You pin recipes, DIY projects, and short videos, and wonder if those pins can pay the bills or land brand deals. Like many creators exploring how to make money on social media, one reason they turn to Pinterest is that the platform offers idea pins, promoted pins, shopping tags, Creator Rewards, and ways to utilize affiliate links or sponsored posts.
So, does Pinterest pay creators, and which options actually produce steady creator earnings, such as ad revenue, brand partnerships, or direct commerce? This guide explains the monetization features, provides real-world examples, and offers clear tactics to help you create viral social media videos next week.To turn those tactics into action, Crayo's clip creator tool helps you edit and format eye-catching clips for Pinterest and other platforms, allowing you to focus on creating content that attracts views and brand deals.
Summary
- Pinterest is a discovery-first platform that delivers sustained, intent-driven visibility. With 85% of Pinners using Pinterest to plan new projects, a well-optimized Pin can continue to attract qualified traffic long after it is published.
- Pinterest no longer offers a platform-wide direct payout system, as the Creator Rewards program ended in late 2022. Although Pinterest historically paid out approximately $20 million in 2022, more than 10,000 creators have received payments through past initiatives.
- Commerce-first tactics dominate creator monetization on Pinterest, supported by shoppable formats and affiliate links, which aligns with data showing 89% of users are on Pinterest for purchase inspiration.
- Paid amplification drives conversions, not just impressions, as evidenced by Sprout Social's reporting, which shows that 50% of users have purchased after seeing a Promoted Pin. Therefore, promoted creatives should accelerate proven organic winners.
- There are 10 practical monetization strategies outlined for creators, ranging from affiliate marketing and sponsored content to selling digital goods, running stores, and utilizing promoted Pins, which underscores that monetization is multi-channel and execution-driven.
- Measurement should start with three funnel metrics: Pin click-through rate, on-site conversion rate from Pin traffic, and lifetime value of Pinterest-origin customers, tracked with UTMs and short test cycles to attribute what actually produces revenue.
- This is where Crayo's clip creator tool fits in; it addresses the production bottleneck by automating captions, cropping, and multi-format exports, allowing teams to compress the idea-to-publish process and reduce per-clip production time.
Table Of Contents
- Benefits of Pinterest Marketing
- Does Pinterest Pay Creators
- How to Make Money on Pinterest
- Dos and Don'ts for Pinterest Marketing
- Create Viral Shorts In Seconds With Crayo
Benefits of Pinterest Marketing
Pinterest marketing pays because it connects intent-driven people with discoverable, visual ideas that continue to deliver value over months and years. It fosters awareness, directs qualified traffic, and establishes conversion pathways that integrate seamlessly with search and commerce features.
1. Increase brand awareness
Pinterest provides brands with sustained visibility to people actively planning projects and making purchases. When users search for a specific idea, they often discover a brand through that exact intent, so impressions are not random; they are qualified. This platform surfaces pins long after you publish them, meaning a single well-optimized asset can introduce your brand to new markets over time. The pattern I observe across lifestyle and service brands is consistent: search-driven discovery yields higher-quality first impressions than passive social scrolling, and relevance compounds as more related pins link back to your profile.
2. Drive more clicks to your website
Pins are designed to direct people onward, so every image serves as a direct pathway to a landing page, offer, or product detail. The trick is writing a tight hook in the image text and matching it to a clear next step on your site, so the click delivers value rather than disappointment. In practice, CTAs that promise a specific outcome, like a step-by-step guide or a product benefit, convert far better than vague “learn more” prompts. Track each pin with UTMs and test two variants, creative or copy, to find the messages that actually move traffic into your funnel.
3. Evergreen content that compounds
Pins don’t evaporate after 24 hours; they keep drawing attention as Pinterest reindexes them for new searches and seasonal trends. Active creators see compound returns: the content you post this month can drive engagement next season without needing to be reposted. The platform rewards consistent activity, so batch-creating fresh pins and re-optimizing high-performers delivers a compounding effect, much like reinvesting interest. Expect a slow build-up curve, then steady momentum, if you treat pins as long-term assets.
