By : 
Mr Credit Card
Mr Credit CardWhat Is StellarFi and How Does It Work?
When you create a StellarFi account, you will be prompted to link your primary bank account, which should be the one that you normally use to pay your bills. You can simply choose the bills that you want to pay through StellarFi and link them in your dashboard. These could include your rent, utilities, streaming services, cell phone services etc.
When the due date for your bill arrives or when you want to manually pay your bill, StellarFi's systems will check if your bank account has available funds to cover the amount of the bill. If there is sufficient balance in your account, StellarFi will pay your bill on your behalf and you authorize automatic repayment from your bank account and StellarFi will collect the funds back from your bank account. This process might take a few days.
Once a month, StellarFi batch reports your StellarFi Limit (which is based on the dollar amount of the bills you paid through StellarFi) to the three major credit bureaus TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. Since StellarFi is making payments on your behalf, they are able to report this as a line of credit.
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Membership Plans
| Features | Lite | Prime | Premium |
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| Limits | $500 | Up to $25,000 | Coming Soon |
| Reports to Experian® and Equifax® | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Referal Credits | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pay with Card | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bill Payment Rewards | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live 1-on-1 Credit Coaching | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pay with ACH Transfer | No | No | Yes |
| Flexible Bill Payment Dates | No | No | Yes |
| ID Theft Protection | No | No | Yes |
Lite Plan - $4.99/month
The cheapest StellarFi plan is the Lite plan which has a monthly fee of $4.99. The plan includes a "credit limit" of up to $500 in recurring bills that you can let StellarFi pay on your behalf. This plan is most suitable for those who intend to use StellarFi to pay their utility bills and other recurring bills like netflix or cell phone bills.Prime Plan - $9.99/month with 30 -day Trial
The Prime Plan has a monthly fee of $9.99 and allows you to pay up to $25,000 in bills through StellarFi. This plan is for those whose rents and utilities and other bills exceed the $500 limit of the Lite Plan. Unlike the Lite Plan, the Prime Plans gives you a 30-day free trial for $0.99.Premium Plan - $19.99/month - COMING SOON
StellarFi plans to launch a Premium Plan soon. The premium plan has a monthly fee of $19.99 and offers a few perks that are not available to Lite or Prime members.Firstly, the Premium plan allows you to pay your bills via ACH. This is very useful for those whose utilities or landlord would not accept payment with StellarFi's virtual card. Secondly, the Premium Plan allows for flexible bill payment dates. And lastly, the Premium Plan has ID theft and restoration service.
Benefits of StellarFi
- Reports to Major Credit Bureaus - StellarFi reports to Experian® and Equifax®.
- Referral Credits - StellarFi has a referal program for members who refer their family members or friends through a unique refereal code which they can send to them or via social media. Members can earn $5 in credits per referal which they can use to offset their fees. The referal program is available to all membership tiers
- StellarFi Virtual Card - StellarFi has a virtual card which you can use to pay your existing bills.
- 1 one 1 Live Credit Coaching - StellarFi has partnered with the National Foundation of Credit Counseling (NFCC) to offer their members free one-on-one credit counseling. This can be arranged in the StellarFi app. The one-on-one counseling can cover topics like managing credit card debt, home ownership, finances, how to pay your debt faster etc.
Upcoming Features
- Bill Payment Rewards - This feature is still not implemented yet. But the idea is that you will earn cash back rewards when you pay your bills with StellarFi. At this moment, we are not sure what the cash back earning rate will be.
- Pay with ACH Transfer - This feature is be avaiable with the Premium level membership when it is launched. For the Lite and Prime membership tier, you will be using StellaFi's virtual card to replace the payment methods in the bills you choose to pay with StellarFi. However, some utilities and your landlord will not accept any type of card payment (whether credit or debit) and so you will need to pay them through your checking account via ACH transfer. The StellarFi Premium will allow you to do this.
- Flexible Payment Date - This feature will be available for the Premium Tier when it finally launches. This is how the feature works. If you have a bill before your due date, you can get StellarFi to pay the bill and you can repay StellarFi within 60 days with no interest.
- Identity Protection - Identiy Protection is a feature that will be available with the Premium Tier when it becomes available. It has all the standard features that ID theft and protection services typically have.
