How to Make Money on Pinterest: 2025 Beginner’s Guide

Ever scrolled through Pinterest and thought, “Wait, people are making money from this?” You’re not alone—and yes, it’s absolutely possible.

Pinterest is not just a platform for saving recipes and mood boards. It’s a powerful visual search engine with millions of users actively looking to buy, plan, and take action. 

Whether you’re into affiliate marketing, selling digital products, or promoting a service—Pinterest can become your secret weapon for building income streams.

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn exactly how to turn pins into profits—even if you have or don’t have a blog or big following.

We’re covering everything from choosing the right monetization method to optimizing your content for traffic and conversions.

Niche selection -> Account setup -> Pin SEO -> Traffic -> Income Methods.

Ready to pin your way to passive income? Let’s get started.

Why Pinterest Is a Great Platform to Make Money

Pinterest is great because of its visual search engine features, as people are actively engaging with visually appealing content on the platform. There are many other benefits of using Pinterest as a money-making source, and here, we will cover a few of them for better understanding.

#1. Pinterest’s Buying Audience

As I previously said, Pinterest is not just an average social media platform. It is itself a search engine with 400 million monthly active users searching for solutions on the platform. Users came here to plan, shop, and get inspired.

That means they are not just browsing here in the face. They seek products, ideas, and solutions to their queries/interests.

On Pinterest, they find solutions to their queries through digital/physical products, information content, or courses, or buying services or memberships in various niches.

In short, Pinterest users are likelier to click and buy than audiences on other platforms.

#2. Pinterest vs Other Platforms for Monetization

If we compare Pinterest with other platforms like Instagram or TikTok, then here is my take: Pinterest content lasts longer and requires less constant engagement.

Here is the simple answer: A well-optimized pin can drive traffic and income for months or even years after posting, but on other platforms, it depends on trends and your post engagement, and it might fade out with time.

As a search engine, we have many points to make it Search engine friendly, making it perfect for creators, solopreneurs, and digital product sellers who want long-lasting rankings and traffic.

#3. Evergreen Content + Visual Discovery = Passive Income Potential

On Pinterest, Evergreen content pins don’t vanish after 24 hours—they stick around for days, months, or years, depending on your SEO.

We have to make sure that our selected content comes under evergreen niches so that we can expect constant traffic from our selected niche for years. 

If we combine keyword-rich titles and descriptions with eye-catching pins and try to be consistent for a few months, then we can build an evergreen traffic source for our income streams. (blog, ads, affiliates, sponsorships etc.)

In this post, we will cover all the ways to monetize your Pinterest traffic, so make sure to read the article thoroughly. 

Things You Need Before You Start Monetizing Pinterest

A. Business Pinterest Account

First things first—switch to a Pinterest Business account. Yes, switching to a business account is free, and you can unlock amazing tools like Pinterest analytics and other features like rich pins and ads.

It is also important if you’re serious about making money with Pinterest, as it provides us with all the data and trends about different categories.

With a business account, you can claim your website and other social media platforms to build trust with the Pinterest algorithm.

Suppose you want to learn how to convert a personal account to a business one. In that case, you can go through this post, where I discussed how to do Pinterest affiliate marketing, and in this post, I have covered a complete tutorial section on creating and converting Pinterest accounts.

B. Keyword-Optimized Profile & Boards

As I previously mentioned, Pinterest is not just a social media platform but a visual search engine, which means SEO (title and descriptions) matters a lot here.

Optimize your profile bio, board titles, and descriptions with keywords related to your niche or products.

By just playing with keywords, you can help Pinterest understand your profile and what type of content you publish so that it can recommend your content to relevant audiences. (aka, your future customers)

C. High-Quality, Clickable Pins

I made this mistake on my initial day of pinning on Pinterest, leading to a huge failure. I created simple image pins without adding some extra value to them. And that is the worst thing we can do with our account, as low-effort graphics won’t cut it.

So, I always recommend creating quality pins using regular fonts, colors, and visual styles. Your pins need to stand out and spark curiosity.

You can use bold titles and eye-catching images with a combination of strong CTAs to make them more clickable and high quality.

I recommend using tools like Canva and Adobe Express to create good pins, as they offer amazing visuals and editing features.