4. SEO multiplier for broader discovery
Pinterest can extend your search visibility beyond the app, particularly in Google Image Search and keyword queries. Optimize pin titles, descriptions, alt text, and landing-page metadata to create a dual-visibility asset that ranks both inside Pinterest and on the open web. That means your visual content becomes another SEO channel, attracting organic visitors who might not regularly use Pinterest, and amplifying discovery for the same creative work.
Most teams manage Pinterest logistics with ad-hoc scheduling, spreadsheets, and manual repinning because it feels familiar and requires no new systems. That method works well initially, but as you scale, content fragments across calendars, and seasonal updates slip, it becomes costly to keep evergreen assets up to date. Platforms like Crayo centralize scheduling, automate tag-based repinning, and surface performance insights, turning multi-hour manual workflows into a few clicks while maintaining context and metrics intact.
5. A positive environment that suits brand values
Pinterest is where people go to feel inspired and plan forward, not to argue or debate. For brands that emphasize optimism, helpfulness, or well-being, that environment reduces friction and increases receptiveness to your message. I’ve noticed teams that lead with practical, kind content win trust faster here: helpful how-tos, honest product demos, and curated mood boards attract saves and follow actions more readily than hard-sell posts. If your brand’s narrative centers on empathy or service, Pinterest will amplify that tone rather than dilute it.
6. More direct paths to sales and monetization
Pinterest now supports shoppable formats, product tagging, and richer video experiences that shorten the path from discovery to purchase. Creators can leverage affiliate links and brand partnerships as revenue channels. According to Sprout Social, 89% of users visit Pinterest for purchase inspiration, which explains why conversion-focused creatives perform well on the platform. Use product pins, clear pricing cues, and sequential content that demonstrates value across multiple pins to move buyers from inspiration to checkout or to a booked consult. This also opens creator monetization routes, from paid brand collaborations to affiliate earnings and direct storefronts.
According to Sprout Social, 85% of Pinners say they use Pinterest to plan new projects, which means your pins can become the first step in someone’s practical process, not just another swipeable image.
What creators actually earn from Pinterest is rarely apparent, and that ambiguity makes the following question suddenly urgent.
Does Pinterest Pay Creators
Pinterest does not currently pay creators a general, platform-wide fee for posting content. The Creator Rewards program, which previously allowed eligible creators to earn for specific Idea Pins by hitting engagement targets, ended in late 2022 and was not replaced by a permanent pay-per-post system. Instead, Pinterest now channels creator earning potential indirectly, through commerce and partner-led opportunities.
1. Current payment status, explained
Pinterest does not offer ongoing direct payouts simply for publishing Pins. The platform discontinued its targeted creator payout program in late 2022, and today, you must convert Pinterest attention into revenue through external or partner mechanisms rather than expecting a built-in creator paycheck.
2. What Creator Rewards did
Creator Rewards paid creators for producing Idea Pins that met preset performance goals, like minimum views or saves, essentially turning targeted short-form content into task-based bounties while the program was active.
3. Who qualified for Creator Rewards
Eligibility was narrow, restricted to a handful of countries, required the use of Idea Pins, and enforced account-level rules such as a follower threshold and a U.S. bank account for receiving funds. Those constraints excluded many international creators from the program’s benefits.
4. Timing and closure
The Creator Rewards initiative ran until late 2022 and was subsequently discontinued, leaving a gap that many creators felt keenly as they sought replacement income streams.
5. Historical creator payouts as context
Even before the closure, Pinterest made meaningful investments in creators, with [The Social Shepherd, Pinterest paid out $20 million to creators in 2022. That payout and the fact that [The Social Shepherd, over 10,000 creators have been paid by Pinterest. Pinterest has experimented with creator funding, albeit in a limited and time-bound manner.
