Trustpilot reports 18% bookings growth, raises margin targets By Investing.com

Trustpilot reported 2025 bookings growth of 18% in constant currency to $291 million, revenue of $261 million, and adjusted EBITDA up 69% to $40.7 million, lifting the margin to 15.6% from more than 4 percentage points lower a year ago. Active reviews rose 20% to 361 million, AI click-throughs to the platform increased nearly fifteen-fold, and the company lifted medium-term margin targets to 25% by 2028 and 30% by 2030. Trustpilot also returned $71.6 million via buybacks and approved an additional $30 million repurchase.

Analysis

TRST is evolving from a pure consumer trust brand into a traffic monetization asset with unusual leverage to AI discovery. If AI-driven referrals keep compounding, the market may underestimate how quickly the company can shift from “review site” economics to a higher-ROI demand-aggregation layer, which supports both pricing power and better operating leverage. The key second-order effect is that AI citation visibility can create a winner-take-most loop: more citations drive more reviews, which improve relevance, which drives still more citations.

The margin upgrade matters more than the headline growth because it implies the business is entering a phase where incremental revenue should fall through at a much higher rate than the market has assumed. That creates room for continued buybacks without starving investment, which can mechanically support EPS even if top-line growth normalizes. Competitively, this pressures adjacent review and discovery platforms that rely on generic search traffic, because AI referral paths tend to be more concentrated and sticky once a domain becomes a default source.

The main risk is not execution, but durability of AI traffic economics: if large language models alter citation ranking, or if Trustpilot’s pages are scraped/abstracted rather than clicked through, the conversion monetization loop could break over 2-4 quarters. Another risk is valuation slippage if investors extrapolate the current growth/margin mix too aggressively and ignore normalization in bookings growth after a very strong comparison base. The catalyst path is clear: July trading update, then evidence over the next 6-12 months that AI referrals convert into paid demand and not just vanity traffic.

Consensus likely still treats this as a quality compounder rather than a structurally advantaged AI distribution asset. That is the gap: if AI search becomes a durable acquisition channel, TRST’s medium-term margin target may prove conservative, making the stock rerate on both growth and quality-of-earnings. If the AI traffic signal is transient, the current enthusiasm can unwind quickly because the market is paying for a step-change in monetization, not just a decent software print.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long TRST on a 3-6 month horizon into the July 16 trading update; risk/reward is attractive if AI referral conversion is confirmed, with downside limited by buybacks and margin expansion.
• Add to TRST only on intraday or post-update weakness if management reiterates AI traffic strength; that is the cleanest entry because the stock should re-rate on evidence, not narrative.
• Pair trade: long TRST / short a search-dependent review or discovery name over the next 6-12 months to express the view that AI distribution is concentrating traffic rather than commoditizing it.
• Use a call spread in TRST into H2 2026 if available liquidity permits; upside comes from multiple expansion on margin target credibility, while premium is capped if AI traffic proves noisy.
• Reduce or fade TRST if the July update shows AI click-through growth decelerating sharply; that would challenge the core rerating thesis and likely compress the multiple within 1-2 quarters.