FICO holds its mortgage score at $10 for lenders who commit, while TransUnion and Equifax sell VantageScore 4.0 for about $1

FICO said Friday it will hold its wholesale mortgage price at $10 for lenders and brokers enrolled in its Preferred Program, according to the company’s release. The price covers a bundle of two scores, the Classic FICO Score and the newer FICO Score 10T, sold through tri-merge resellers, the companies that pull a borrower’s files from all three credit bureaus into one mortgage report. FICO says the flat year-over-year price is for lenders “who have committed to FICO.”

TransUnion said Sept. 29 it will keep selling VantageScore 4.0, a rival credit score, for $0.99 per mortgage origination score through December 2028, and will include it at no additional cost for mortgage customers who buy a FICO score. Equifax is holding its VantageScore 4.0 mortgage score at $1 through the end of 2028, HousingWire reported. By my arithmetic, FICO’s bundle costs about ten times either one.

Lenders can act on that gap in more places now. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, opened VantageScore 4.0 to all approved Fannie and Freddie lenders in September, and FHA will accept Classic FICO, FICO 10T or VantageScore 4.0 starting Jan. 1. TransUnion says more than 1,100 mortgage lenders adopted VantageScore 4.0 between January and September, including 9 of its 15 largest mortgage lender customers.

FICO met a rival mortgage score that sells for about a dollar by freezing its own price for lenders who sign up.

FICO said Friday it will hold its wholesale mortgage price at $10 for lenders and brokers enrolled in its Preferred Program. That buys a bundle of Classic FICO and… pic.twitter.com/iL3gVUqzLz

— Aaron Harme (@Aaron_Harme) October 23, 2026

FICO first put the $10 figure in front of lenders in October 2025. That release offered two prices through resellers: $10 per score, which FICO called the average the bureaus had charged, or $4.95 per score plus a $33 fee per borrower per score when the loan closes. The $10 in that release bought a single score. Six days later, Equifax called FICO’s 2026 price a “monopoly-like doubling” and priced VantageScore 4.0 at $4.50.

FICO’s Friday release calls 10T “the most predictive credit score available to the mortgage industry.” TransUnion’s free VantageScore with every FICO purchase means a lender can run both scores on the same borrowers without paying more.

That turns FICO’s predictiveness claim into something each lender can check against its own closed loans.

Sources

• FICO: FICO Holds Mortgage Score Pricing at $10 for Lenders Enrolled in Preferred Program
• FICO: FICO Launches Cost-Cutting Direct License Program for Mortgage Lending
• TransUnion: TransUnion Extends 99-Cent Mortgage Pricing for VantageScore 4.0 Through the End of 2028
• HousingWire: TransUnion, Equifax add flexibility to when lenders pay for scores
• Equifax: Equifax Expands Mortgage Credit Offerings to Promote Credit Access