Key Takeaways
- By the end of 2024, Trustpilot hosted 301 million active reviews, a 23% year-over-year increase, with 61 million reviews written that year alone
- Unlike Capterra and G2, which are almost entirely B2B software platforms, Trustpilot covers ecommerce, retail, subscriptions, and consumer services, making it directly relevant to DTC research
- Verified reviews are tied to a confirmed purchase and carry more research weight than unverified ones, which come from people who found the profile on their own
- Reading competitor profiles, not just your own, is the highest-value use of Trustpilot for DTC founders
- Trust in reviews overall has dropped from 79% in 2020 to 42% in 2025, which makes reading reviews critically, not just skimming star averages, more important than ever
Trustpilot hosted 301 million active reviews by the end of December 2024, up 23% from the year before, with 61 million new reviews written in 2024 alone. That's a lot of unfiltered opinion sitting in public view, and almost none of it gets read by the DTC founders who'd benefit most from it.
Most people think of Trustpilot as a software review site, lumping it in with Capterra and G2. That's a mistake. Capterra and G2 are almost entirely B2B software platforms: CRM tools, project management apps, accounting software. Trustpilot is different. It covers ecommerce stores, subscription boxes, supplement brands, and consumer services right alongside SaaS. If you sell a physical product to consumers, Trustpilot is one of the few review platforms where you can read your own reviews and your direct competitors' in the same format.
This guide covers why Trustpilot is worth a DTC founder's time, how to segment reviews by star rating and verification status, what to actually extract from what you read, and how that research feeds into ad copy and positioning.
Why Trustpilot is a DTC-relevant research source
By the end of 2024, Trustpilot's own trust report counted 301 million active reviews on the platform, a 23% increase year over year, with 22 million consumers writing their first review that year (Trustpilot, 2025). That volume spans far more categories than most people assume.
Capterra and G2 exist almost exclusively for software buyers comparing CRM tools, accounting platforms, and project management apps. A DTC supplement brand or skincare company has no real presence there, and neither do its customers. Trustpilot is structured differently. Retailers, subscription services, and consumer brands maintain active profiles there because customers expect to check reviews before ordering from a site they haven't bought from before.
By the end of 2024, Trustpilot hosted 301 million active reviews, a 23% year-over-year increase, according to the company's own 2025 Trust Report (Trustpilot, 2025). Unlike Capterra and G2, which are built almost entirely around B2B software buyers, Trustpilot's categories include ecommerce, retail, and consumer services, making it one of the few review platforms where DTC brands and their direct competitors both maintain active, comparable profiles.
That also means Trustpilot reviews read differently than Capterra reviews. Nobody writes "the onboarding flow was clunky" on Trustpilot. They write "shipping took 12 days and nobody responded to my email" or "this actually cleared up my skin in three weeks, wish I'd found it sooner." That's DTC customer language, not software procurement language, and it's exactly the kind of thing a swipe file of customer words should be built from.
How Trustpilot's verification system works, and why it matters for research
Trustpilot splits reviews into verified and unverified. Verified reviews are tied to a confirmed transaction, usually because the business sent a review invitation to a customer's order email. Unverified reviews come from people who found the business profile on their own, with no confirmed purchase behind them.
Both types count toward a brand's overall TrustScore, but they're not equally useful for research. A verified review means you're reading language from someone who actually bought the product. An unverified review might be genuine, or it might be a competitor, a disgruntled non-customer, or an incentivized post. Neither type is automatically fake, but the verified-to-unverified ratio on a profile tells you how much to trust the pattern you're seeing.
Trustpilot removed 4.5 million fake reviews in 2024, about 7% of everything posted that year, and 90% of those were caught automatically through machine learning and pattern detection (Trustpilot, 2025). That moderation effort is reassuring, but it also means a small share of what you read on any given day, verified or not, won't hold up. Weight verified reviews more heavily, and treat unverified ones as directional rather than conclusive.
Step 1: Segment reviews by star rating before you read anything
Reading a Trustpilot profile top to bottom, most recent first, wastes time. The useful signal is buried inside each star-rating segment, not scattered across the full feed.
Five-star reviews are where delight language lives. These are the phrases you want in your ad copy and product descriptions, because they're the exact words a satisfied customer used to describe why the product worked for them. Read 20 to 30 of these and note anything repeated more than twice.
One- and two-star reviews are where objections and unmet expectations show up. Shipping delays, customer service complaints, product performance that didn't match expectations. This is the fastest way to find what your category consistently fails to deliver, and what you could address directly in your own copy before a customer even asks.
Three-star reviews get skipped most often, which is a mistake. These are usually the most balanced and specific reviews on a profile: "the product works but shipping took too long," or "good quality but not worth the price." Three-star reviewers aren't emotional the way one-star or five-star reviewers often are. They're describing a genuine trade-off, and trade-off language is exactly what you need for honest, credible ad copy.
Step 2: Read competitor profiles, not just your own
Most DTC founders who check Trustpilot at all only check their own brand's profile. That's a missed opportunity. Search Trustpilot for two or three direct competitors in your category and read their reviews the same way: five-star, then one- and two-star, then three-star.
