Guide to Create a Review Website Like Trustpilot

I have noticed a huge demand for global review platforms: consumers trust other users more than ads. In fact, Trustpilot found that 89% of global shoppers check online reviews before buying. Another study even showed 95% of users rely on reviews to evaluate products. With numbers like these, it’s clear a good review site can attract a massive audience. People around the world want a trustworthy place to read and write feedback, so building a review platform (like Trustpilot) can fill a real need.

I’m proud to share that I’m part of Triple Minds, where we’ve already developed a powerful review and listing platform like Trustpilot which is more powerfull and feature rich that goes beyond what Trustpilot offers. Our solution combines the best features of Trustpilot, G2, and Sitejabber—all in one highly customizable package. Whether you’re looking for business reviews, product feedback, or SaaS listing capabilities, our platform is built to scale and adapt.

You can check out some of our live demos here:

1. Make An App Like
2. AllAItools.ai
3. Muzmatch

If you have any custom needs, we’re ready to tailor the platform for your business. Contact us today to schedule a free demo and see it in action.

Technology Stack to develop website like Trustpilot

For the tech stack, I lean on Laravel (a modern PHP framework) and simple PHP (“POP”) code for the core logic. Laravel comes with user auth, email, queues, caching, and many built-in tools, which makes development fast and efficient. Its open-source nature keeps costs low – it’s free to use, letting startups stay on budget. I’d pair Laravel with a MySQL or PostgreSQL database, and deploy on a cloud server or container service. For example, Laravel Cloud offers a basic production plan at $20/month (plus usage), or one can start on a $5–$20/month VPS (DigitalOcean, AWS, etc.). This LAMP-ish stack (Linux/Apache/DB/PHP) plus Laravel’s packages lets me build quickly while keeping infrastructure costs minimal. As traffic grows, I can add things like Redis caching, AWS S3 for media, or a load balancer – all with known, controlled costs.\

Plan Features While Developing Trustpilot like Website

My platform would include all basic review features plus advanced tools to boost trust and usability. For basic functionality, I will have:

• Product/Business Listings: Pages for each item or company, with images, descriptions, and category tags.
• Star Ratings & Reviews: Users give 1–5 stars and write text feedback (and optionally upload photos of the product or visit).
• Search and Filters: Fast searching by name or category, with filters (e.g. rating, date) so users find the right listing.
• Verified Indicators: Badges or flags for “verified purchaser” or social-login users to enhance credibility.
• Sorting & Sorting: Reviews can be sorted by date or helpfulness, so users see fresh content.
• Business Profiles: Companies can claim their page and update details (logo, website, contact).

Beyond the basics, I’ll add advanced features to stand out:

• Fraud Detection: Tools to catch fake reviews (CAPTCHAs on review forms, rate limits per account, content checks). Studies suggest around 10% of reviews may be fake on some platforms, so flagging suspicious patterns is crucial.
• AI Sentiment Analysis: Use a machine-learning model to highlight positive, negative, and neutral sentiments in each review. This can flag trends (e.g. if many users mention “slow support” or “great battery”), and surface overall sentiment scores for businesses.
• Topic Clustering: Automatically tag and group reviews by topic (customer service, price, quality, etc.) so readers can quickly see what users care about.
• Review Invitations: Automation to email or SMS customers after purchase asking them to review, increasing response rate.
• Business Replies: Allow businesses to reply publicly to reviews (e.g. “Thank you” or “We’re sorry, please contact us”), showing engagement and transparency.
• User Rewards: Gamification like badges or points for active reviewers (“Top Reviewer” tag or discounts), to motivate participation.
• Multi-language Support: The platform will support multiple languages and currencies for global reach.

These features (fraud checks, sentiment/NLP, search) ensure the site is powerful and user-friendly. By comparison, Trustpilot itself uses AI to identify sentiments in reviews, so a homegrown system can copy that idea. Overall, the platform would feel familiar to users but have the cutting-edge tools needed for credibility and scale.

Pricing to Create Trustpilot like Portal

To give a rough budget, I break costs into development, hosting, and scaling:

• Development: A custom MVP with core features (design, frontend, backend) can cost on the order of $15,000 and take 4–6 weeks. This includes a small team (developer, designer, tester). More features (advanced AI, multi-language, mobile apps) add extra cost, so a fuller platform could run $30k–$50k to build.

