Trustpilot Group (LON:TRST) reported what management repeatedly characterized as an “excellent” full year 2025, highlighting accelerating bookings growth, expanding profitability, and what executives said is a widening strategic advantage as AI boosts the value of public, human-generated trust signals.
Chief Executive Officer Adrian Blair framed the year around “great execution,” “expanding strategic advantage,” and “upgraded guidance.” The company said it grew bookings 18% in constant currency while scaling profitably, delivering a 69% year-on-year increase in adjusted EBITDA and returning $72 million to shareholders through buybacks during the year.
Bookings growth and profitability expansion
Trustpilot generated adjusted EBITDA of $40.7 million, up 69%, for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.6%—a 4.2 percentage point improvement from the prior year. Adjusted free cash flow was $46.6 million, which management said reflected a 173% increase year-on-year, for an adjusted free cash flow margin of 17.8%. Adjusted free cash flow per share rose 174% to $0.107, the company said.
Damm attributed margin expansion to operating leverage across the P&L, including technology and content costs declining to 23.6% of revenue from 25.3%, and G&A falling to 15% of revenue. He also pointed to improvements in impairment losses, which declined to 0.6% of revenue from 1.2% a year earlier, noting 2024 had included unusually high write-offs of aged receivables from the COVID period.
Trustpilot’s group LTV-to-CAC ratio expanded to 3.6x from 3.4x. Sales and marketing remained relatively flat as a percentage of revenue at 27.4%, though the CFO noted an accounting headwind from amortization of capitalized sales commissions while underlying cash efficiency improved.
Enterprise mix and retention metrics
A major theme of the call was the continued shift toward larger customers. Blair said businesses paying over $20,000 per year grew 35%, and Damm said the share of total bookings from customers paying more than $20,000 annually increased to 43% in 2025 from 25% in 2022. For this segment, the company reported gross dollar retention of 93% and net dollar retention of 111% in 2025.
Overall net dollar retention was 102%, slightly down from 103% in 2024. Damm said the moderation was expected due to annualizing a “one-off package migration benefit” from the prior year. Gross dollar retention improved to a record 87% from 85% in 2024, which management tied to product innovation and operational changes including a proactive, data-driven customer success approach designed to reduce churn.
AI, Answer Engine Optimization, and the review “flywheel”
Executives said AI is increasing the relevance of Trustpilot’s dataset to both consumers and enterprises. Blair said active reviews grew 20% year-on-year to 361 million, and users submitted 62 million reviews in 2025—more than in the platform’s first 12 years combined. The company also cited “nearly 15-fold” year-on-year growth in click-throughs from AI search.
Blair said Trustpilot has opened its proprietary dataset to large language models and is increasingly positioning itself within “Answer Engine Optimization” (AEO), with sales teams leading with AEO in enterprise conversations as businesses focus on how they appear in AI-driven search and answer experiences. As one datapoint, management said Promptwatch ranked Trustpilot as the fifth most cited domain globally on ChatGPT in January.
During Q&A, Blair said a recent webinar series on AEO drew significant interest; he noted the first webinar attracted 10 times the attendees of any webinar in the company’s history, driven mainly by larger businesses and some mid-sized businesses.
Trust and platform integrity efforts
Blair emphasized that “volume without trust is meaningless,” and said Trustpilot removed 7.8 million fake reviews in 2025, a 74% increase year-on-year. He said 91% of fake reviews removed were caught through automated detection, with systems scanning device, network, and behavioral metadata. Blair also said roughly 75% of the fake reviews removed were five-star reviews, and that moderation standards are applied equally regardless of whether a business is paying.
The company announced it will host a dedicated trust-focused event on May 6. Blair introduced newly appointed Chief Trust Officer Shazadi Stinton, noting she previously served as General Counsel at MONY Group.
Regional performance highlights
- UK: 16% constant-currency bookings growth to $116 million, with a 65% contribution margin. Blair said the share of ARR from businesses paying over $20,000 rose to 47% by year-end, and cited flagship H2 customer wins including Sky, Samsung, and United Utilities.
- Europe and rest of world: 20% constant-currency bookings growth to $113 million, with a 55% contribution margin. Blair cited H2 wins including Eneco, TotalEnergies, Costa Cruises, and Canva, and said Germany and Italy outperformed the regional average. In Germany, businesses paying more than $20,000 accounted for 58% of ARR.
- North America: 21% constant-currency bookings growth to $62 million, with contribution margin improving four points to 38%. Reviews submitted rose 27% to 13 million. Blair said TrustBox impressions increased 38% to 32 billion, and cited H2 enterprise additions including Liberty Mutual and Squarespace.
On the U.S. opportunity, Blair said Trustpilot remains under 1% penetrated in the addressable market and described an ongoing capital allocation balancing act across geographies. He added there is “no structural reason” the U.S. should not eventually reach UK-like contribution margins, describing a pathway driven by retention revenue compounding as brand awareness and the “flywheel” strengthen.
Cash generation, buybacks, and updated margin targets
Trustpilot generated $59.2 million in adjusted operating cash flow, which Damm attributed to growth, improved profitability, and more annual upfront payments. The company estimated improved average prepayment pulled forward almost $10 million in cash flow, which management called a structural improvement to working capital dynamics.
The company ended the year with $47.6 million in cash after returning $71.6 million to shareholders during the period. Damm said the buyback program more than offset share grants, and total diluted share count fell 4% from 450 million to 431 million by year-end. Stock-based compensation expense under IFRS rose to $12.5 million from $9.5 million.
Management reiterated its capital allocation framework: invest in organic growth, retain flexibility for strategic product add-on M&A, and return excess capital to shareholders. Damm said the company intends to purchase a further GBP 30 million of shares, including GBP 7.5 million via an employee benefit trust to satisfy future share awards. Blair said there were no M&A targets currently on the agenda.
Looking ahead, Trustpilot guided to “high teens” constant-currency revenue growth in 2026 and a further 2 to 3 percentage point increase in adjusted EBITDA margin. The company also upgraded its medium-term margin outlook, now targeting a 25% adjusted EBITDA margin in 2028 and 30% in 2030. Damm said the timeframe reflects both the company’s track record of margin progression and early evidence of AI benefits, including faster product delivery and internal operating efficiencies.
When asked about spending on external AI software packages and whether the company expects to internalize more AI tools, management said it could not provide that detail “off the cuff.”
About Trustpilot Group (LON:TRST)
Trustpilot began in 2007 with a simple yet powerful idea that is more relevant today than ever — to be the universal symbol of trust, bringing consumers and businesses together through reviews. Trustpilot is open, independent, and impartial — we help consumers make the right choices and businesses to build trust, grow and improve.
Today, we have more than 300 million reviews and 67 million monthly active users across the globe, with 127 billion annual Trustpilot brand impressions, and the numbers keep growing.