A competitor's negative reviews tell you exactly what an alternative buyer wanted and didn't get. If three separate one-star reviews on a competitor's profile mention "customer service never responded," that's a gap you can close and mention directly, without ever naming the competitor. If their five-star reviews keep praising something you don't currently emphasize, that's a signal your own positioning might be missing an angle your buyers actually care about.
Reading a direct competitor's one- and two-star Trustpilot reviews reveals the exact objections and unmet expectations an alternative buyer experienced, without running a single survey. A DTC brand that closes a gap three separate reviewers named on a competitor's profile, shipping delays, unresponsive support, or unmet product claims, has a real, evidence-backed positioning advantage.
Most competitive research for DTC brands stops at the product page or the ad library. Trustpilot fills a different gap: it shows you the post-purchase experience your competitor's own customers are willing to complain about in public. That's not available anywhere else in the same structured, star-rated format.
How Trustpilot compares to Amazon reviews for DTC research
The two platforms answer different questions. Amazon reviews are tied to one specific product listing, so they're detailed about that exact item: taste, texture, sizing, packaging. Amazon review mining is the right move when you need product-level detail.
Trustpilot reviews are tied to the whole brand relationship. Shipping speed, customer service response time, refund experience, and the product itself all show up in the same feed. That makes Trustpilot the better source when you're researching brand-level trust and positioning, not just one product's specific features.
| Dimension | Trustpilot | Amazon reviews |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Whole brand relationship | Single product listing |
| Best for | Service, shipping, brand trust, positioning | Product-specific detail, feature complaints |
| Verification | Verified vs unverified, both visible | "Verified Purchase" badge only |
| Competitor access | Easy: search any brand's profile directly | Harder: requires finding the exact competing ASIN |
| Category fit | Ecommerce, subscriptions, consumer services, software | Physical products sold on Amazon |
Use both when you can. Trustpilot tells you whether the whole experience, not just the product, is living up to what customers expect. Amazon tells you the specific product detail that made someone happy or disappointed. Together they cover more of the customer journey than either one alone.
Turning Trustpilot reviews into ad copy and positioning
Reading reviews only pays off if you extract the exact wording, not a summary of it. When a five-star review says "finally something that doesn't upset my stomach like every other brand I've tried," that sentence, close to verbatim, belongs in a swipe file, not a paraphrased bullet point about "gentle formulation."
When I pull Trustpilot into a research report, I read the brand's own profile first, then two or three direct competitors, always splitting by star rating before I start. The pattern that shows up fastest is objection language: the same complaint appearing across a competitor's one-star reviews is usually the clearest positioning opening a brand has, and it takes maybe 30 minutes per competitor to find.
Trust in online reviews overall has declined, from 79% of consumers trusting reviews as much as personal recommendations in 2020 down to 42% in 2025 (BrightLocal, 2025). That decline doesn't mean reviews stopped mattering. It means reading them critically, checking verification status, and cross-referencing patterns across a category, produces better research than trusting a single star average at face value.
Want this done for your brand?
Insightios researches Reddit, Amazon reviews, Trustpilot, YouTube, and relevant communities for your specific category and delivers a report with the language your customers actually use.
Once you've pulled the language, the next step is putting it to work. This guide on writing ad copy in customer language covers why founder-voice copy underperforms, and this guide on rewriting ad copy walks through the before-and-after process of swapping in real customer phrases.
Frequently asked questions
Is Trustpilot useful for DTC brands, or is it mainly for software companies?
Trustpilot is genuinely DTC-relevant, unlike Capterra or G2, which are almost entirely B2B software review platforms. Trustpilot covers ecommerce, retail, subscription boxes, supplements, and consumer services, which makes it one of the few review platforms where DTC brands can read both their own reviews and their direct competitors' in one place.
What's the difference between verified and unverified Trustpilot reviews?
Verified reviews are tied to a confirmed transaction, usually because the business invited the customer to review after a purchase. Unverified reviews come from people who found the business profile on their own, with no confirmed purchase. Both count toward the overall score, but verified reviews carry more research weight because you know the person actually bought the product.
Should I read my own Trustpilot reviews or my competitors'?
Both, for different reasons. Your own reviews tell you what your current customers experience and expect. Competitor reviews tell you what an alternative buyer considered, what made them choose a competitor over you, and where that competitor consistently disappoints people. The competitor angle is the one most DTC founders skip.
How many Trustpilot reviews do I need to read before I have enough data?
For a single brand profile, 40 to 60 reviews split across star ratings is usually enough to spot repeating patterns: 20 to 30 five-star reviews for delight language, and 20 to 30 one- and two-star reviews for objections. If you're comparing three or four competitors, expect to read 150 to 200 reviews total before the patterns stop changing.
How is Trustpilot different from reading Amazon reviews?
Amazon reviews are tied to one specific product listing. Trustpilot reviews are tied to the whole brand: shipping speed, customer service, refund experience, and the product itself all show up in the same feed. That makes Trustpilot better for brand-level positioning and service complaints, while Amazon is better for product-specific detail.
What to do next
Pull up your own Trustpilot profile and two direct competitors' this week. Read 20 five-star and 20 one- or two-star reviews on each, and copy the exact phrases that repeat into a document. Don't summarize them yet, just collect them.
Then do the same thing on Amazon and Reddit. Each source gives you a different layer of the same buyer. Together, they give you enough real language to write copy that sounds like it came from someone who actually read what your customers said. (Because it did.)