AI summary

Trustpilot Group plc (LSE: TRST), the Copenhagen-headquartered online consumer reviews platform and a FTSE 250 constituent, traded at 243.80p (ORD GBP0.01) on 20 May 2026. The snapshot follows a strong FY25 in which reported bookings rose to $291.4m, up 18% in constant currency, Revenue climbed 20% in constant currency to $261.1m and the group crossed the $300m annualised Recurring Revenue milestone for the first time. Adjusted EBITDA Margin widened by 4.2 percentage points to 15.6% and adjusted free Cash Flow surged 173% year on year to $46.6m. Statutory Net Income rose to $7.8m from $6.2m, while the year-end cash position improved to roughly $48m. North America was the star regional performer, with bookings up 21% in constant currency to $62m. Chief executive Adrian Blair, who joined in September 2023 from Just Eat and Dext, has set a 2026 strategic theme of 'Building Trust in the Age of AI' and upgraded medium-term margin targets to 25% adjusted EBITDA by 2028 and 30% by 2030. The board has extended its share buyback programme by a further £10m to a maximum £40m, with around 19.2m shares cancelled at a cost of about £34.5m since launch in September 2025. A €4m fine from Italy's competition authority in March 2026 is a reminder of the regulatory and trust-erosion risks that hang over the entire online reviews sector.

Key takeaways

  • Trustpilot share price snapshot: 243.80p (ORD GBP0.01) on the London Stock Exchange on 20 May 2026; TRST LSE is a FTSE 250 constituent.
  • FY25 bookings of $291.4m, up 18% at constant currency; FY25 revenue of $261.1m, up 20% at constant currency.
  • Annualised recurring revenue passed the $300m milestone for the first time in FY25.
  • Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 4.2 percentage points to 15.6%; adjusted free cash flow up 173% year on year to $46.6m.
  • North America bookings up 21% in constant currency to $62m, the fastest-growing region; Europe &Amp; RoW +20%, UK +16%.
  • Net dollar retention of 102% and gross dollar retention improved to 87%, indicating better unit Economics and enterprise traction.
  • Statutory net income $7.8m (FY24: $6.2m); year-end cash of around $48m and no Debt.
  • Share buyback extended by £10m to a maximum £40m; approximately 19.2m shares cancelled for ~£34.5m since the programme launched on 16 September 2025.
  • Medium-term margin targets upgraded: 25% adjusted EBITDA margin by 2028 and 30% by 2030, underpinned by AI-driven efficiencies and enterprise mix.
  • FY26 guidance: high-teens constant-currency revenue growth and a further 2–3 percentage points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion.
  • Risks: fake-review detection failures, EU and national regulator scrutiny (including a €4m Italian fine in March 2026), AI-generated review Fraud, customer churn and competition from Google, Yelp and platform-native reviews.

Introduction

Online reviews have quietly become one of the most important infrastructure layers of E-commerce. They steer purchase decisions, search rankings and, increasingly, the responses of generative AI assistants when consumers ask 'is this Brand any good?'. Trustpilot Group plc sits at the heart of that infrastructure as one of the world's largest open consumer review platforms, with hundreds of millions of cumulative reviews and millions of businesses using its tools.

For UK stocks investors, the Trustpilot share price is also one of the FTSE 250's purer-play SaaS exposures, listed on the London Stock Exchange but reporting in US dollars and earning a growing share of bookings in North America. On 20 May 2026 TRST LSE traded at 243.80p (ORD GBP0.01), sitting within a 52-week range that, according to publicly reported data, stretches from roughly 126.5p to 289.4p. This Kalkine Media UK feature looks at the verified data points behind that snapshot — FY25 results, the AI strategy, the buyback, and the risks — to give readers a balanced picture of where Trustpilot stands today.

Company overview

Trustpilot Group plc is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, and listed on the premium segment of the London Stock Exchange under the ticker TRST. It runs an open, free-to-use consumer reviews platform at trustpilot.com, where consumers can leave reviews of businesses they have interacted with and businesses can claim a profile, respond to feedback and analyse insights.

The commercial engine is a Business SaaS subscriptions model. Businesses pay for tiered packages that unlock review invitations at scale, integrations with major commerce and CRM platforms, analytics, AI-driven insights, brand and product review widgets, and — at the enterprise tier — dedicated success management. Revenue is therefore predominantly recurring and tracked through bookings, annualised recurring revenue (ARR), net dollar retention and gross dollar retention.

