Capital One Platinum Secured Credit Card review: A one-stop shop for no-nonsense credit building

The Discover it® Secured Credit Card comes with some serious benefits you don’t get with other secured credit cards. You’ll earn 2 percent cash back on purchases made at gas stations and restaurants (up to $1,000 in combined purchases each quarter, then 1 percent) and it offers an introductory APR on balance transfers. The Discover it® Secured Credit Card, like the Capital One Platinum Secured Card, also comes with no annual fee (Capital One Platinum Secured - (See Rates & Fees), so it’s an easy option to consider if you want to build credit with a secured credit card while earning rewards.

However, earning rewards on your spending shouldn’t be as important to you if your goal is building credit. Not only that, but cards that offer can encourage people to spend more on their cards overall, and that may be the opposite of what you’re hoping to accomplish with a secured credit card. The Capital One Platinum Secured Card displaces the temptation of rewards and replaces it with a more easily accessible line of credit.

If you want to build credit and not much else (for the time being), then this card is a good option for you. You won’t be enticed to overspend trying to earn rewards, and you’ll benefit in other ways by sticking solely to mastering good credit habits.

Anyone new to credit cards or just starting their credit-building journey will find a straightforward entry with the Capital One Platinum Secured. It’s one of the most accessible credit cards because it doesn’t require a credit history to apply. It’s also one of the most cost-effective secured credit cards since you could qualify for a minimum security deposit of only $49 (Your minimum security deposit amount will be either $49, $99 or $200). 

With this card, you can simply focus on how to use a credit card without distractions, and you won’t have to wait long to start seeing the results of your good work.

There is no minimum credit score requirement for the Capital One Platinum Secured Card. In fact, this card is for people new to credit or people who want to rebuild their credit.

Yes. Once you’ve demonstrated responsible card use (like with on-time payments), you should be able to upgrade to an unsecured Capital One credit card. You can contact the issuer for more details on how to start the upgrade process.

A student or credit-building card’s cost has a large influence on its overall score. 

Students already face a ton of expenses, so extra card costs are best avoided if possible, and people with limited or damaged credit tend often find the cards they can qualify for are much pricier than traditional credit cards designed for people with a good or better credit score. 

We compare a card’s total cost, including any annual fees, account activation fees, monthly fees and more against the total cost of other cards in this category and assign each card a score based on its affordability. We also factor rewards-earning potential into our assessment of a credit-building card’s total cost, subtracting a card’s expected earnings from the sum of its fees. 

To get a sense of a card’s rewards-earning potential, we estimate its average annual rewards rate and average annual earnings based on the most popular spending categories (as covered in the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer spending report). 

However, we use a slightly lower spending assumption ($300 per month or $3,600 per year) to estimate average earnings, assuming students and credit-builders will start out with a lower credit limit, will want to keep credit utilization low and will focus primarily on small purchases they can easily pay off.

Given the many costs students face — from textbooks to laptops — the presence of an introductory APR on purchases or balance transfers also plays a role in a student card’s score.

A card’s APR is also a major factor in its credit-building score. Each card’s average APR is compared against the average APR of other cards in the category, and the cards with lower-than-average APRs receive a higher rating. 

Though high APRs are hard to avoid when you’re just starting out or working on your score, credit-builders should strive for as low an APR as possible since they’re likely to either be new to managing cards or trying to establish better financial habits and avoid falling into debt.

Along with a credit-building card’s cost, our rating system takes into account how easy the card makes it to build credit. To assess this, we evaluate its credit limit potential and minimum deposit requirement.

Unsecured cards with a high starting credit limit and secured cards that let you put down a large deposit and get a matching high credit limit will score the highest according to our “Ease of building credit” rubric and are more likely to appear on our list. 

This is because a high credit limit can make it much easier to keep your credit utilization low, a primary credit-building factor that makes up 30 percent of your FICO credit score. 

Secured cards have a slight advantage in this category since the maximum credit limit on a secured card tends to be much higher than the typical starting credit limit on an unsecured card that’s available with a bad or fair credit score. However, unsecured credit-building cards have the upper hand in another key aspect of building credit: accessibility. 

Cards that carry no or a low deposit requirement can also receive a high score according to our “Ease of building credit” rubric since these cards offer a lower barrier to entry than secured cards that require you to put up hundreds of dollars in an upfront deposit. 

Indeed, some users may prefer to pay a non-refundable $50 annual fee while they work on their credit score than tie up hundreds in a refundable security deposit.

We also evaluate each card’s benefits based on how useful they are for students or someone looking to build a positive credit history and save money on everyday spending. 

We consider the inclusion of a rewards program, student-centric perks and access to your credit score or a credit monitoring service of prime importance, along with the ability to prequalify for the card with only a soft credit pull and a clear path to increase your credit limit or graduate to an unsecured or full-fledged rewards card.

Cards that include these benefits are likely to score higher according to our credit-building card scoring rubric.