Probably several years, but much depends on circumstances. If the negatives that are depressing the score are about to fall off, your score could rebound more rapidly. On the other hand, if your score is low because accounts just went into collections, you won't be seeing 660 until the middle of the next decade. You should definitely get ScoreWatch at least long enough to pull your scores and see why they're low. If it's recent collections, forget it--all ScoreWatch will do is show your score twitching up and down for the next few years. If the negative entries are about to fall off, keep it as a useful tool to rebuild credit.