Geographically, Trustpilot organises its business across three regions: the UK, Europe & Rest of World, and North America. The North America growth bet is central to the Equity story: it is the largest single e-commerce market in the world and the region with the lowest market penetration for Trustpilot, which gives the group a long runway if it can scale its sales motion and Brand Awareness against US-native competitors.

What happened

In March 2026 Trustpilot reported full-year results for the 12 months to 31 December 2025. The headline numbers were the standout: bookings of $291.4m (+18% constant currency), revenue of $261.1m (+20% constant currency), the crossing of $300m of ARR for the first time, and a 4.2 percentage-point expansion in adjusted EBITDA margin to 15.6%. Adjusted free cash flow nearly tripled to $46.6m.

Management used the results day to set out a 2026 strategic theme, 'Building Trust in the Age of AI', and to upgrade medium-term profitability targets. The board also extended its existing share buyback programme by a further £10m, taking the total to a maximum £40m. Shares jumped on the day of release, with reports of an 8% post-results pop as bookings, revenue and margins beat consensus estimates.

In April 2026 chief executive Adrian Blair used the Annual General Meeting to reinforce the AI narrative, highlighting that AI click-throughs to Trustpilot's platform had grown nearly fifteen-fold year on year and that Trustpilot had been ranked the fifth most cited domain globally on ChatGPT in January 2026.

Latest verified update

The most recent verified set of operational data points come from the FY25 prelims published in March 2026 and the CEO commentary at the 2026 AGM in April. Key items already in the public domain include:

  • Bookings: $291.4m, up 18% at constant currency (FY24: ~$246m).
  • Revenue: $261.1m, up 20% at constant currency.
  • Annualised recurring revenue (ARR): crossed $300m for the first time.
  • Adjusted EBITDA margin: 15.6%, up 4.2 percentage points year on year.
  • Adjusted free cash flow: $46.6m, up 173% year on year.
  • Statutory net income: $7.8m (FY24: $6.2m).
  • Gross margin: 82.7%, consistent with a high-margin SaaS profile.
  • Net dollar retention: 102%; gross dollar retention: 87%.
  • North America bookings: $62m, +21% at constant currency.
  • Year-end cash: approximately $48m, with no debt.
  • Share buyback: extended by £10m to £40m total; ~19.2m shares cancelled for ~£34.5m since launch.
  • FY26 guidance: high-teens constant-currency revenue growth and 2–3 percentage points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion.
  • Medium-term targets upgraded to a 25% adjusted EBITDA margin by 2028 and a 30% margin by 2030.

Share price

On 20 May 2026 the Trustpilot share price stood at 243.80p (ORD GBP0.01) on the London Stock Exchange. Publicly reported intraday data points around the period show TRST LSE trading at around 258.2p on 29 April 2026, with a previous close cited at 256.8p, and a 52-week range that has spanned roughly 126.5p to 289.4p. Reported Market Capitalisation was around £934m as of 13 May 2026, with a trailing reported price-to-Earnings multiple in the high triple digits, reflecting the gap between modest statutory profit and the much larger adjusted EBITDA, ARR and free-cash-flow base that drives the SaaS valuation case.

At 243.80p, the share price sits comfortably above the 52-week low but materially below the upper end of the range, suggesting the stock has spent 2026 digesting strong results, the Italian regulatory headline and the broader rotation in UK growth names. From a UK stocks perspective, Trustpilot remains one of the more highly valued FTSE 250 names on conventional earnings metrics, which is typical for a fast-growing, asset-light SaaS business with Operating Leverage still to come through.

FTSE 250 and UK context

TRST LSE is a member of the FTSE 250 mid-cap index, which has spent much of 2025 and 2026 caught between domestic UK macro headwinds — sticky services Inflation, slower-than-hoped consumer spending, and ongoing debate about Bank of England rate cuts — and a UK equity revival narrative as international investors reappraise undervalued London-listed names.

Within that index, Trustpilot is one of a relatively small cohort of FTSE 250 technology and software stocks. It sits alongside other UK SaaS, marketplaces and consumer-internet names that have benefitted from improved sentiment toward UK stocks but face the same scrutiny around AI exposure, Regulatory Risk and Capital allocation. The fact that Trustpilot reports in dollars also means sterling/dollar moves can flatter or hurt the reported numbers when translated, even when underlying constant-currency growth is unchanged.

