Trustpilot: the review platform that has to sell trust without selling the verdict
Trustpilot has always had a business-model tension built into the product. Consumers use the platform for free to review companies, while the companies being reviewed are also the customers who pay Trustpilot for software.
That arrangement only works if people believe paying businesses cannot simply buy a better reputation. Trustpilot therefore has to grow two things at the same time: subscription revenue from companies and confidence that the reviews on the platform remain useful.
Since Peter Holten Mühlmann founded the company in Denmark in 2007, that balancing act has shaped almost every major decision. Trustpilot expanded internationally, listed in London, built an enterprise software business and invested heavily in automated fraud detection. By 2026, the platform held hundreds of millions of reviews and was using artificial intelligence both to protect those reviews and to turn them into more useful business data.
Trustpilot started because buying online required a leap of faith
Mühlmann founded Trustpilot in Copenhagen in 2007, when e-commerce was growing quickly but consumers often had little independent information about unfamiliar online stores.
The basic idea was simple: let customers describe their real experiences in public so that the next shopper did not have to rely only on the seller’s own marketing.
Trustpilot was built as an open platform. A consumer can review a business even if that business has never signed up for a Trustpilot account. Businesses can claim profiles, respond to feedback and invite reviews, but they do not own the reviews written about them.
That openness gave the platform a way to grow beyond a conventional directory. More reviews made the service more useful to shoppers, while more consumer attention gave businesses a reason to engage with their profiles.
The free platform created a paid software business
Consumers do not pay to read or write Trustpilot reviews. Businesses can also use a basic set of tools without paying.
Trustpilot makes money when businesses subscribe to additional software. Paid plans can include more review invitations, analytics, benchmarking, marketing tools, product reviews and ways to display Trustpilot ratings on company websites.
This freemium structure turns a public review platform into a subscription software company. The reviews create the audience and data; the software helps businesses use that information more systematically.
The distinction is important because Trustpilot is not an advertising business in the usual sense. Its recurring revenue primarily comes from companies choosing to buy additional platform functionality.
International expansion made the network more valuable
Trustpilot expanded beyond Denmark as e-commerce became increasingly international. Offices and commercial teams were added across Europe, the United States and other markets.
A review platform benefits from geographic scale because consumers routinely buy from companies based in other countries. A shopper may discover a merchant through a search engine, marketplace or social platform without knowing much about the business itself.
Trustpilot’s independent brand became useful in that gap. Businesses could display a TrustScore or review widget outside Trustpilot itself, while consumers could search for a company before buying.
By 2026, subscribing businesses were spread across more than 120 countries, while Trustpilot operated offices in Europe, North America and Australia.
The 2021 London listing made Trustpilot a public SaaS company
Trustpilot Group plc became the parent company ahead of an initial public offering in March 2021. Its shares began trading on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker TRST.
The listing gave Trustpilot access to public capital and made the economics of the platform much easier to examine. Investors could track annual recurring revenue, customer retention, bookings and the cost of running content-integrity systems alongside sales and product development.
That scrutiny also highlighted the unusual nature of the business. Trustpilot needs businesses to see enough value in the platform to pay for software, but it cannot allow commercial relationships to undermine the credibility of the reviews consumers see.
The company has repeatedly emphasised that the same review rules apply whether a business is a paying subscriber or uses Trustpilot for free.
Fake reviews became an engineering problem at enormous scale
An open review platform attracts manipulation. Businesses may try to inflate ratings, competitors may try to damage one another, and specialist sellers can offer fabricated reviews for money.
Trustpilot therefore developed automated systems that examine every submitted review before it appears on the platform. The technology looks for suspicious patterns across accounts, businesses, behaviour and review content.
During 2024, Trustpilot removed 4.5 million reviews it identified as fake. The company said 90% of those detected fake reviews were removed automatically using systems that included machine learning, neural networks and generative AI.
The scale increased again in 2025. Trustpilot reported removing 7.8 million fake reviews during the year as its moderation technology and review volume expanded.
These figures are also a reminder that a large review database does not automatically create trust. The platform has to spend continuously on moderation, fraud investigation, appeals and enforcement to protect the value of the data it has accumulated.
Regulation caught up with the online review economy
Fake reviews were once treated mainly as a platform-quality problem. Governments increasingly treat them as a consumer-protection issue.