D. Clear Monetization Strategy

Yes, it is really important to monetize your Pinterest traffic effectively, as you only have a few seconds to convert your visitor into your customer, so we have to follow the best monetization strategy to get 100% of that click.

Whether you are promoting affiliate links, driving traffic to your digital product, or just growing an email list, it is really important to funnel your visits for higher ROIs.

Decide what you want your pins to do. A clear goal will help you create intentional content that moves people from Pinterest to your offers—and eventually to the checkout page.

Step-by-Step: How to Make Money on Pinterest

Now that we are well aware of what to do before doing anything advanced, we need to work on some basics to get on a good track. Then, we can proceed with our beginner-friendly roadmap to turn pins into profits.

I will try my best to explain the process with steps and required examples, as I feel that going through a process can help you achieve success faster on Pinterest than doing things randomly.

And the most crucial step of starting with the digital world is to choose a niche.

✅ Step 1 – Choose a Profitable Niche

Yes, our niche determines our content, audience, and earning potential; that is why we need to give it proper time and effort, as it can create a difference between success and failure.

You can focus on popular Pinterest categories like home decor, health, personal finance, beauty, fashion, or digital products.

If you’re new, you can also explore Pinterest trends, a free tool for everyone, where you can get an idea of topics that are trending or popular on Pinterest.

Another option is to use the Pinterest homepage search bar to explore the topic further. With this feature, you can get an idea of pins that are working and getting traffic from the platform.

You can use these tools to see what people are actually looking for.

A great niche sits at the intersection of what you enjoy + what people search for + what sells.

✅ Step 2 – Set Up & Optimize Your Pinterest Profile

As I mentioned earlier, if you’re thinking of making Pinterest a full-time income, you need to switch to a Pinterest business account and optimize your profile with a clear, keyword-rich bio that can explain who you help and how.

Also, try to use a professional photo of yourself, as adding a personal photo can increase the credibility of the account in terms of audience engagement(helping you gain the trust of your audience and convert them into followers). Also, create a store or a website and link it to your bio, as it helps both users and platforms see that you’re an authoritative person handling the account.

To look more professional on Pinterest, you can further organize your boards and work on search-friendly topics so that people reach out to you for help finding something instead of temporary viral pins. (These pins can increase your traffic stats, but their rates are low when it comes to following or subscribing.)

Think of your profile as a landing page—it should convert visitors into followers and future buyers.

• Your personal profile: will increase the credibility of your account.
• Your board and pins: will get viewers to your account.
• Your CTAs: will turn those viewers into lower subscribers.

Short and simple. 

✅ Step 3 – Create SEO-Friendly Boards & Pins

Pinterest is a search engine, so treat it like one. Use relevant keywords in your board titles, board descriptions, and pin text. You can create your pins using a 2:3 ratio or vertical ratio.

If you ask me, I use 1000px by 2000px with clean background-type pins to make my pins stand out from the crowd.

Also, Make sure to make every pin unique, including a compelling image, a headline that teases the benefit, and a CTA that makes users want to click.

For tools I always recommend Canva as it is one of the best tools out in the market that can help you to create amazing pins that are liked by a wide audience. 

✅ Step 4 – Drive Traffic to Your Offers or Website

Now that we have designed our pins, our next step is to use them to attract traffic to our offers, blog posts, email-capturing pages, etc.

Yes, ensure every pin has a purposeful destination—a blog post, sales page, opt-in form, or product listing.

You can also use tools like Linktree or Beacons to monetize multiple things. The goal here is simple: move Pinterest traffic to your monetized content. That’s where the real money happens.

For informational blogs, this can include ads, affiliate lines, and sponsored content, and for other channels, it can be a store or sales page just trying to generate qualified leads.

Okay, let’s discuss some other monetization methods that you can use for Pinterest traffic. 

✅ Step 5 – Monetize with Affiliate Links or Digital Products

Here are a few more options to monetize our Pinterest traffic to higher levels for more profits.

You can make money on Pinterest through:

• Affiliate marketing – Promote products and earn a commission when someone buys through your link.
• Selling digital products – Think e-books, templates, or printables hosted on Etsy, Gumroad, or Shopify.
• Informational content – Blogs use Pinterest traffic to earn money with display ads and affiliates.
• YouTube – YouTubers send Pinterest traffic to their videos and increase their views.
• Businesses: they market their product to a broad audience on Pinterest.

