Two bureaus for personal reporting: If your objective was also to have personal credit reporting from all the major credit bureaus, unfortunately, Nav does not provide Equifax, even with the paid plans. Customers are limited to full personal credit reports and scores from Experian and TransUnion.

Factors contributing to the overall rating

Account opening

5

Though there are no eligibility requirements to use the Nav service, you will need to provide the necessary information, including business name, business or personal address, and social security number, to create an account. Depending on the account you sign up for, you may need to provide additional information.

To get started:

• Visit the Nav website and click Get Started.
• Fill in the information as prompted.
• Select your appropriate package

Services and fees

4

Nav offers monthly and quarterly billing, and you can save up to 20% if you opt for the quarterly billing (applies to 1st quarter only). Paid plans include:

Account	Free Standard Account	Business Boost	Business Loan Builder
Monthly Pricing	$0	$39.99	$49.99
Quarterly Pricing	$0	$119.97	$149.97

The accounts are ideal for the following:

• Business boost: For business owners looking to boost business credit and gain access to better financing
• Business loan builder: ideal for those looking for large-dollar financing options.

Features

4

Nav accounts features vary depending on the plan. Its key features include:

Available to all accounts:

• Tri-bureau business reporting and monitoring: Free version is limited to summaries only and will only provide a grade of “A” through “F.” Full business reports and scores are only available with paid accounts. 

• 24/7 business and personal credit alerts: Monitor your credit file and be alerted of key changes, such as a new account opened in your name (alert you to identity theft) or negative information reported by one of your creditors.

• Cash flow tracking, alerts, and insights: This is offered once you link your business account to your Nav account, improving your business cash flow management.

Available to paid accounts only:

• Dispute errors on a business credit report: Review and correct inaccuracies on your credit report by easily submitting and tracking disputes online.

• Identity protection and restoration: Paid account clients have access to the full suite of identity protection and restoration services from expert specialists that covers your credit report to non-credit theft issues.

• $1 million identity theft insurance Coverage that includes reimbursement for legal costs, loss of income, travel expenses, child care, and fraudulent withdrawals.

• Lost wallet replacement allows you to cancel all lost cards and replace missing documents with one call to your dedicated specialist. It also initiates a fraud affidavit and police reports from stolen wallets.

Available to Business boost and Business loan builder accounts only:

• Build business credit with tradeline reporting: When paying for Nav, account payments are registered as a new tradeline every month, and you are alerted when the tradeline appears on your reports. Nav tradelines to appear can take up to 14 to 45 days.

Available to Business loan builder accounts only:

• FICO Small Business Scoring Service(SBSS) score: This score combines personal and business credit data to get access to better finance rates and large dollar amount loans. It’s also used to pre-screen applicants for SBA loans.

Credit monitoring

5

Nav credit monitoring is as accurate as the information from the credit bureaus themselves.

It offers access to credit reports from the major bureaus, which is beneficial because your credit report can be different depending on which credit bureau you use. 

Credit building

5

Nav identifies places where a business can take action to improve their score, and depending on whether or not they take those actions, their scores can improve. In the case of trade lines, which are an important part of building business credit, Nav’s Credit Builder Tool does that automatically for small business.

A strong credit profile opens up avenues to better financing for your business and business relationships, making it easier for you to run and grow a business.

Customer service

5

The easiest way to contact Nav is through their website support page. You can also call Nav’s Customer Support team at (855) 226-8388 to access services.

It is important to note that the Nav’s Customer Support team makes efforts to reach out to clients when a payment method fails. They do this to ensure consistent reporting of your Nav tradeline, and you are automatically eligible for this service if you are on a paid account.

Safe and secure

5

Nav’s privacy policy covers how it collects and uses your personal information. The policy also states that third parties won’t be allowed to collect information without your permission. Nav does not share (without your permission) or sell any information.  

Nav also keeps your data safe with bank-level security and 256-bit encryption. 

Is Nav right for you?

If you’re looking to raise capital or refinance your business loan to a more favorable rate and term, maintain good credit relationships, grow your business, and get cash flow guidance, then Nav is for you.