So you’re looking into Trustpilot vs Google reviews for your business as a way of collecting reviews from your customers. It’s a common question as they are both up there as leading review collecting platforms. 

Comparing Google reviews vs Trustpilot doesn’t result in a straightforward answer of one is better than the other as it will vary depending on your industry/market, the size of your business and the number of reviews you’ll want to collect. 

When TrustPilot is the better option

In general, TrustPilot is used by more ecommerce, tech and service based business, you may have experienced this when searching from reviews yourself. If you’re in hospitality for example you may find that other platforms such as Google, Yelp or Tripadvisor may be more appropriate for your sector.

For many TrustPilot is a great option for many reasons, one being how well known the platform is and how this is trusted by users around the world. 

As you’d expect from one of the world’s best known review sites they have all the features you’d expect for your business to maximise both the collection of reviews but also how you display, reply and interact with them. Note that some of the better features are only available in the paid plans.

Cost wise, it can be effective for you depending on your size and needs, for smaller businesses wanting to send 100 or fewer review invitations a month then you can get on the TrustPilot free plan so it won’t cost you either, after this plans start at $250/month and go up to $900+/month for large enterprises. You can get 10% off these plans with this TrustPilot discount code if you are looking to use one of the paid plans.

You'll see an example of a Trustpilot profile page for a business below, you'll see how they show reviews and how it's all displayed, chances are you'll have seen these types of pages before.

Pros of Trustpilot

Along with the basic features you’d expect TrustPilot has the following great features:

• Range of ways to collect reviews - from widgets to easy email inclusion, this means it can increase your chances of getting the reviews you want
• Ability to showcase your reviews on your site - from displaying your star rating, your review counts and the actual reviews themselves
• Removal of reviews - from time to time fake or malicious reviews are left, these can be very damaging to your brand, TrustPilot will look into these and remove if they agree with you.
• Options for creating image and video reviews
• Easy ability for you to share reviews on social
• Option to have ad-free pages on paid plans
• Analytics to help you understand and learn from the reviews
• Variety of integrations including with helpdesks, ecommerce platforms and marketing software

Cons of Trustpilot

As with any service, there are some downsides that you may want to consider.

• It’s not the cheapest, if you’re looking for a low cost profile and want more than 100 invites for reviews per month then you’ll be looking at $250+ a month per domain/business you have
• No impact on your search results in terms of positioning

How to save money on Trustpilot plans

If you do opt to with Trustpilot as your preferred tool for reviews then make sure to use the below steps to save 10% on plans as well as getting faster onboading.

1. Visit Trustpilot via this link
2. Fill in the form
3. Trustpilot will get in touch with you in 24-48 hours
4. They'll have a note of a 10% discount (mention you came via FounderPass if they don't)

Remember using the above message, you'll get advantage of:

• 10% off paid plans
• Faster priority onboarding

This option saves you money off the prices you see on the Trustpilot.com website, we can offer this as we partner with Trustpilot to help others find the right review platform for their business.

When Google Reviews is the better option

If you run a business in hospitality then using Google as a platform for collecting your reviews can be a good option, of course if you’re not in this sector then we wouldn’t say not to consider it, just it’s one of the most popular sectors for this option.

It all can be set up and managed in your Google Business Profile Manager and will allow you to display your rating within your website, users will also be able to see the review star rating as well as each review under your business section on Google.

Below you'll see an example of how the Google reviews show up when people use local searches (i.e for a service like a plumber in London), this is quite clear how effective this can be.

Pros of Google Reviews

For many companies Google Reviews can be a go to obvious answer, the positives of using them to collect reviews include:

• Ease of set up - it’s really fast and easy to set up, especially if you already have a Google Business profile set up
• It’s free to set up and collect reviews
• Ideal for service based businesses - as reviews are linked to your business name, therefore will show up in search and on Google Maps, this is fantastic for service based businesses.
• Lots of reviews can lead to more visibility within Google Search which can lead to more business and leads

Cons of Google Reviews

There are some downsides to using Google as your review collection choice, these include:

• Hard to remove reviews - many users have found when you need to remove a review for genuine reasons i.e it’s a fake review, one done by a competitor etc it can be very difficult to get Google to remove it.
• Customers must have a Google account to leave a review, meaning if many of your customers don’t then you may lose a lot of reviews.
• Not suit

TrustPilot vs Google Reviews Summary

When it comes to selecting a platform to collect reviews it’s always essential to investigate and weigh up each platform and see how it will fit your business, however in our opinion there are some scenarios when one is a more obvious decision. 

If you run an ecommerce, SaaS or big business that is not in the hospitality or hands on service area then Trustpilot is in our view the better option. This is because if you’re small and you’re looking for a lower cost then the free plan is a great way to start and collect up to 100 reviews each month.

For the larger companies willing to spend a few hundred dollars each month on Trustpilot plans you’ll open up a wide range of features and increase the number of potential reviews you can collect. We all know that a good overall review can be the determining factor between a customer going with you or deciding not to. 

If you do own a service based or business that relies on Google local listings/maps for a lot your business then Google reviews is most cases will be the better option. For example if you’re a plumbing business with 5 plumbers working in a few cities then Google should suit you better as these reviews when they pop up under your listing on Google maps will convert better than if you have a Trustpilot review profile. 

Don't forget to take advantage of the 10% discount if you choose to use Trustpilot for your reviews which can be found at the top of this page.