• Hosting: A basic Laravel hosting plan starts around $20/month or $5–$20/month on a simple VPS. This covers one server instance and database. As users grow, I’d move to multiple servers or cloud services – for example, adding a second web server, a CDN for assets, or a managed database. In practice, expect $50–$200/month at scale for production hosting, plus occasional costs for email services or SMS APIs.

• Maintenance: I’d budget maybe $100–$300 per month for ongoing maintenance (bug fixes, minor updates, backups). Security updates (Laravel releases, PHP updates) are critical, so a small retainer for developer time covers that.

User Dashboard Flow

I design the user flow to be as straightforward as possible:

• Sign Up / Login: The user registers with email/password or logs in via social accounts (Google/Facebook). This takes 1–2 minutes.
• Search/Browse: On login, the user sees a search bar or categories. They type a product/business name or pick a category (e.g. “Smartphones” or “Coffee Shops”).
• View Listing: The chosen item’s page shows its average star rating, key details, and a list of recent reviews. Users can scroll reviews, filter by rating or keyword, and see summary stats.
• Submit a Review: To leave feedback, the user clicks “Add Review.” A form appears where they select a star rating, write comments, and optionally upload a photo (e.g. their purchase or experience). They can also check a “Verified Purchase” box or link a receipt, if implemented.
• Publish: After submission, the review is either immediately visible or queued for admin moderation (depending on settings). The user gets a confirmation message or email.
• Personal Profile: The user has a dashboard listing all their reviews. They can edit or delete them, see any replies from businesses, and track any points/badges earned.

Throughout this flow, I keep the language friendly and the steps clear. In my experience, users abandon reviews if forms are too long. So I’ll keep forms minimal (few required fields) and avoid forcing sign-ups before showing some content. The goal is “search → read → review” in a few clicks.

Admin Controls

As the site owner, I need a powerful back-office dashboard. I build an admin panel with these tools:

• Review Moderation: A queue that shows all new reviews and any flagged content. As admin, I can quickly approve, edit, or delete reviews. I can also see reports of spam or abuse from users.

Monetization and Use Cases

When it comes to making money, a review platform offers several avenues. For monetization, I might:

• SaaS Subscriptions: Offer paid plans to businesses for premium features. For example, a company could pay $X/month to remove our ads from its listing page, get analytics on its reviews, or highlight positive reviews on its own site.
• Affiliate Marketing: Integrate affiliate links in reviews. If a product is reviewed, I can link to retail sites (Amazon, eBay) and earn a commission on sales. Since 89% of shoppers check reviews, many clicks could drive affiliate revenue.
• Advertising: Display targeted ads or sponsored listings. For instance, a “sponsored” slot at the top of search results or ads in the sidebar. Businesses might pay for this exposure.
• Data Insights: Sell anonymized market research. With thousands of reviews, I can aggregate data (e.g. top complaints, feature requests) and offer insights to manufacturers or analysts.

In terms of use cases, the platform can be applied in different ways. I could launch it as a niche review site (for example, just for healthcare providers or hotels) to serve a specific community. Alternatively, I can sell or license it as a white-label SaaS product: other companies pay me to run their own private review portal (for an internal tool or a vertical market). It could also work as a specialized trustmark service (like letting vetted companies display verified badges on their site with our reviews behind them). Basically, any situation where users value peer feedback – whether consumer goods, local services, or software – is a potential use case. By mixing these models, the platform can generate revenue while providing value. Companies often happily pay for better reputation and insights, and consumers benefit from a free, ad-supported review ecosystem.

Conclusion

Building a global review platform is an exciting challenge. I’ve actually built an even more feature-rich version of this idea through my company, Triple Minds. We combined everything above (and more) into a ready-made portal solution. If you want to launch your own Trustpilot-like site quickly, you don’t have to start from scratch – contact Triple Minds and you can get a turnkey review platform with all the bells and whistles. With the right tech (Laravel, smart AI features) and a solid plan, your startup can ride the review-wave and give customers the trust they’re looking for.

Sources: Building trust through reviews; Laravel’s cost-effectiveness; Sample MVP development costs; Laravel Cloud pricing; Review fraud stats; AI sentiment in reviews.