All the above methods are profitable, but make sure your pins clearly disclose affiliate relationships and offer real value to build trust.

This is just an overview. In this post we will explore all these methods to grasp things efficiently. 

✅ Step 6 – Track, Analyze & Improve Results

Use Pinterest Analytics to see which pins are performing best. Double down on what works—duplicate winning designs with new content or keywords, and test new ideas regularly. 

Tools like Tailwind can help you automate posting and analyze what’s resonating with your audience over time.

9 Ways to Make Money on Pinterest

On Pinterest, we can make money in multiple ways, and out of all those ways, we will discuss the five most popular ways to make money on Pinterest that are 100% successful with current market trends.

#1. Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest

Yes, Pinterest Affiliate Marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money on the platform, as we only have to share our affiliate links directly through our pins.

You can easily promote products that you and your audience might love, and if someone clicks and buys that product through your link, you can get a commission on that qualified sale. This is how affiliate marketing works.

Focus on high-converting Pinterest niches like home decor, fashion, beauty, or online tools. Always disclose affiliate links (a simple “#affiliate” works) and create helpful pins that naturally lead users to click.

You can do affiliate marketing on Pinterest even without a blog, and this post will help you learn more about how to make it happen without getting banned by Pinterest.

#2. Selling Digital Products on Pinterest (eBooks, Printables, Courses)

Pinterest users love actionable solutions, and if you have one, selling your own digital products on the platform is perfect. You can choose any product to sell on Pinterest, from ebooks to printable planners and online courses.

The strategy is to design pins where you can send traffic to your digital product sales page and convert some qualified leads to earn extra cash just by creating a one-time digital product.

You can then deliver high-quality download files of your digital product to your customers.

You can use platforms like Etsy, Gumroad, and Shopify to create your store or sales page with a low investment and then further increase your investment in a dedicated website to increase your brand authority.

#3. Pinterest Traffic to a Blog or Website (Ad Revenue, Funnels)

Another smart strategy is using Pinterest to drive massive traffic to your blog or website.

Yes, you can create pins focusing on the topic you have covered on your blog and then convert Pinterest users into blog viewers to earn money in multiple ways.

As with blogs, you can monetize your traffic in many ways simultaneously. For example, you can monetize with display ads (like Mediavine or Ezoic), add an email form to funnel these users, and also add affiliate links in your blog articles to make money with affiliate sales.

We can see how we can use blogs, and the ROI of creating a blog is much higher than any other method in this list. Every pin acts like a door leading people to your revenue-generating content.

#4. Offering Pinterest Management as a Service

This is a service-based monetization technique best for an individual who is good at Pinterest and can turn their skill into a full-time business. Your duty here is to manage other people’s Pinterest accounts, and you have to grow their brand and engagement according to their needs.

Your potential clients here can be bloggers, bands, and e-commerce shops that hire Pinterest managers to design pins, optimize profiles, and drive traffic to their businesses.

You can offer services like pin creation, SEO optimization, and monthly account management—either as one-off packages or ongoing retainers.

#5. Sponsored Pins and Brand Collaborations

After doing all the above stuff, you can now reach high Pinterest traffic, and brands may now pay you to create sponsored content pins or collaborations.

Big Pinterest accounts and good traffic number blogs get amazing collaboration deals from big brands as they pay you to promote their products to your audience.

So first, focus on growing a high-quality, engaged audience, then pitch yourself to brands or sign up with influencer marketing networks that work with Pinterest creators.

You can also choose influencer-friendly niches to get more reach and brand deals, as influence marketing is one of the best ways to make money online in the current digital age. 

These are some popular ideas that everyone is doing on Pinterest and having amazing results, as these are tested and proven formulas for making money on the platform. 

But as I promised, you will learn something new in this post. That’s why I included some unique and innovative trending ways to make money on Pinterest, and we will now go through these in detail. 

#6. Selling Physical Products (via Etsy, Shopify, or Dropshipping)

Pinterest users love shopping for unique and beautiful products, and if you have something that you want to market to a wide audience, then you can also sell physical products through Pinterest with the help of a dropshipping system.