6. Paid partnerships, reworded and practical
Direct brand deals remain one of the most direct and clear-cut earning routes. Creators negotiate sponsored posts, tag the brand, and let the brand amplify the content as ads if desired. That arrangement pays through negotiated fees, not through Pinterest’s coffers, so the creator’s leverage is negotiating reach, content quality, and demonstrated conversion.
7. Affiliate links and commerce tactics
Pins can carry affiliate URLs or product links that pay commissions when users click through and make a purchase. This is pure performance economics; you control the offers you promote, and your earnings scale with click-through and purchase rates rather than platform-driven view milestones.
8. Product tagging and storefronts
If you sell products, tagging them in Pins makes discovery shoppable. This converts Pinterest attention directly into checkout flows, which means creators who own inventory treat Pins as a catalog channel rather than a revenue line paid by Pinterest.
9. Using Pinterest to feed monetized platforms
Creators often use Pinterest as a discovery engine that funnels motivated traffic to monetized properties, like blogs, email lists, or YouTube channels. The payoff comes when that referral traffic converts on the destination platform, not from Pinterest itself.
10. Creator inclusion and grant programs
Pinterest runs occasional initiatives that offer grants, promotion, or targeted support to underrepresented creators. These programs provide visibility and sometimes financial support, but they are episodic and selective, not an ongoing publisher revenue model.
11. How creators are feeling and adapting
This pattern appears across niches: creators are frustrated by the absence of a stable, direct payout, and they view the old Rewards rules as unnecessarily restrictive. At the same time, many remain determined to turn Pinterest attention into tangible income, shifting strategy toward partnerships, affiliate funnels, and cross-platform traffic plans.
Most creators handle short-form production by stitching clips, manually captioning, and matching music by hand, as it is familiar and requires no new tools. That approach works for sporadic posts, but as you try to scale, production time balloons, consistency collapses, and opportunities from campaign-based brand deals are missed. Teams find that platforms like clip creator tools compress ideas to create short videos by automating captions, effects, and music selection, reducing repetitive work while maintaining creative control.
A quick analogy to make it tangible
Think of Pinterest as a high-traffic storefront window, not a cash register; it shows your work to shoppers, but you still need a checkout lane you control to capture payment.
Crayo AI is the fastest way to create short videos, producing unlimited shorts at once while auto-generating captions, effects, background, and music so you can scale production without adding hours to your week. Try Crayo’s free clip creator tool today, click the Try Now button on the homepage, and go from prompt to viral short videos in minutes with no account required.
That unresolved gap between visibility and payoffs is where the next, more challenging questions reside.
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How to Make Money on Pinterest
Pinterest can be a direct revenue engine if you treat each Pin as a conversion opportunity and match the proper monetization method to where your audience is in the buying process. Below, I outline ten practical, distinct ways to earn, along with execution steps, measurement tips, and standard failure modes to avoid.
1. Affiliate marketing
What to do, precisely: partner with affiliate networks and embed tracked links in Pins or in the Pin destination, then design creatives that preview a product benefit and a single next step. Test two link locations for each Pin, one that goes straight to the merchant and one that goes to a short landing page with a clear affiliate disclosure and CTA. Measure click-through rate, tracked affiliate clicks, and conversion rate; focus on items that naturally align with your niche to minimize post-click friction. Watch out for broken redirects and outdated affiliate links; they erode trust and can result in lost commissions.
2. Sponsored content and brand collaborations
How to negotiate and deliver: lead with outcomes, not impressions. Create a one-page offer that shows past Pin-based conversions, an expected CTR range, and a two-week creative plan. When delivering, provide brands with both static and vertical video assets sized for high saves and close-up product details, along with a simple UTM tracking matrix so that you can prove ROI. If you lack case studies, sell a short pilot with a performance-based bonus, which lowers the brand’s risk while you build evidence.
