You used to have to actually pay for your FICO scores. Many sites and credit monitoring services offer so-called free credit scores. But most are not the true FICO scores (which lenders use as a starting point when considering your credit application). Sites like CreditKarma, Quizzle offer free scores (but they are not true FICO). Experian does not even offer their FICO scores in their monitoring program.
But in late 2013, things got turned topsy turvy in the credit score space because both Barclays and Discover have negotiated with FICO to provide their card members (of certain cards) their TransUnion FICO scores for free (Yes, the real ones - no FAKOs). Below is a list of these cards.