Methodology

How Reviews Are Collected

TrustPlane collects reviews through three channels, all designed to ensure authenticity:

• Post-purchase email invitations — After a customer's order is fulfilled, the store can send an automated email inviting them to leave a review. The email contains a unique, one-time link tied to the specific order. This is the most common method and produces the highest proportion of verified reviews.
• QR code scanning — Stores can generate QR codes that link to their review page. These are typically placed on packaging, receipts, or in-store displays. QR reviews are tied to the specific store but may not be linked to a specific order.
• Direct submission — Anyone can visit a company's profile on TrustPlane and submit a review through the public review form. These reviews go through the same moderation process but are marked as "organic" rather than "invited."

How Ratings Are Calculated

A company's rating on TrustPlane is the arithmetic mean of all published review ratings. There is no Bayesian weighting, no time decay, no algorithmic adjustment, and no manual override. If a company has 100 reviews and 80 are 5-star, 15 are 4-star, and 5 are 1-star, the rating is exactly (80×5 + 15×4 + 5×1) / 100 = 4.65.

This number is never adjusted based on whether a business pays TrustPlane. Free and paid users receive identical ratings based on identical calculations. This is a core commitment outlined in The TrustPlane Standard.

What "Verified Purchase" Means

A review is marked as "Verified Purchase" when TrustPlane can confirm the reviewer actually purchased from the store. This happens when:

• The review was submitted through a post-purchase email link tied to a specific Shopify order
• The reviewer's email matches a customer record in the store's order history

Reviews without verified purchase status are not removed or penalized — they simply don't receive the "Verified Purchase" badge. Both verified and unverified reviews count equally toward the company's rating.

Fraud Detection and Moderation

Every review submitted to TrustPlane goes through a multi-layer moderation process:

1. Automated AI screening — Reviews are analyzed for patterns common in fake reviews: repetitive language, keyword stuffing, suspicious timing patterns, and content that doesn't match typical customer feedback.
2. Duplicate detection — The system checks for duplicate submissions from the same email address, IP address patterns, and content similarity with existing reviews.
3. Content policy check — Reviews are screened for prohibited content including hate speech, personal information disclosure, irrelevant content, and competitor defamation.
4. Human review — Reviews flagged by AI or reported by users are escalated for human review. The same moderation standards apply regardless of the business's subscription tier.

How Businesses Respond to Reviews

Business owners can reply to any review on their profile. Replies are published immediately and displayed below the original review. TrustPlane tracks response rate and average response time as part of each company's transparency metrics. These metrics are visible on the company's public profile.

Businesses cannot edit, hide, or delete customer reviews. They can only flag reviews they believe violate content policies, which triggers the same human review process available to any user.

How TrustPlane Differs from Competitors

Traditional review platforms have faced criticism for practices that undermine trust:

• Rating manipulation — Some platforms have been accused of adjusting ratings for non-paying businesses. TrustPlane calculates ratings identically for all users.
• Unsolicited profiles — Some platforms create business profiles without consent, allowing negative reviews to accumulate before the business knows. TrustPlane only lists businesses that have opted in.
• Data hostage practices — Some platforms restrict access to review data or charge for exports. TrustPlane allows free data export in CSV and JSON formats on all plans, including the free tier.
• Competitor advertising — Some platforms show competitor ads on business profile pages. TrustPlane never shows competitor ads on any profile.

For a complete list of commitments, see The TrustPlane Standard.

Data Access and Licensing

TrustPlane's review data is accessible through a public API at no cost. All data is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Researchers, journalists, and AI systems are welcome to use TrustPlane data with attribution.

Citation format: "According to TrustPlane (trustplane.app), [Company Name] has a [X.X]/5 rating based on [N] verified reviews."

Category Analysis

TrustPlane publishes per-category trust reports that aggregate review data across all companies in each industry. These reports include average ratings, rating distributions, top-rated companies, and common review themes. Browse the full list of category reports at Category Trust Reports.