3. Drive traffic to monetized destinations
Where to funnel Pinterest traffic for revenue: blogs, YouTube channels, and email sequences that already earn money. Make the Pin promise explicit, then match the landing experience to that promise. For example, a Pin promising a “5-step decluttering checklist” should land on a single-purpose page that captures email in exchange for the checklist, not a generic homepage. Track downstream metrics, not just Pin clicks, so that you can attribute earnings back to each creative.
4. Promote your own products or services
Tactical execution: create Pins that illustrate a real use case, include one strong visual of the product in context, and show the price or a clear next step. Use simple micro-conversions on landing pages, like “reserve a consult” or “add to cart,” to capture intent before asking for a full purchase. If you sell services, include short client testimonials and a visible scheduling widget to eliminate friction.
5. Sell digital goods and templates
Why this scales: digital products have near-zero marginal costs once made, so your focus should be on conversion rate and SEO. Design Pins that show the result a buyer gets from the template, then A/B test thumbnail text and benefit-first headlines. Protect your funnels with a one-click checkout and an immediate delivery email; delays create cancellation anxiety and return requests.
6. Run an e-commerce or online store
Operational details that matter: keep product metadata in sync between your store and your Pins, display inventory status in the Pin description, and optimize product images for both mobile and desktop devices. Use price and shipping transparency to reduce cart abandonment. If you use catalog feeds, validate them weekly to prevent stale listings from creating frustrated buyers.
7. Print-on-demand
How to reduce risk and increase conversions: treat designs like products, test small runs with promoted Pins to identify winning art, then scale winners. Add mockups that show the product in real life to help buyers consider ownership. Use fulfillment partner previews and guaranteed shipping windows on the product page to alleviate the stress buyers feel when purchasing feels risky or non-refundable.
8. Invest in Pinterest ads and promoted Pins
Make paid spend accountable: run tight experiments with a single variable changed at a time, like headline or image crop, and measure cost-per-click, cost-per-conversion, and return on ad spend. Use promoted Pins to accelerate a proven organic creative, not to test unproven concepts. Maintain frequency and creative rotation to prevent ad fatigue from eroding key metrics.
9. Join group and collaborative boards
How to use them strategically: pick boards with consistent moderation and high-quality contributors, then schedule only your best-performing Pins there. Track referral traffic from each board separately, because reach without relevant clicks is vanity. If you post too many varied topics to a single collaborative board, you dilute the board’s intent and reduce saves and follows.
10. Optimize Pin SEO and use rich Pin types
Execution beyond basics: map a keyword hierarchy to your content calendar, then reuse those keywords in Pin titles, image text, and landing page metadata so search signals align. Use Product Pins to surface price and availability in the native experience, and Article Pins to include a clear headline and author info that increases credibility. Monitor long-term engagement; some Pins compound value over months, so treat a high-performing Pin like an asset to iterate on.
A pattern I see repeatedly: creators scale content by manually editing the same short clips, which feels familiar and works for a few campaigns, but as volume grows, the process consumes hours and causes inconsistent quality. That hidden cost shows up as missed brand deals and slower ad testing. Teams find that platforms like the clip creator tool automate captioning, cropping, and variant generation, cutting per-asset production time from hours to minutes while keeping control over final edits.
Human friction, you must address
This is about trust and human emotion, not tactics alone. One recurring pattern across product categories is simple: when purchases look risky, people pause. That hesitation is likely due to abandoned carts or low affiliate conversions. Clear return policies, honest shipping estimates, and imagery that reflects diverse customers reduce that anxiety and increase conversion. Another pattern emerges with apparel and beauty items, where buyers exhibit a high sensitivity to appearance. Ads and product pages that feature inclusive models and clear fit guidance lower shame-driven abandonment and build repeat buyers.