The United States Federal Trade Commission introduced a rule targeting fake reviews and testimonials, while the UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act added specific provisions around review practices.
Trustpilot has participated in policy discussions and industry initiatives such as the Coalition for Trusted Reviews. It has also taken legal action against businesses and websites it says attempted to manipulate the platform or sell fake reviews.
Regulation creates additional compliance work, but it can also raise the value of established moderation systems. A business that displays reviews increasingly needs confidence that the collection process itself can withstand regulatory scrutiny.
A new CEO shifted attention toward larger business customers
Founder Peter Mühlmann stepped down as chief executive in September 2023 and became a non-executive director. Adrian Blair took over as CEO.
Under Blair, Trustpilot has placed more emphasis on enterprise customers, product packaging and converting its review data into higher-value software tools.
The shift does not mean abandoning small businesses. It means trying to increase the average value of paying customers by selling more sophisticated analytics, integrations and enterprise features.
That strategy became increasingly visible in 2025 and 2026 as average annual contract values rose and enterprise bookings became an important part of growth.
2025 combined faster growth with stronger profitability
Trustpilot reported revenue of US$261 million for 2025, up 24% from US$211 million a year earlier.
Adjusted EBITDA rose to US$40.7 million from US$24.1 million, lifting the adjusted EBITDA margin to 15.6% from 11.4%.
Annual recurring revenue reached US$296 million at year end, while adjusted free cash flow increased sharply to US$46.6 million.
The results showed that Trustpilot was moving beyond the stage where rapid subscription growth required equally rapid cost growth. Operating leverage was beginning to improve as the platform became larger.
AI is now used on both sides of the platform
Trustpilot’s early use of artificial intelligence focused heavily on detecting suspicious reviews. By 2026, AI was also becoming part of the product sold to businesses and the experience offered to consumers.
The company has introduced AI-generated review summaries and tools designed to surface more relevant reviews. Businesses can use newer analytics and AI features to extract themes and insights from large volumes of customer feedback.
This creates an interesting loop. The more review data Trustpilot collects, the more material it has for fraud detection and analysis. Better analysis can make the business subscription more valuable, while stronger fraud detection can make the underlying review data more credible.
That relationship only works if the AI systems preserve rather than weaken consumer confidence. Review summaries and moderation decisions still need to reflect genuine user experiences accurately.
H1 2026 showed enterprise and US momentum
For the six months ended 30 June 2026, Trustpilot reported revenue of US$151.4 million, up 23% from the comparable period and 19% on a constant-currency basis.
Bookings reached US$171.2 million, while annual recurring revenue increased to US$313.5 million. The number of paying customers rose 5% year on year to 28,014.
Adjusted EBITDA increased 46% to US$26.3 million, producing a 17.4% adjusted EBITDA margin.
Average annual contract value rose 13% at constant currency to US$11,513 as Trustpilot continued pushing toward larger enterprise relationships.
North America was a particularly strong contributor, with first-half bookings growing 27% at constant currency.
Scale makes Trustpilot more useful and harder to govern
By September 2026, Trustpilot said its platform held about 400 million active reviews and reached more than 60 million monthly active users worldwide.
That scale strengthens the network effect. Consumers are more likely to find useful information about a business, while companies can analyse larger volumes of feedback and display a recognisable trust signal.
It also increases the moderation challenge. Every additional review is another piece of content that may be genuine, misleading, abusive or manipulated.
Trustpilot therefore cannot separate growth from integrity. A platform full of untrusted reviews would destroy the reason consumers visit, which would eventually weaken the reason businesses pay.
Trust is both the product and the constraint
Trustpilot’s business looks simple from the outside: collect reviews and sell software around them. The real model is more delicate.
The company has to encourage businesses to invite feedback without letting them control the outcome. It has to remove manipulation without suppressing genuine criticism. It has to use AI aggressively enough to handle hundreds of millions of reviews while keeping humans available for appeals and difficult cases.
The 2007 idea has therefore become more demanding as the company has grown. Trustpilot is no longer only a website where shoppers check a rating before buying. It is a subscription software business, a large content-moderation operation and an increasingly important source of reputation data.
Its future depends on keeping those roles aligned. If consumers trust the reviews, businesses have a reason to care about their Trustpilot presence. If businesses see measurable value, they have a reason to subscribe. Neither side works for long without the other.
