Trustpilot

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Danish consumer review website

title: "Trustpilot" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["review-websites", "software-companies-of-denmark", "software-companies-based-in-copenhagen", "danish-companies-established-in-2007", "internet-properties-established-in-2007", "danish-websites", "companies-listed-on-the-london-stock-exchange", "2021-initial-public-offerings", "companies-based-in-copenhagen-municipality", "companies-in-the-ftse-250-index"] description: "Danish consumer review website" topic_path: "general/review-websites" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trustpilot" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Danish consumer review website ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox website"]

FieldValue
nameTrustpilot Group plc
logoTrustpilot Logo (2022).svg
typePublic limited company
traded_as
foundation
founderPeter Holten Mühlmann
key_peopleZillah Byng-Thorne (Chair)
Adrian Blair (CEO)
Hanno Damm (CFO)
location_cityCopenhagen, Denmark
area_servedGlobal
owner{{ubl
revenue(2024)
operating_income(2024)
net_income(2024)
assets(2024)
equity(2024)
num_employeesc. 1,000
homepage
::

| name = Trustpilot Group plc | logo = Trustpilot Logo (2022).svg | type = Public limited company | traded_as = | foundation = | founder = Peter Holten Mühlmann | key_people = Zillah Byng-Thorne (Chair) Adrian Blair (CEO) Hanno Damm (CFO) | location_city = Copenhagen, Denmark | area_served = Global | owner = {{ubl |Publicly traded | revenue = (2024) | operating_income = (2024) | net_income = (2024) | assets = (2024) | equity = (2024) | num_employees = c. 1,000 | homepage =

Trustpilot Group plc, is a Danish consumer business operating a review website founded in Denmark in 2007 that hosts reviews of businesses worldwide. As of June 2025, Trustpilot hosts 330 million reviews and 60 million monthly active users. The site offers freemium services to businesses. It has been criticised for the publication of fake reviews, and allowing companies to remove negative reviews. In 2021, Trustpilot was listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

History

Trustpilot was founded by the company's former CEO, Peter Holten Mühlmann, in Denmark in 2007. 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.

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. 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.

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. In 2014, Draper Esprit (formerly known as DFJ Esprit) invested $25 million in Trustpilot, along with support from the existing investors. According to VentureBeat, the Series C funding round would help Trustpilot "bring its online retail reviews service to the U.S." At the end of 2014, Trustpilot employed 325 people and 400,000 new reviews were posted each month. According to Website Magazine, "Trustpilot soared in 2014," and experienced "record growth with an 80 percent year-over-year increase in revenue.

In May 2015, Trustpilot received $73.5 million in Series D funding. The investment was led by Vitruvian Partners, with contributions from all existing investors. 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.

In February 2020, the BBC reported that Trustpilot had removed at least 2.2 million fake reviews. 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.

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.

In March 2023, Mühlmann announced his resignation as CEO, moving into a role as non-executive board member. Adrian Blair was appointed to replace Mühlmann as CEO in July 2023.

In 2024, Trustpilot removed 4.5 million fake reviews. 90% of the fake reviews were automatically taken down by AI tools.

On September 16 2025, the company announced the launch of a share buyback program worth up to £30 million.

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.

Trustpilot has a licensing agreement with Google, allowing Trustpilot reviews to be included in Google Seller Ratings, or "Google Stars." As of June 2025, the company hosts 330 million reviews and has 60 million monthly active users. Trustpilot employs approximately 1,000 people.

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.

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. Trustpilot states that it may take "some time" to investigate a reported review.

Business model

Trustpilot operates a freemium business model and earns most of its revenue from companies that subscribe to its services.

Criticism

There are independent investigations that suggest that review websites such as Trustpilot may have fake reviews. 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. Trustpilot claims, however, that it strives to only include genuine reviews. Trustpilot featured fake reviews for Bizzyloans; it deleted them after they were brought to light by KwikChex, an online investigations company.

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'.

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. 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.

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.

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. 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.

Hiding negative reviews

Paying Trustpilot subscribers using the "Trustbox" feature can filter review scores to only display high-scoring reviews. Trustpilot concedes "[by using Trustboxes] you don't show consumers the full, accurate picture of all your customers' opinions". Trustpilot's Plans & Pricing page shows the Trustbox displaying reviews of their own platform, configured to display 4 and 5-star reviews only.

