How Trustpilot Works: An Open, Useful, Trusted Review Platform
All of the below are 1-star reviews live right now on Trustpilot.
And they are all for companies who are paying subscribers to our products:
“Engineer didn’t have tools to complete the job, 2 visits now first chap who came was incompetent and left without doing anything.”
“Cant put no stars.... horrendous company.. had a run in with a driver a while ago because a package arrived literally sopping wet through. Contents ruined..”
“Holiday from hell, and no help or any compensation… Got told we were unable to check in until 3pm after boarding for a 6am flight, had to be there for 3am.”
So, it begs the question: why do we give millions of people an open platform to criticise our own customers?
At Trustpilot our job is simple: to make people's voices heard by businesses around the world. We do this by running the world’s largest open feedback platform - where anyone can share what happened and how they felt about it, good or bad - and read how it went for others.
In describing Trustpilot as an “open” platform we mean 3 specific things:
On Trustpilot, any consumer can post a review of any business with whom they’ve had a genuine experience, free of charge. Even if the business doesn’t exist on Trustpilot yet, a consumer can add the web URL and create the business profile themselves. We are therefore open to all consumers - businesses cannot stop them from leaving feedback;
Any business can claim their profile and reply publicly, at no cost.The same rules, fraud detection, and moderation apply to everyone, and all businesses can flag reviews they may be concerned about. We are therefore open to all businesses;
All reviews are openly available on the web for anyone in the world to read.
Our openness goes beyond the way our product works, by permeating how we operate:
We disclose transparently how every business on Trustpilot interacts with the platform - for example, how many reviews they flag as suspicious, or which invitation methods they are using over time. This helps build confidence because everyone can see for themselves how a company is interacting with the platform;
As a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange, our strategy and financials are open for anyone to scrutinise;
We publish a regular Trust Report that explains how we detect and tackle fake reviews, how our systems work in practice, and the enforcement action we take.
Every company that claims their profile gets the ability to respond to reviews and 50 automated review invitations per month via our built-in tool, without charge. Beyond the automated review invitations, some businesses invite customers to review their businesses by sending links to their profile.
Consumers can always leave a review for free, with or without an invitation. Our platform is so widely trusted precisely because consumers - not businesses - are ultimately in control of what gets posted on Trustpilot. Each consumer owns their reviews, and they are the only ones able to edit or delete them.
If a business pays for a Trustpilot subscription, they are buying listening tools, brand rights, and insights from us, which deepens understanding of their customers. These tools include:
Verified, scalable invitations powered by our Automatic Feedback Service, or integrated with ecommerce and CRM systems to hear from more customers, more efficiently - for example, triggering a review invitation every time a customer completes an order, or interacts with customer service. This creates an end-to-end feedback loop, enabling businesses to link each verified review to a specific customer interaction.
Licensed use of the Trustpilot brand - our stars, TrustScore, and branded widgets—in marketing and sales materials, giving customers confidence at the moment of choice. This helps businesses win new customers, and keep existing ones loyal.
Analytics that turn feedback into action: real-time insights into what businesses are doing well and where they need to improve help them learn and get better. Great businesses want to hear negative feedback for this reason.
No. They can flag reviews they think breach our guidelines, like anyone else, but nobody can pay to get reviews removed. Right now, there are well over 17 million 1-star reviews of paying customers, live on Trustpilot, and that number keeps growing as Trustpilot grows. These reviews exist because nobody can pay us to delete or downrank criticism.
If any business – whether they pay us or not – believes a review isn’t real then they can flag it for review. But if we believe it is likely to be genuine, then it stays up. Businesses cannot pay to change their score or remove reviews – it’s as simple as that.
Why is that so important to us?
It’s absolutely fundamental to how we maintain our position as the most trusted customer feedback platform in the world. We achieve that by showing feedback without fear or favour, even if businesses who pay to use our services don’t like seeing 1-star reviews.
This is why the openness and independence of our platform is something we will always protect and never compromise on.
Not all businesses who pay for our services have good TrustScores. Some do, some don’t. Businesses with better TrustScores tend to be those that actively engage with consumers through the platform, listening and responding to feedback.
Our paid-for tools help businesses widen participation to customers who wouldn’t otherwise speak up, and to grow and learn from the feedback. That can result in higher scores if the underlying service is strong - particularly as the least happy customers are often most motivated to write unprompted feedback. But if a business delivers poor service, more reviews will only confirm that reality, until the service itself improves.
Importantly, invited reviews are subject to the same fraud detection and moderation as any other reviews. Negative feedback cannot be hidden or removed, and our rules strictly prohibit cherry-picking or incentivising only satisfied customers.
In short: Trustpilot enables more voices to be heard, so that scores reflect the real, representative customer experience.
Where we find evidence a business - whether a paying subscriber or not - is violating our guidelines, we will take action. This starts with warning them.
If they continue to breach our guidelines we follow up with a formal notice which also reduces their ability to interact with the platform beyond responding to reviews. If no improvement is seen we will place a warning on their profile page for all consumers to see. If the business is a paying customer we may also terminate their contract.
As a final step, for the most flagrant breaches we have and will take companies to court for consistent attempts to manipulate the platform.
Regulators across the world - including the CMA in the UK, the FTC in the USA, and the European Commission - have now implemented rules reflecting similar principles to Trustpilot: namely that companies should collect feedback that is representative (not cherry-picking); and display it in a way that does not mislead.
The bottom line
Trustpilot combines open access with paid tools, licensed trust signals, and actionable analytics. No one can buy a higher score.
Businesses subscribe to engage with feedback at scale, demonstrate their trustworthiness, and get insights to improve faster. Consumers get a richer, more representative picture to help them make the right choice, and the opportunity to make their voice heard.
We are not perfect, but we are relentless in our mission: to make feedback open, useful, and fair. In a world where the loudest voices often dominate social media, Trustpilot offers a vital alternative—an open platform where all experiences count, and where transparency creates better outcomes for everyone.