Jack - CEO & Founder of Credicated

Introducing.... Credicated! - The easy way to keep your credit (and debit) cards open and active to help build credit, avoid account closure, and easily nail min transaction requirements!

Let me back up a bit.

I opened my 1st credit card (Bank Of America) a few days after I turned 18.

After having that beginner card for a few months I was able to get approved for an AmEx card, followed by Chase, CapOne and all the rest.

One fine day, a few years later, I received a letter in the mail from BOA stating that they would be closing my card due to inactivity!

Immediately, my credit score dropped by about 50 points since:

A) I lost my oldest line of credit, bringing my average credit age down by a few years,

B) I lost a chunk of my total credit allowance, which also effectively raises my credit utilization, and

C) ALL the on time payment history from that credit card disappeared from my credit report.

I was super annoyed, but there was nothing I could do... I knew that I was supposed to use all my cards on a monthly basis to prevent this from happening, but I don't have an endless number of subscriptions that I could put on separate cards, and I don't have the headspace to actually go to the dollar store every month and check out a few dozen times.

Now fast forward a few years, and I get married!.... To a Canadian.

At least she's an American citizen, but she had ZERO USA credit history under her name.

I made her an additional user one of my Chase cards, and eventually was able to get her approved for the CapOne "Platinum" card.

Now all we needed to do, was swipe that card once a month for a few dollars, and pay it off on time, to build her credit history (and then go on to more premium cards).

Simple? Not Quite. We literally forgot every other month for a year until I eventually made myself monthly Google calendar reminders to use the card for one transaction a month.

Another issue that I became aware of only more recently, is the difficulty in reaching 15 (or 12, etc) debit card transactions a month in order to be eligible for an increased APY rate on a savings account.

For example, Doctor of Credit has a great roundup of all these types of bank accounts, one of which is the OnPath High Yield Checking account which offers a 7% APY only if you make 15 transactions a month on the account debit card.

If I have 3 or 4 such accounts (since they all have limits - usually 10k-20k), how am I going to make 45 - 60 debit card transaction every single month (and still use my credit cards to earn points on purchases)?

I figured there had to be a better way. That's when I had the idea to build a website specifically for this purpose, that would automate a super small monthly (or quarterly, or yearly, etc. etc.) subscription charge to put on your credit card. The user adds his card to the micro-subscription, and I keep the profits.

The site would have the following subscription options to choose from:

Platinum - 99¢ / month

Gold - $1.25 / quarter (every 3 months)

Silver - $1.25 / year

MULTI - 59¢ every 1, 2, 3, 4 or 14 days (for the high-interest-accounts)

+ an easy way to pause, manage or cancel any subscriptions.

In practice, the user would easily keep his/her cards active (boosting credit AND preventing inactivity closure), and hit min transaction thresholds - at a minimal cost.

I felt that less than $12 a year (or $1.25 a year with the Silver plan) is a small price to pay for some peace of mind.

I bought the domain https://credicated.com, (like dedicated to keeping your credit card active - type of thing), but didn't do much with it until more recently.

I decided to build the website and learn along the way. I had never built a website before, but figured I could do it (with lots of help from ChatGPT )

Surprisingly, one of the most difficult parts was finding a payment processor that wouldn't charge me so much in flat fees (typically 30+ cents) per transaction. Add that to the Shopify transaction fees, and the subscription plugin transaction fees, and I would be losing money on a 99 cent purchases!

Luckily I was able to find a way around that problem by utilizing a special type of PayPal account.

Another issue was graphics (front-end). I built the whole infrastructure of the website, but it looked horrid.

Thank God, I was also able to find a super cheap (like $5/hour cheap) web designer who took care of that for me (although, I did have to do a lot of it myself - I guess you get what you pay for! )

Soon later Credicated.com was ready to go and here I am!

I also added bulk discounts for users with lots of cards (5+ cards/subscriptions = 15% off, 15+ cards/subscriptions = 25% off, and 45+ cards/subscriptions = 40% off!).

As a gesture of goodwill, I decided that the first 6 months of profits would be donated to charity! (helping sick folks with basic goods and support.)

Please check it out, use it, enjoy it, share it, question it, etc.

I am new here on ProductHunt but I'm quite active on other forums (hence the low post count here)

I am open to any and all constructive criticism or feedback, so that I can make this site a win-win for everyone! Leave a comment below, PM me, or email me at info@credicated.com.

Once you sign up (you can only do one card at a time per order - meaning, for each card, you need to checkout, pay, and then start again with the next card), be sure the credit card is set to autopay so you don't miss a payment! Forgetting to do so can defeat the whole purpose!

Thanks for giving me this opportunity to present this to you, and I hope it can help some people here (myself included )

https://credicated.com/