References

References

  1. "Annual Results 2024". Trustpilot.
  2. (16 September 2025). "Trustpilot First Half Results". Trustpilot.
  3. (28 September 2015). "The 12 European tech startups that are most likely to be worth $1 billion next". Business Insider.
  4. (16 March 2021). "Trustpilot IPO: Why the reviews platform is all set to float". City Index.
  5. (2011-11-01). "Trustpilot Raises $4.5m To Scale Up Trust Ratings For Shopping". TechCrunch.
  6. (2012-12-11). "With Nearly 7M Reviews Of 100K Sites, Trustpilot Raises $13M From Index And More To Build Out A Yelp For The World Of E-Commerce". TechCrunch.
  7. Martin Bryant. (26 March 2013). "The Winners of The Next Web's European Startup Awards 2013". Thenextweb.com.
  8. Ho, Geoff. (13 January 2014). "Cash allows Trustpilot to spread wings | City & Business | Finance | Daily Express". Express.co.uk.
  9. Christina Farr. (2014-01-13). "TrustPilot nabs $25M to bring its online retail reviews service to the U.S. | VentureBeat | Business | by Christina Farr". VentureBeat.
  10. "Trustpilot the story so far".
  11. "Need Proof Reviews Matter? Trustpilot Soared in 2014".
  12. Jennings Moss, J. (28 May 2015). "Review platform Trustpilot scores $73.5M to help with U.S. expansion".
  13. (2015-05-28). "Already a hit in Europe, Trustpilot gets $73.5M to become "the review site for the entire online world"".
  14. (2015-03-26). "Google Takes Its Amazon-Style Starred Product Ratings To Europe To Boost Shopping Searches". TechCrunch.
  15. (2021-02-18). "Trustpilot removed 2.2 million bogus reviews in 2020". BBC News.
  16. Price, Chris. (2022-05-12). "Trustpilot removed nearly 2 million fake reviews in 2021".
  17. (18 February 2021). "Trustpilot removed 2.2 million bogus reviews in 2020".
  18. (2021-03-23). "Trustpilot surges in stock market debut as tech companies flock to London". CNBC.
  19. (21 March 2023). "Trustpilot: Founding chief executive to step down after 16 years at the top". City AM.
  20. (17 July 2023). "Trustpilot: Former Just Eat exec who took it into FTSE 100 is new CEO". City AM.
  21. (2025-05-29). "Trustpilot tackles false reviews with AI - TechInformed".
  22. "‘Goodbye fake reviews’: How e-commerce giants are using AI to catch fake reviews instantly".
  23. (2025-09-16). "Trustpilot hails 'strong' first half amid profit surge; starts buyback".
  24. "Trustpilot Advances Share Buyback Program with Latest Purchase".
  25. "Trustpilot Continues Buyback, Cancelling Nearly 15 Million Shares Since September - TipRanks.com".
  26. Robinson, Mark. (2025-09-16). "Trustpilot grows revenue as AI boosts its subscription model".
  27. Kolodny, Lora. (2015-05-28). "Trustpilot Raises $73.5 Million for Credible Reviews of Businesses Online". Wall Street Journal.
  28. Wiggers, Kyle. (2019-03-05). "Trustpilot raises $55 million for online business reviews".
  29. "Google and Trustpilot FAQ – Trustpilot Support Center".
  30. (16 September 2025). "Trustpilot H1 2025 Results". Trustpilot.
  31. Ingham, Edmund. "48 Hours On The Copenhagen Startup Scene: Here's What I Learned". Forbes.com.
  32. "2019 Most Innovative Companies".
  33. "Terms & Conditions". Trustpilot.
  34. "What happens when my review is reported on Trustpilot? – Support Center".
  35. "What happens after businesses flag reviews?".
  36. Nandini Roy Choudhury. (2019-03-06). "Consumer Review Platform Trustpilot raises $55 Million in Latest Round of Funding".
  37. (26 January 2013). "Fake reviews plague consumer websites".
  38. (22 June 2015). "Navigating the potentially murky world of online reviews". BBC News.
  39. (19 June 2015). "Fake Online Reviews and Endorsements: Competition Regulator to Investigate Unlawful Practices". Xanthos.
  40. (2025-05-29). "Trustpilot tackles false reviews with AI - TechInformed".
  41. (23 June 2015). "KwikChex works with BBC to expose Review Fraud".
  42. . (2017-09-14). ["Open Letter in response to questions regarding Purplebricks and Trustpilot"](http://press.trustpilot.com/open-letter-in-response-to-questions-regarding-purplebricks-and-trustpilot). *Trust Pilot*.
  43. (2017-09-14). "Exclusive: Trustpilot review company explains its Purplebricks policy".
  44. Graham Norwood. (22 March 2019). "Purplebricks and Foxtons reviews on Trustpilot come under scrutiny".
  45. (22 March 2019). "Estate agents and banks 'gaming' feedback website Trustpilot". The Times.
  46. Calver, Tom. (2019-03-22). "Estate agents and banks ‘gaming’ feedback website Trustpilot".
  47. (6 February 2020). "Trustpilot looking into reviews of estate agents 'at large' as it condemns new claims by allAgents". Property Industry Eye.
  48. (31 May 2020). "Joe Lycett's Got Your Back: Joe Lycett EXPLOITS Trustpilot with FAKE Reviews!".
  49. Trustpilot. (29 May 2020). "Joe Lycett's Got Your Back: Our response".
  50. White, Pricilla. (2025-11-27). "Trustpilot Fake Reviews and the Business of Buying Stars — What SafePaper Found".
  51. West, Paige. (2025-11-04). "Can You Trust Trustpilot? Review Manipulation Marketing - SafePaper".
  52. (March 13, 2020). "Add a TrustBox widget to a webpage – Trustpilot Support Center".
  53. (September 17, 2020). "Plans & Pricing | Trustpilot Business".

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review-websitessoftware-companies-of-denmarksoftware-companies-based-in-copenhagendanish-companies-established-in-2007internet-properties-established-in-2007danish-websitescompanies-listed-on-the-london-stock-exchange2021-initial-public-offeringscompanies-based-in-copenhagen-municipalitycompanies-in-the-ftse-250-index