FinePrints You Have To Be Aware Of
- Potential to miss payments - Most rent reporting services just report payments that you make to your landlord. However, StellarFi will be the one paying your landlord so if you miss a payment to StellarFi, they could report this as a delinquency in your credit report. This applies also to utility payments. No utilities report to credit bureaus and if you are late, most will work with you on a payment plan and most states also have plans for those with low income. If you decide to pay your utilities through StellarFi, then you run the risk that late payments will be reported if you have insufficient funds to pay.
- No Retroactive Reporting - Many rent and utility reporting services can report up to 24 nonths of payment history prior to you signing up for that service (for a fee off course). StellarFi does not have this feature.
How StellarFi Compares and is Different from other Rent Reporting Services?
| Rent/Utility Reporting Services | Fees | Retroactive Rent Reporting | Utility Reporting | Which Credit Bureau |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| StellarFi |
$4.99/month (Lite) $9.99/month (Prime) |
No | Yes | Reports to Experian® and Equifax® |
| Boom Pay | $10 Setup Fee, $2/month | Yes with $25 Fee (24 Months) | No | Tri-Credit Bureaus |
| Level Credit | $6.95/month | Yes with $49.95 Fee (24 Months) | Yes - Reports only to TransUnion® | Tri-Credit Bureaus |
| Rent Reporters | $94.95 Setup Fee, $9.95/month | Yes - (up to 48 Months) | No | Equifax® and TransUnion® |
| Rental Karma | $75 Setup Fee, $8.95/month | Yes - all past payments | No | Equifax® and TransUnion® |
As you can see from the table above, StellarFi is very competitive in terms of fees, their ability to pay and report your utility and cell phone bills and also reporting to all three credit bureaus. Some of their competitors do not report utility or cell phone payments and some do not report to all three credit bureaus.
However, as noted earlier, StellarFi does not report past rental payments like many of their competitors. They also actually pay your rent for you rather than just report them. So if you miss a rent payment, StellarFi will report that late payment.
But overall, StellarFi is a very competitive rent, utility and cell phone reporting service.
Our Take: StellarFi Is Ideal For Those Who Rent and Do Not Want to Use Credit Card to Build Credit
StellarFi gives you a way to get things that you regularly pay for (like Rent, Utilities, Cell Phone Plans and Streaming Services) to be reported to Experian® and Equifax® where they would not normally be reported. Most landlords do not rent your rent and most utilities do not accept credit cards for payment so you cannot get them reported indirectly through credit card payments. Cell phone plans do allow you to pay with a credit card but increasingly, many of them force you to pay either a debit card or your checking account in order to keep any discounts you may have gotten when you first signed up with the plan. I personally experienced this with my T-mobile plan where I got an email recommending me to switch payment method from my credit card to my checking account lest I lose my $40 monthly discounts.
Who Should Use StellarFi?
StellarFi will appeal to people in various credit and financial situations:Those who rent rather than own a home and who have no credit card or do not want to use a credit card - StellarFi is great for those who rent and do not have a mortgage as their rent payment can then be reported to the three major credit bureaus. It will also appeal to those who do not have a credit card or do not want to have a credit card because you can use StellarFi to pay. Buy using StellarFi, one can get their rent, utilities and other bills reported as timely payments.
Those who only have a low limit credit card - There are some of you who might have a low limit credit card (probably a secured credit card with say $200 as a limit). Though this will only allow you to charge things like netflix and cellphone bills to your card, you cannot put too much spending on your credit card without going over the 30% credit utilization threshold. Having a StellarFi membership would allow you to get your rent reported, which is like having another tradeline in your credit report.
Who Should Not Get StellarFi?
Those who already have tradelines - StellarFi is not for everyone. Many experienced rebuilders will tell you that you need at least 5 tradelines to rebuild as quickly as possible. If you a rebuilder who is already paying a mortgage, an auto loan, a student loan and have a couple of credit cards, then you have all the tools to rebuild. There is really no need for you to get the StellarFi membership to report on your rent or utilities. And since you have credit cards, you can always bill your streaming services and other regular bills to them.4 Star oout of 5
To sum up, based on our evaluations and review of StellarFi, we have decided to give it a 4 star out of 5 for it's credit bureau reporting to Experian® and Equifax®, it's reporting on utilities, cell phone bills and other types of bills, reasonable and competitive fee and different tiers for different credit limits and for some, the live one-on-one credit counseling. It's lack of past rent reporting prevents us from giving it a higher rating.If you are looking for a rent reporting service that also reports on your utility, cell phone and other bills, then StellarFi may be what you are looking for. Before you decided to enroll in their service, you should first call your landlord to see if they do report your rent payments to any of the three major credit bureaus. Though most landlords do not report your rent to the credit bureaus, you may just be surprised because there are those who do.
