What Is Bankrate and What Does It Do?

Bankrate is a financial comparison platform, not a bank or lender. It lets you compare mortgage rates, savings accounts, credit cards, and other financial products from hundreds of banks and credit unions, and it says it doesn't earn money based on which lender you choose. If you're shopping for a mortgage, refinance, home equity loan, or deposit account and want to see competing offers in one place, that's the core use case.

What Bankrate actually is

Bankrate describes itself as independent since its founding in 1982 by a journalist, with the stated goal of holding banks accountable. It is not a bank and not a lender, so it has no rate of its own to protect. According to its own materials, it doesn't make money on the rate you choose, which is the basis for its claim that lender rankings aren't influenced by who pays it.

It also states that it is an official data provider to the Federal Reserve and that more than 100 million people use it each year.

What you can compare

The site's headline claim is that 9 out of 10 homebuyers overpay for their mortgage, and it cites an average of $3,343 in annual overpayment by American homeowners. It also states that Bankrate mortgage users saved an average of $78,000 over 30 years, and that its top 1% of customers got better rates than 99% of banks in 2025. These are Bankrate's own figures — treat them as the company's marketing claims rather than independent findings.

How the process works

Bankrate lays out three steps:

1. Tell it about your loan — purchase, refinance, or home equity. It says no credit pull is required at this stage.
2. Lenders compete — you see their offers ranked by rate, which Bankrate says is not ranked by who paid it.
3. You decide who to contact — your information isn't shared until you choose to apply for an account or loan.

The key detail is step 3: your information stays private until you decide to proceed. That matters if you're wary of handing over contact details and getting flooded with calls.

Why the "not a bank" distinction matters

A bank is a lender with a rate to protect. A comparison platform has no stake in which lender wins. That's the structural argument Bankrate makes for why its recommendations can be neutral. Whether that holds in practice depends on how it's paid — the site links to a "How we're paid" page, which is worth reading before you rely on rankings.

When Bankrate is useful — and when it isn't

Useful if:

• You're buying or refinancing a home and want multiple lenders bidding rather than accepting one opening offer.
• You want to check whether you're overpaying on an existing mortgage.
• You're comparing savings accounts or credit cards across many institutions.

Less useful if:

• You want a single lender's full underwriting decision — Bankrate doesn't lend.
• You need personalized financial advice; it's a comparison tool, not an advisor.
• You're outside the U.S. market, since its data covers American banks and credit unions.

The bottom line

Bankrate is a free-to-use comparison site that aggregates rates from hundreds of lenders and claims independence because it isn't a bank and doesn't profit from your lender choice. Its value is in forcing lenders to show competitive offers instead of opening ones. Before acting on any rate, verify the terms directly with the lender and read Bankrate's disclosure on how it gets paid.