TrustRating is an open review platform where real customers share their experiences with companies, and where companies build public, verifiable reputations. If you have ever wondered whether an online store ships on time, whether a service provider answers support tickets, or whether a brand stands behind its products, TrustRating exists to answer exactly those questions — with evidence from people who have already been through it.
This guide explains how the platform works from both sides: what you can do as a reviewer, what companies can do with their profiles, and how the systems in between keep everything honest.
The idea in one paragraph
Every company on TrustRating has a public profile page. Anyone with a genuine experience can leave a star rating from one to five along with a written review. Those reviews add up to a TrustScore — a single number that summarizes how customers rate the company, weighted so that recent feedback and consistent volume matter. Companies can claim their profiles for free, reply to reviews publicly, and — on paid plans — invite their customers to review, embed rating widgets on their own websites, and analyze their feedback with built-in tools.
For consumers: research before you buy
The reviewer side of TrustRating is free and always will be. Here is what you can do without spending anything:
- Search and browse companies. Use the search bar or browse by category to find businesses. Every profile shows the company's TrustScore, star distribution, and full review history.
- Read real experiences. Reviews on TrustRating are written by registered users, and each one passes automated integrity checks before or shortly after publication. Reviews connected to a confirmed transaction carry a Verified purchase badge, which tells you the reviewer genuinely bought from the company.
- Write reviews. After creating a free account, you can review any company you have genuinely interacted with. Your review helps the next customer make a better decision — and gives the business honest feedback it can act on.
- Flag problems. If you spot a review that looks fake, offensive, or off-topic, you can report it. Our moderation team investigates every report. You can read more in our guide on reporting a review.
For businesses: your reputation, managed
Companies do not need to wait to be reviewed — any business can claim its profile and take an active role:
- Free forever basics. Claiming is free. Once verified, you can complete your company details, reply to reviews publicly, and monitor your TrustScore.
- Collecting reviews. Paid plans add review invitations: after a sale, you can send your customer a personal invitation link. Reviews written through invitations are marked as verified purchases, which carry more weight with readers.
- Showing off the results. Widgets let you embed your live star rating and latest reviews directly on your own website, turning your reputation into a conversion asset. Badges and marketing assets extend that to email signatures and social media.
- Understanding the feedback. Analytics dashboards track your rating trend, review volume, and reply performance over time, and AI-powered tools can summarize what your customers praise or complain about most.
What makes the reviews trustworthy?
A review platform is only as useful as its reviews are honest. TrustRating invests heavily here, and it is worth understanding the layers:
- Accounts, not anonymous posts. Every review is tied to a registered account with a verified email address. Disposable email domains are detected and scored as risk signals.
- TrustGuard automated screening. Every submitted review is analyzed by TrustGuard, our fraud-detection system. It examines dozens of signals — account age, review bursts, duplicate text, network patterns, and more — and holds suspicious reviews for human moderation instead of publishing them blindly.
- First-review holds. A brand-new account's very first review receives extra scrutiny before going live, unless it comes through a verified purchase invitation.
- Community flagging. Published reviews can be reported by anyone, and companies can flag reviews they believe violate the guidelines. Flags route to human moderators who make the final call.
- Equal rules for everyone. Businesses cannot pay to remove negative reviews. Moderation decisions are based on our published guidelines, not on subscription status.
You can read a deeper explanation in How TrustRating fights fake reviews, and the scoring methodology is documented publicly on our methodology page.
The TrustScore at a glance
The number you see next to every company name is the TrustScore — a value from 1.0 to 5.0. It is not a plain average: it blends the star ratings themselves with how recent the reviews are and how many there are, so a company cannot coast forever on a handful of five-star reviews from years ago. The full breakdown lives in our guide to understanding the TrustScore.
A two-way conversation, not a complaints board
One thing that surprises people coming from older review sites: TrustRating is built for dialogue. When a company replies to your review, you get notified and can read the response right under your original words. If the business genuinely fixes your problem, you are free to update your review and rating to reflect the outcome — and many reviewers do exactly that. For readers, those exchanges are often the most informative part of a profile: they show how a company behaves when something goes wrong, which is precisely when you learn the most about who you are dealing with. For businesses, every reply is a public demonstration of customer care that future buyers will read long after the original reviewer has moved on.
Where to go next
If you are a consumer, the fastest way to get value from TrustRating is to create a free account and write your first review — our guide on writing a great review walks you through it step by step.
If you represent a business, start with claiming your company profile. It takes a few minutes, costs nothing, and immediately gives you the ability to respond to your customers publicly.
And if anything is unclear at any point, our support team is one message away — see getting help from support. Welcome to TrustRating.