What to measure and optimize first
Start with three funnel metrics: Pin CTR, on-site conversion rate from Pin traffic, and lifetime value of customers originating from Pinterest. If the CTR is low, refine the imagery and headline to improve performance. If on-site conversion stalls, simplify the landing page promise. If LTV is weak, audit your post-purchase experience and retention flows. Use short test cycles, track results with UTM codes, and scale what reliably drives revenue.
A simple analogy to keep this practical
Think of Pins as signal fires on a shoreline; if your landing page is only a rocky beach, ships see the light and sail past. Fix the dock, the queue, and the paperwork, and passengers become customers.
And that simple insight changes everything about how you think about this.
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Dos and Don'ts for Pinterest Marketing
Pinterest works when you treat it like a curated catalog plus a search engine: publish visually clean work, organize it around real use cases, and make each Pin an obvious next step for the person who finds it. Follow the practical do’s and don’ts below to ensure your content converts attention into action, rather than just noise.
Do 1. Use Crayo AI to produce short-form video fast
Crayo AI turns outlines into finished short videos with auto captions, effects, background clips, and music, so you can batch dozens of vertical clips without wrestling with editors. Write a quick prompt, select a style and voice from the free templates, make any necessary tweaks, and then export. Creators use these clips for idea Pins, product demos, and multi-variant ad tests. Try Crayo’s free clip creator tool today. Click the "Try Now" button on the homepage to get started - no account required.
Do 2. Start with five purpose-driven boards
Create five boards that address real problems your audience faces, not vague themes. If you sell beauty products, create boards like “5-Minute Workday Looks,” “Skin Prep for Foundation,” and “Seasonal Touch-Ups,” then pin a handful of high-quality examples so each board appears useful immediately. Treat each board like a one-page landing experience.
Do 3. Build a private pin library for future campaigns
Save ideas and assets to a secret board, add the source link in the caption, and include notes about when or why you’ll reuse it. Think of the secret board as your editorial queue and ad asset vault, so you can deploy tested creative quickly when a trend or promotion aligns.
Do 4. Design a cover image that sells the board’s promise
Pick a bright, uncluttered image that communicates what people will find if they click the board. Test two cover crops and choose the one that generates the most saves and clicks in the first week. A good cover reduces decision friction the moment a visitor lands on your profile.
Do 5. Prioritize direct responses, not just passive likes
Send short, polite DMs to people who save or comment, offer a downloadable checklist or a quick answer, and invite them to join a targeted email sequence. Those small, personal moves convert saves into measurable leads.
Do 6. Monitor competitors to steal framework, not copy content
Track the formats, posting cadence, and calls to action that competitors reuse successfully. Reverse-engineer the hypothesis behind a top-performing pin and adapt the idea to your product and voice rather than recreating their exact creative.
Do 7. Turn strong blog posts into visual how-tos
For long-form content, make a 3-card visual summary or an infographic that highlights steps and outcomes. The Pin’s job is to sell the post’s single most useful outcome, so design the image and title to clearly promise that benefit.
Do 8. Join and contribute to collaborative boards selectively
Apply to group boards that show recent activity and clear curation rules, then post your best assets there at a measured rate. Collaborative boards can increase reach, but only when the board’s audience aligns with your niche and moderators enforce quality.
Do 9. Use native analytics to pick the winners to scale
Track impressions, saves, click-throughs, and downstream conversions from Pin traffic, then double down on the top 10 percent of creatives that generate the most referral revenue. Treat analytics as a production filter: invest in what has proven return instead of spreading budget evenly.
Do 10. Add structured product metadata when possible
Enable rich product metadata on product pages and validate your feed to ensure that Pins display price and availability correctly. That small technical step reduces clicks wasted on out-of-stock items and raises trust with buyers.
Do 11. Make image quality nonnegotiable
Shoot or design tall, crisp images with clear focal points and simple on-image text that answers “what’s in it for me.” Mobile-first crops should never hide the product or the key benefit.
