Every recommendation on My Credit Guide follows the same process. This page is the contract.
How products get rated
We evaluate credit cards, loans, and services for people with damaged or thin credit against the criteria that actually matter at that stage:
- Total cost of ownership — annual fees, monthly fees, deposit requirements, and APR, weighted by how the product is realistically used
- Approval accessibility — real approval odds for scores under 640, whether pre-qualification uses a soft pull
- Credit-building value — reporting to all three bureaus, graduation paths to better products
- Adverse terms — penalty terms, fee escalation after year one, and anything in the cardholder agreement that materially changes the cost
Sourcing rules
- Product terms are taken from the issuer’s own current pricing pages and cardholder agreements, and each review states when its terms were last verified.
- State-law figures (statutes of limitations, garnishment limits) cite the state’s own code, never a summary of a summary.
- If we can’t verify a claim against a primary source, we either mark it as unverified or leave it out.
What money doesn’t buy
Affiliate partnerships (disclosed here) never affect ratings, rankings, or whether we cover a product at all. Products we earn nothing from appear alongside products we do, ranked by the same criteria.
Corrections
Terms change. If you spot a number that’s out of date, tell us. We verify against the issuer and fix it, with the verification date updated on the page.