If you don’t have such systems, you can also use Etsy or a Shopify store, which will find shipping solutions. You can sell your physical product worldwide.

On Pinterest, products like apparel, home decor, or handmade crafts are popular, and you can quickly succeed in these categories.

#7. Offering Pinterest Templates for Sale

Another great way to monetize your Pinterest traffic is to provide your own custom template to your users, like you can design Pinterest templates on Canva or another platform and sell them to business owners, bloggers, and other content creators who want ready-to-use, beautiful pin designs for their business. (As per their business goals)

It’s a great digital product idea with low overhead and recurring sales potential.

#8. Building an Email List and Selling Products Later

Use Pinterest to grow your email list by offering a freebie like a checklist, eBook, or template. By offering such digital assets for free, you can create a good email list for your marketing purposes, nurture them, and sell your digital products later or in the future.

This is called email marketing, as you can add affiliate links to your emails or promote product sponsors in your daily/weekly emails to earn some sponsorship income.

I love email marketing, as you are building your own traffic source that you fully have control over, but it is really hard to build a list at the initial stage.

Your offer will determine your conversion rate, so work on that part of your offering to your viewers.

#9. Pinterest VA (Virtual Assistant) Services

Many business owners don’t have the time to handle their Pinterest strategy. You can offer Pinterest VA services like account setup, keyword research, pin design, and scheduling to bloggers, influencers, and brands looking to grow their Pinterest traffic.

Yes, I also do the same for some of my SEO clients. In the current state of SEO, we need to diversify traffic resources, and I use the same marketing strategy for my clients.

I offer them overall marketing solutions rather than just focusing on SEO or organic traffic to their business.

If you think you can manage others’ Pinterest accounts, then becoming a Pinterest VA is an awesome way to earn extra cash.

These are some of the most profitable ways of making money on Pinterest. If you find anyone where you can do well enough, then you can choose that for your business.

Just make sure to remain consistent on Pinterest. The platform focuses on pinning consistency with quality pins, so try to do your best when creating your pins.

Make sure to stand out of the crowd so the audience can differentiate you from other pins on the dashboard.  

Now, let’s know what niches are best for Pinterest, as the above line sparked this thought in my mind. Yes, consistency + pin quality matter, but the niche you’ll choose is also equally important.

So, let’s explore some of the most prestigious niches based on current trends. 

Best Niches to Make Money on Pinterest

Choosing the right niches for Pinterest is really challenging. Pinterest only does great for some categories, and you can’t expect success for all the niches in the market.

So here are some of the best-performing niches where people actively search, save, and buy:

#1. Home Decor

From interior design ideas to DIY projects, Pinterest is a hotspot for home decor inspiration. Yes, Pinterest is best for you if you can offer beautiful visuals, style tips, or product recommendations in the category.

Pinterest has a separate section for the home decor category where you can find out the percentage of active viewers who engage in this category.

In this main category, you will find many micro-niches under home decor that you can opt for so that you can niche down to lower your competition.

#2. Health & Wellness

Topics like fitness routines, healthy recipes, mental health tips, and wellness products perform exceptionally well. There is a lot of room on Pinterest for health-related niches, from exercise routines to food diet recipes and diet plans.

People on Pinterest always look for life-improving solutions and are willing to invest in courses, guides, online training, or products that promote a healthier lifestyle.

So you can become a coach online and train your clients through online calling or other mediums.

#3. Fashion & Style Niches

Outfit ideas, seasonal lookbooks, and fashion tips are extremely popular on Pinterest. Since Pinterest has a larger female audience than male, fashion is the best niche to target for this platform.

People love discovering new trends and shopping for clothes, accessories, and styling guides on Pinterest.

On Pinterest, you will find that fashion-related pins are getting excellent engagement. The fashion niche has its own category section on Pinterest analytics. As you can see, this is the total percentage of the audience that engages with fashion-related stuff on the platform.

#4. Personal Finance

There’s a huge audience on Pinterest searching for advice on budgeting, saving money, investing, making money online, etc. You can focus on this niche if you have some prior knowledge, as it comes under YMYL niches where the information you provide can impact one’s life. A platform like Pinterest can help you with good traffic, but the information should be 100% true to gain trust.