Sector backdrop: online reviews, AI and EU regulation

Online reviews and e-commerce SaaS

Online consumer reviews are now embedded in almost every stage of the digital purchase funnel — from search engine results pages, where review stars influence click-through rates, to product detail pages, paid ads and post-purchase emails. For Trustpilot, that ubiquity creates a defensible flywheel: more reviews lead to more search visibility for the platform, which encourages more businesses to subscribe, which generates more review invitations and reviews.

The e-commerce SaaS layer that sits on top — review collection, moderation, analytics, syndication, AI-powered insights — has matured into a multi-billion-dollar global software category, with Trustpilot competing against in-house solutions, platform-native review systems (Amazon, Shopify, Google) and specialist providers.

Generative AI: threat and opportunity

Generative AI is simultaneously the biggest threat and the biggest opportunity for Trustpilot. On the threat side, large language models can be used to mass-produce convincing fake reviews, raising the bar for detection. On the opportunity side, AI assistants such as ChatGPT now routinely cite review sites when consumers ask brand or product questions — Trustpilot itself reports that AI click-throughs to its platform grew nearly fifteen-fold year on year and that it was ranked the fifth most cited domain globally on ChatGPT in January 2026.

Trustpilot has responded by layering AI on top of its existing fraud detection stack. The platform removed approximately 4.5 million fake reviews in 2024, around 7.4% of total reviews submitted, with about 90% of those removed automatically. Its detection stack combines device fingerprinting, IP clustering, account age and posting history, review-copy similarity hashing, posting-velocity baselines and behavioural signals, plus newer stylometric classifiers that estimate the probability that a review was LLM-generated. Human moderators continue to act as a check on automated decisions.

EU regulation on reviews

Regulators across the European Union have hardened their stance on consumer reviews under the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and related rules, with member states empowered to fine platforms that Fail to verify or properly police reviews. In March 2026 Italy's competition authority (AGCM) fined Trustpilot €4m, citing concerns about misleading consumers and failures in review verification. Whether or not the company appeals, the headline is a reminder that the regulatory perimeter around online reviews is tightening and that fines, remediation costs and reputational risk are real considerations for any business in the category.

Earnings, ARR, bookings, cash and dividends

FY25 was a year in which the Trustpilot operating model began to deliver on its promised operating leverage. Revenue grew 20% in constant currency to $261.1m while gross margin held at a SaaS-like 82.7%. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 4.2 percentage points to 15.6%, demonstrating that operating costs are growing more slowly than revenue as headcount Investment, Marketing spend and infrastructure costs scale. Adjusted free cash flow of $46.6m was up 173% year on year and now provides a substantial source of capital for Buybacks and reinvestment.

Bookings — the leading indicator of future revenue — grew 18% in constant currency to $291.4m, with North America the standout at +21%. Annualised recurring revenue crossed $300m for the first time, an important psychological milestone for a company that has been working its way up the SaaS scale ladder. Net dollar retention of 102% indicates that existing customers, in aggregate, are spending more than they were a year ago, while gross dollar retention of 87% suggests churn is still meaningful but improving as the customer mix shifts towards higher-value enterprise accounts.

Statutory net income reached $7.8m, up from $6.2m a year earlier. The year-end cash position was approximately $48m with no debt, giving the group ample flexibility to fund both organic investment and the ongoing buyback. Trustpilot does not currently pay a Dividend; capital return is being delivered exclusively through the share repurchase programme, which the board has signalled is its preferred mechanism while the growth investment phase continues.

Share buyback

Trustpilot launched a £30m share buyback programme on 16 September 2025 and, alongside the FY25 results in March 2026, extended that programme by a further £10m to a maximum £40m. The stated purpose is to reduce the share count, with all repurchased shares cancelled. The programme operates within authorities granted at the 2025 AGM, which permits the purchase of up to approximately 36.2m ordinary shares before authority lapses at the 2026 AGM or 20 August 2026, whichever is earlier.

Public RNS disclosures show that, since launch, around 19.2m shares have been cancelled at a total cost of approximately £34.5m. The buyback is consistent with management's stated commitment to 'returning excess capital, not required for other priorities, to shareholders' and signals confidence in the cash-generation profile of the business.

