If you have below average credit, a secured credit card may sometimes be your best available offer. But not all secured credit cards are alike. They differ as much as unsecured cards do, and you can greatly benefit from finding and applying for the best secured credit cards rather than a less appealing offer.

How Do You Define the Best Secured Credit Cards?

What constitutes the best credit card will vary from one person to the next, and that observation holds true with secured cards just like with unsecured cards.

A secured card requires you to deposit a specific amount of money with the credit card company in order to get approved for the card and to be allowed a specific credit limit.

The first set of factors, then, that separates secured card offers concerns the deposit. A lower deposit and a higher credit line are desirable. Some companies will make your credit line equal to your deposit; others may allow it to be two or three times higher.

Next, you have to consider how fast you can expect to increase your credit line and eventually graduate to an unsecured card by making on time monthly payments. Many companies allow you to do this, but they will vary in the number of on-time payments you have to make.

Also, all the factors that are of importance in any credit card selection process still apply. You want an APR that’s as low as possible, no annual fee or a low annual fee, lower fees in general, a card that’s widely accepted nationally and internationally, and any kind of perks or awards system that may be offered.

Finally, those looking for a secured credit card should look for a company that accepts bad credit and one that does not even run a credit check since a credit check can hurt your already damaged credit score.

How Do You Find the Best Secured Credit Cards?

It’s easy to just list the features of the kind of secured credit card you’d like, but what about actually finding such a card?

The Internet is full of credit card offers of all types, but it’s not really practical to look up every credit card website individually and read all the fine print and offer details. You could do that with a handful of offers, but you’d have not way to know if you’d really found the best secured credit cards or not.

At Bonsai Finance, we can solve the dilemma. We can both speed the process along and greatly increase your chances of finding your absolute best offer.

We enable you to search hundreds of reputable secured credit card offers online simultaneously. You simply enter your desired search criteria to find your best offers. And you can then narrow the search further until you are ready to apply for a card that truly answers to all your needs and preferences.

How a Secured Credit Card Can Improve Your Credit

By making on time monthly payments on your secured credit card, you can make a significant positive impact on your credit score over time. In fact, credit cards are the number one way to rebuild credit.

For maximum impact, make as many payments as possible, and always pay the card off in full.

Getting a card with a higher credit limit or that lets you increase your limit faster can also boost your credit score. So the selection of your card is important to your credit future.

What is the single most important factor in selecting a new secured credit card?