StellarFi also has two tiers at the moment to chose from. The Lite version has a $500 limit cap and will probably not be suitable if you intend to have your rent reported to the credit bureaus. The Prime version has a potential limit of up to $25,000 and would be more appropriate if you intend to let StellarFi pay for your rent and get it reported.
Alternatives to Rent Reporting Services
Debit Card that reports to credit bureaus - If you are adverse to getting a credit card, then the Extra Debit Card may be a good alternative. By linking the debit card to your bank account, any spending and hence payments from the Extra Debit Card will be reported to both Equifax and Experian. It will be ideal for using it to pay your utilities, cell phone plans and other bills like Netflix. The Extra Card like StellarFi, does not check your credit so approval is very easy.
No Credit Check Secured Credit Card - Instead of StellarFi, you could also get a no credit check secured credit cards like the Opensky Plus Secured Visa Credit Card. It has no annual fee and your minimum credit limit is $300.
Member Reviews
Stellarfi has been the most helpful tool for me along my credit journey. While it did increase my scores, it is the extra things that Stellarfi offers that make it worthwhile. I found the one-on-one credit counseling helped me learn and understand the credit system and more about personal finance. They also have rewards that help me ease the cost. My credit scores have gone up over 150 points since I signed up 8 months ago.
Stellarfi has heloed me to report subscriptions that other credit builders do not. I like the fact that they provide a virtual card to replace your payment methods so that your payments can be reported to the credit bureaus. The process of signing up and setting everything up has been very easy.
I cannot believe that my score went up from 640 to 745 jus from using StellarFi. My credit limit also goes up everytime I pay a bill. I really like being able to build my credit without using a credit card and risk getting into more debt.
Upon signing up for Stellar Fi, about 6 months ago, there was no real improvement to my credit score. In fact, my scores went down.
I've been using StellarFi to get my credit profile back in to shape and after a year, my scores have increased over 100 points!!! just from paying off my subscriptions and utilities. Customer service has been great whenever I have had issues (which were minor) and I would recommend this to all my family and friends.
I linked a few of bills like my auto insurance and spotify subscriptions toto StellarFi and I've grown my credit score by 100 pts in the past few months!
I’ve been using StellarFi for over a year now. In that time my score has significantly increased and I’m finally in the 800 range! Using StellarFi is easy and I am really happy I can build my credit just from my subscription bills.
Prior to StellarFI, I tried different methods and tools to improve my score. My credit situation is quite complicated and nothing seemed to help. But StellarFi has been great simply because I just pay my subscriptions on time through StellarFi and that has increased my score faster than any other tool I tried!
I had no credit score for over 20 years because I was "not in the credit system". I rent and only use a debit card. Since I signed up with StellarFi and added my monthly bills, I managed a get my scores up initially to 660 relatively quickly. I just got approved for a regular credit card with 720 credit scores. Thanks StellarFi.
StellarFi has been working for me. The only thing I wish is that the money being withdrawn from my bank account would happen more quickly rather than a few days that it takes. I also wish that I could link to more than one bank account because I would like to assign some bills to my personal bank and some to my business checking account.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Can I change my subscription plan?
Can I change my subscription plan?
Yes you can through the dashboard. The change in plan will come into effect on your next billing cycle.
Can I pause or cancel my membership?
Can I pause or cancel my membership?
You can pause your account and keep it open without any negative impact on your credit score. The subscription fee will not be charged while your account is paused. Pausing your account allows you to keep up to date with any future promotions.
You can also close your account by going to "Personal Information", then selecting "Manage Account" and choose "Close" option.
You can also close your account by going to "Personal Information", then selecting "Manage Account" and choose "Close" option.
What if I do not see my checking account listed?
What if I do not see my checking account listed?
You should send a request to StellarFi at support@stellarfi.com and they will ask the third party they use to add your bank to the list of approved banks that can be linked.
How to Apply for StellarFi?