Growth catalysts

North America scale

North America remains Trustpilot's most under-penetrated major market and the region delivering the fastest bookings growth (+21% in constant currency in FY25 to $62m). Continued sales investment, integrations with US e-commerce platforms and growing AI-driven visibility could compound the regional momentum in FY26 and beyond.

Enterprise tier

Enterprise customers are higher-value, stickier and more profitable than smaller SMB accounts. Management has emphasised the shift in customer mix toward enterprise, supported by dedicated sales and customer-success investment, and the resulting improvement in unit economics (visible in higher net dollar retention and improved gross dollar retention).

AI-powered insights and citations

Trustpilot's positioning as a high-authority third-party source for AI assistants is a genuine growth catalyst. If brands believe that visibility in generative AI answers will affect future Demand, they will pay more for the Volume, quality and structure of reviews on Trustpilot. The company is also embedding AI deeper into its own product, with AI-generated insights, summaries and competitive benchmarking that justify higher-tier subscriptions.

Operating leverage

With gross margin already above 80% and bookings growing at high-teens to twenties rates, every additional revenue dollar carries a high incremental margin. Upgraded targets of 25% adjusted EBITDA margin by 2028 and 30% by 2030 quantify the operating leverage that management believes is available.

Risks

Fake-review trust erosion

Trustpilot's entire equity story rests on consumers and businesses trusting the integrity of its reviews. Any high-profile failure of its detection systems — particularly involving sophisticated AI-generated content — could damage that trust quickly. The Italian €4m fine in March 2026 illustrates how regulators and media can crystallise such concerns into reputational and Financial Risk.

Regulatory and legal risk

EU-level rules around reviews have tightened, and individual member state regulators have shown willingness to act. Future fines, remediation orders or required product changes could affect earnings and operational complexity.

FX translation

Trustpilot reports in US dollars but is listed in sterling. A stronger sterling/weaker dollar can reduce reported revenue and EBITDA in GBP terms, even when underlying constant-currency performance is unchanged. UK stocks investors should keep this in mind when comparing year-on-year reported figures.

Customer churn

Gross dollar retention of 87% means a meaningful share of revenue still leaves the platform each year, particularly among smaller customers. Macro pressure on SMB budgets, or a stronger competitive product, could push churn higher.

Competition from Google, Yelp and platform-native reviews

Google's review ecosystem, Yelp in North America, and platform-native review systems on Amazon, Shopify, Booking and others all compete for the same customer attention and budget. As AI assistants synthesise across multiple sources, Trustpilot must continue to fight for share of citation and share of wallet.

What to watch

  • FY26 half-year results: progress against the high-teens constant-currency revenue growth guidance and 2–3 percentage points of margin expansion.
  • North America bookings growth rate and absolute bookings dollars — the single most important regional KPI.
  • Net dollar retention trend: is it widening above 102% as enterprise mix increases?
  • Buyback execution: pace of share cancellations and whether the £40m programme is extended further at the 2026 AGM.
  • AI citation share: any further disclosure on Trustpilot's ranking among most-cited domains in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and other LLMs.
  • Regulatory follow-through after the Italian €4m fine — appeal status, any new investigations elsewhere in the EU.
  • FX moves: sterling/US dollar trajectory and how it affects reported numbers in 2026.
  • Competitive moves: any major changes to Google, Yelp, Amazon, Shopify or platform-native review programmes.

Conclusion

Trustpilot enters mid-2026 with a clear narrative: a Copenhagen-headquartered FTSE 250 SaaS business that has crossed $300m of ARR, expanded margins, generated meaningful free cash flow and started returning excess capital through an extended £40m buyback. North America remains the most exciting regional story, while AI is being positioned as both an existential threat to manage and a structural tailwind to monetise.

Against that, the share price has spent 2026 digesting fast growth, a richly rated multiple on statutory earnings and the reputational and regulatory overhang of the Italian fine and broader fake-review debate. For UK stocks watchers, the Trustpilot share price at 243.80p on 20 May 2026 captures both the promise and the pressure: a high-quality, asset-light recurring-revenue business inside the FTSE 250, navigating one of the most rapidly evolving sectors in the digital economy.

As ever with growth software stocks listed on the London Stock Exchange, the path between today's snapshot and management's 2028 and 2030 margin targets is unlikely to be a straight line. The FY26 trading updates, regulatory headlines and capital-return cadence will tell investors how that journey is progressing.