Amazon Prime Secured Card review: Build credit and earn rewards at Amazon.com

Since the Discover it® Secured Credit Card is on the Discover card network, you can use it nearly anywhere you shop. You’ll also earn cash back on everything you buy, and Discover will automatically match all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Meanwhile, the Amazon Prime Secured Card requires a costly Prime membership and doesn’t work outside the Amazon-branded marketplace.

The Discover it® Secured Credit Card is also a lower-cost option since there is no annual fee, foreign transaction fee, penalty APR or fee on your first late payment (then up to $41). However, it’s worth noting that you need a higher security deposit of at least $200 with this card, although you could get it refunded sooner since Discover does automatic reviews to upgrade to an unsecured card after seven months (as opposed to 12 months for the Amazon Prime Secured Card).

The Bank of America® Unlimited Cash Rewards Secured Credit Card is a Visa credit card that works practically anywhere. It earns 1.5 percent cash back on all purchases with no annual fee, and your credit limit can be as high as $5,000 with an equal security deposit. While the Amazon Prime Secured Card earns higher rewards at Amazon, it doesn’t work anywhere else.

The Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards Secured has a higher minimum security deposit of $200, a higher variable APR rate, and doesn’t specify the timeframe to review for an upgrade to an unsecured card. The Amazon Prime Secured Card does better in all of these areas.

This card is best suited for frequent Amazon shoppers with a Prime membership and who may not have the best credit. Since Amazon sells practically everything, this can be a helpful tool for earning rewards while building credit towards a better card. If you have good credit, though, consider a better Amazon option.

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.

No. After 12 months, Amazon will notify you if you are eligible to upgrade to the Store Card. If you decide to upgrade, you will no longer have access to the Secured Card features, rates and fees.

There is no minimum credit score requirement for opening the Amazon Prime Secured Card, making this a great option if you have limited or bad credit history. Your deposit functions as your credit line, needing a minimum deposit of only $100.

If your account is closed, Synchrony Bank will return your deposit funds minus any amount needed to pay off existing balances. If you upgrade to the Store Card, your deposit will be returned to you minus the amount needed to pay off any existing non-promotional balance on the Secured Card features, expiring (within two months) deferred interest promotional balances and required payments due on Equal Monthly Payment balances, and any remaining minimum payments due on the account.