Do 12. Encode search intent into descriptions and titles
Place primary keywords early in Pin titles and descriptions, then use human language for the rest. The right keywords help your Pins surface for people actively planning projects or purchases.
Do 13. Publish alternate images that point to the same URL
If an older article lacks a Pin-ready image, create new visuals and pin them to the same landing page, then A/B test which image drives a better click-to-conversion rate. Multiple thumbnails broaden reach across different search queries.
Do 14. Schedule a steady drip, not an all-at-once dump
Post consistently and use a scheduler to spread variants over days and weeks, so Pinterest’s algorithm has material to re-evaluate. Promote your top organic hits with small ad budgets to determine which creatives are most effective and deserve scaling. Remember that promoted creatives often close the purchase loop, as Sprout Social reports that 50% of users have purchased after seeing a Promoted Pin, indicating that paid amplification can be directly conversionary.
Do 15. Cross-promote where audiences already follow you
Announce your best Pins in other channels with an apparent reason to click, such as an exclusive download or a time-limited offer. Use platform-specific hooks instead of copying the same caption across multiple networks.
Most teams stitch short clips together by hand because the workflow is familiar and requires no new subscriptions, and that approach works for a handful of posts. As volume grows, editing, captioning, and format variants eat hours, creative consistency slips, and campaign readiness stalls. Platforms like Crayo compress those steps by automating captions, effects, and multi-format exports, reducing per-clip production time from hours to minutes while maintaining creative control.
Don’t 1. Post soft, low-resolution imagery
Blurry or poorly lit photos get scrolled past and cost saves and followers. If a shot is marginal, reframe, retouch, or skip it.
Don’t 2. Ignore the value of curated group boards
Avoid boards with low activity or lax moderation; they waste effort and dilute your signal. Contribute where your content will actually be seen and saved by engaged users.
Don’t 3. Only pin your own content, all the time
Strike a balance between self-promotion and complementary content that your customers genuinely care about. A healthy mix increases credibility and expands what followers save from you.
Don’t 4. Let posting be sporadic and reactive
Inconsistent activity prevents the algorithm from giving your content a chance to compound. Utilize scheduling to maintain a consistent presence.
Don’t 5. Make your profile discoverability-harmful
Use a clear, keyword-rich profile name and concise bio so people searching for your offering can find you quickly. Hidden or vague profiles lose followers before they get a chance to engage.
Don’t 6. Leave boards half-filled or uncurated
Empty or tiny boards undermine trust. If you don't have content ready, keep the boards private until they reach a reasonable size and quality.
Don’t 7. Forgot to add a Pin It button to product pages
Make sharing easy and control the default image so the most persuasive visual travels with the share.
Don’t 8. Overload descriptions with hashtags
Hashtags on Pinterest do not substitute for clear, keyword-led copy. Use a handful of relevant tags at most and focus on helpful description text.
Don’t 9. Scatter pins without a thematic structure
Avoid pinning everything to the first board that comes to mind. Organize assets by specific intent and use case, so visitors can quickly find what they need.
Don’t 10. Dump every pin into one board
Segment by theme, outcome, or audience so each board becomes a helpful collection rather than a catchall. That makes follow and save behavior easier to trigger for each visitor. It turns browsing into conversion opportunities, because many users use Pinterest to plan projects, as noted by Sprout Social. 85% of Pinners say they use Pinterest to plan new projects, which underscores why organization matters for discovery.
What creators unlock when they compress ideas to publish in minutes is more consequential than faster editing.
Create Viral Shorts In Seconds With Crayo
We know it's exhausting when your content calendar becomes a treadmill, speed threatens quality, and burnout steals your best ideas, so you want a way to ship shorts reliably without losing craft. Tools can help, and Crayo is built for that: Generate viral shorts in seconds, and 90% of users report increased engagement with Crayo-created shorts, so give the free clip creator a quick test drive and see how fast you can turn an outline into a polished short with no account required.
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