History
Trustpilot was founded by the company's former CEO, Peter Holten Mühlmann, in Denmark in 2007. [4] He started the company when his parents started shopping online. At the time, he was studying at Aarhus University, School of Business and Social Sciences and would later leave university to pursue Trustpilot. [5]
After raising $3 million in early venture funding from 2008 to 2010, Trustpilot received an initial capital injection from SEED Capital Denmark and Northzone in November 2011. [6] One year later, Index Ventures, SEED Capital Denmark and Northzone invested $13 million in Series B funding in Trustpilot, which the company used for international growth. [7]
In 2013, Trustpilot opened offices in New York and London. In the same year, the company was named Danish Startup of the Year at Next Web's European Startup Awards. [8] In 2014, Draper Esprit (formerly known as DFJ Esprit) invested $25 million in Trustpilot, along with support from the existing investors. [9] According to VentureBeat, the Series C funding round would help Trustpilot "bring its online retail reviews service to the U.S." [10] At the end of 2014, Trustpilot employed 325 people and 400,000 new reviews were posted each month. [11] According to Website Magazine, "Trustpilot soared in 2014," and experienced "record growth with an 80 percent year-over-year increase in revenue. [12]
In May 2015, Trustpilot received $73.5 million in Series D funding. [13] The investment was led by Vitruvian Partners, with contributions from all existing investors. [14] In March, 2015, Google announced it was launching product ratings in Germany, the UK and France. In order to do this, "Google is aggregating data in Europe from different sources" including third party aggregators like Trustpilot. [15]
In February 2020, the BBC reported that Trustpilot had removed at least 2.2 million fake reviews. [16] [17] Of these fake reviews, 1.5 million were deleted with fraud protection software and 600,000 were removed manually. 469,000 companies reported fake reviews, and around 90,000 fake reviews were removed by consumers. [18]
In March 2021, Trustpilot was first listed on the London Stock Exchange. The founders stated that London's stock market looked more attractive after a government-backed review which called for an overhaul of the U.K. listings regime. [19]
In March 2023, Mühlmann announced his resignation as CEO, moving into a role as non-executive board member. [20] Adrian Blair was appointed to replace Mühlmann as CEO in July 2023. [21]
In 2024, Trustpilot removed 4.5 million fake reviews. [22] 90% of these were automatically taken down by AI tools. [22]
On September 16 2025, the company announced the launch of a share buyback programme worth up to £30 million. [23]
Products and activities
Trustpilot provides companies with the tools to collect and respond to reviews for free and offers marketing and analytics features through their paid plans. Its primary source of income is from businesses that subscribe to its tools and services, to showcase reviews in their marketing and gain consumer review insights. [24] [25] [26]
Trustpilot has a licensing agreement with Google, allowing Trustpilot reviews to be included in Google Seller Ratings, or "Google Stars." [27] As of June 2025, the company hosts 330 million reviews and has 60 million monthly active users. Trustpilot employs approximately 1,000 people. [28] [29] [30]
Reporting reviews
According to Trustpilot's policies, the company reserves the right to remove reviews without any notice if they breach its guidelines. It states that it aims to comply with applicable law and its published policies to ensure that only authentic reviews remain on the website. [31]
Businesses can respond publicly to reviews, or report a review as invalid if they believe it violates Trustpilot's user guidelines or if they have no record of the reviewer as a customer. When a business reports a review, the review is temporarily replaced with a message indicating that it is being assessed. If the reviewer does not provide the documentation (for example, proof of purchase) within seven days, Trustpilot removes the review. [32] Trustpilot states that it may take "some time" to investigate a reported review. [33]
Criticism
There are independent investigations that suggest that review websites such as Trustpilot may have fake reviews. [35] [36] [37] There is controversy about the legitimacy of some of Trustpilot's and other consumer review websites' reviews and the way that it deals with complaints about them. [37] [35] [38] Trustpilot claims, however, that it strives to only include genuine reviews. [39] Trustpilot published fake reviews for Bizzyloans; it deleted them after they were brought to light by KwikChex, an online investigations company. [40]
On 14 September 2017, Trustpilot issued an open letter clarifying its review policy following allegations concerning the 'validity of reviews of [online estate agent] Purplebricks by customers'. [41] [42]
On 22 March 2019, The Times reported that estate agents Purplebricks and Foxtons were "gaming" Trustpilot feedback by paying to help gain better scores. In August 2016 five reviews of Foxtons were published on Trustpilot, with an average score of 2.2 stars out of five. The following month there were 467 reviews, 90% of them awarding five stars. [43] [44] Trustpilot stated that it had found evidence that some companies had attempted to game its system and said it had a "zero tolerance" policy towards such tactics. [45]
On 6 February 2020 industry publication Property Industry Eye reported that Trustpilot was looking into reviews of estate agents 'at large' after claims from property review website allAgents that 70% of their reviews could be fake. [46]
In May 2020, an episode of Joe Lycett's Got Your Back ran an experiment in which a fake company was created on Trustpilot, demonstrating the various ways of manipulating reviews on the site. [47] Trustpilot published an online response, noting the value of the show's experiment in highlighting fraud on the site, and promising to implement changes to tackle the problem better. [48]
Hiding negative reviews
Facebook plugin
Users of Trustpilot's Facebook plugin (for their Pro subscribers, paying $599 per month [49] ) have the option to display only reviews giving a certain score: "Choose the number of reviews that you want to display from the drop-down menu, then select the rating that the displayed reviews will have". [50]
Trustbox feature
Paying Trustpilot subscribers using the "Trustbox" feature (which allows a website to show embedded Trustpilot reviews) can ensure only reviews with a minimum star rating will be displayed: there is a setting that "Displays the star ratings that you select, for example, all 3-, 4-, and 5-star reviews". [51]
Trustpilot concedes "[by using Trustboxes] you don't show consumers the full, accurate picture of all your customers' opinions". [52]
Trustpilot's own Plans & Pricing page shows the Trustbox in action, displaying reviews of their own platform, configured to display 4- and 5-star reviews only, beneath the slogan "Trustpilot is a universal symbol of trust". [53]
US$210.8 million (2024) [1] 
US$6.2 million (2024) [1] 