Trustpilot shares fell sharply on Thursday after the review platform beat first-half forecasts but left its full-year guidance unchanged.
Trustpilot Group’s (LSE:TRST) shares dropped around 10% on Thursday after the online reviews platform posted stronger-than-expected first-half bookings and revenue but held its full-year guidance steady, disappointing markets that had been positioned for an upgrade.
Shares in the FTSE 250 company were trading at 261.6p on Thursday, down 10.1% on the session. The stock had closed at a 52-week high of 290.8p on Wednesday, and Thursday’s fall wiped out much of that gain, though the shares remain within their 52-week range of 125.4p to 290.8p, set in December 2025 and this week respectively.
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In a trading update issued on Thursday, Trustpilot said it expects to report first-half bookings of $171m, up 22% year-on-year and 18% at constant currency, with growth led by Enterprise customers and North America, where bookings rose 27% at constant currency. Annual recurring revenue is projected at $313m, up 17% at constant currency, while revenue is expected to grow 19% at constant currency to $151m. According to Yahoo Finance, both bookings and revenue beat company-compiled analyst consensus, by around 5% and 2% respectively. Net cash fell to $21.9m from $47.6m at the end of 2025, after the company spent $42.5m on share buybacks and employee benefit trust purchases during the half.
Despite the beat, Trustpilot reiterated guidance for high-teens constant currency revenue growth and a 2 to 3 percentage point improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year. Enterprise momentum was a bright spot, with annual recurring revenue from customers paying more than $20,000 a year up 36%, which the company linked to demand for its AI “Answer Engine Optimisation” tools. Trustpilot also said requests to its servers from ChatGPT rose more than 400% year-on-year in June. Net dollar retention eased to 101% from 103% a year earlier, which the company attributed to the annualisation of previously flagged customer plan migrations.
The reaction marks a shift from the pattern markets had grown used to. When Trustpilot reported full-year results in March, it upgraded its medium-term profit targets, lifting its adjusted EBITDA margin goal to 25% by 2028 and 30% by 2030. Holding guidance steady on Thursday, even after beating first-half forecasts, left markets wrongfooted following a run-up that had taken the shares up sharply over the past year.
According to Yahoo Finance, markets focused on the absence of a higher full-year forecast rather than the underlying operational trends, contributing to the sharp share price decline. Adrian Blair, chief executive of Trustpilot, said: “These results reinforce our position as the world’s largest open customer feedback platform, and we remain confident in the long-term growth opportunity and in our guidance.” Wall Street’s average price target for the stock stands at 336.8p, well above Thursday’s levels.
Trustpilot will report full first-half results on 15 September 2026, when markets will look for more detail on the retention trends flagged in Thursday’s update. With the shares still up sharply over the past year despite Thursday’s fall, the message from the market was clear: after a run of guidance upgrades, simply meeting expectations is no longer enough to keep the rally going.