This niche has high affiliate potential if you can provide practical tips or promote finance-related products and tools.

#5. DIY & Crafts

Craft tutorials, DIY home projects, and handmade gift ideas are also very popular on Pinterest, as you can monetize your traffic by selling craft supplies or offering printable guides. I have seen that in many cases(or business owners), Pinterest is the best source of blog traffic, where you can place your affiliate links and tutorials to make some extra income.

Art niche ideas are also very popular, as you can sell anything from digital art to physical art pieces with the help of Pinterest. So, if you think you can provide any form of art, then I recommend you promote your work on Pinterest to get success or sales fast.

#6. Blogging & Online Business

Pins about starting a blog, building an online business, and working from home consistently perform well on the platform, as I am also part of this niche.

Many Pinterest users are looking for ways to earn extra income or launch side hustles, making this a profitable niche for digital products and affiliate marketing. I also provide such offers to my Pinterest audience as I have more than 8 years of experience making money online through different mediums.

I start with a blog, then provide marking services and do some creative work, like content creation for different platforms. You can read my blog to learn more about how this niche helps me thrive and help others on Pinterest.

These are some of the most popular Pinterest niches that you can choose for your account. Make sure to target a specific audience, as you can’t post pins in all these categories. 

So, choose one niche that requires proper research and work with consistency for better results. 

Now we know how to start with Pinterest, steps to follow, ways to make money, and niches to choose where you can make the most out of it. But here in this section, we will learn some tools that can help you speed up your pinning process. 

So, let’s automate things so that we can focus on marketing rather than creating content/pins and publishing.

Tools to Boost Your Pinterest Income

These tools can help you from pin creation to pin scheduling and turn Pinterest into a serious income stream, so I recommend you to use these tools as they can help you with smart and organized work and maximize your earnings.

A. Canva (Pin Design)

Canva is my personal favorite tool for creating pins. It provides all the assets and editing features in one place, so we don’t have to upload external visuals repeatedly. You’ll find all the assets required to make an attractive pin, from stock footage and images to illustrations.

With its drag-and-drop interface and ready-made Pinterest templates, you can easily create scroll-stopping pins that match your niche and brand.

Design tip: Stick to 2–3 brand colors and fonts and use bold text to improve clicks.

Canva also provides us with scheduling directly from Canva to Pinterest, so we don’t need to download and upload your pins as we can make them public directly from our Canva dashboard.

This is best for individuals who create their own pins, as they can directly schedule their pins from Canvas. Those who use VAs or graphics designers to make their pins can use Tailwind for scheduling.

We’ll learn more about Tailwind here.

B. Tailwind (Scheduling + Communities)

Tailwind is a third-party tool that can help you automate your Pinterest posting, which helps you stay consistent without being glued to your screen. Upload your pins and schedule, and boom, that’s it. Your pins will be published at your scheduled time and date so that you can focus on other parts of the process.

Tailwind is best for those who hire graphics designers to make pins for their accounts. You can get your pins from these designers or tell them to upload a batch of pins to your Tailwind account, and then you can simply schedule your pins from there.

There is no need to download and upload pins in this process, as you tell your hired personnel to upload pins directly to Tailwind.

And.

You can do this with Pinterest, too, but printers only allow you to schedule 50 pins. That’s why we are using Tailwind for scheduling.

Plus, its Tailwind Communities feature lets you share pins in niche-specific groups—amplifying your reach and engagement.

C. Google Sheets or Notion (Tracking Pins & Links)

If you are doing it as a business, then tracking your work is the best tip I can give you as a business owner. This helps us manage dozens of affiliate links or experiment with different pin styles. A simple tracker in Google Sheets or Notion can be a game-changer.

Track what content performs best, where you’ve shared it, and what brings in the most income. After finding that, you can double down on the exact same thing that worked best for you in the past, and this way, you can improve your Pinterest stats.

D. Affiliate Link Managers (e.g., Bit.ly, Pretty Links)

When working on Pinterest, it can get overwhelming to maintain our affiliate links. You are going to publish through hundreds of thousands of pins in this journey, so you can use affiliate link manager tools like Pretty Links to make your links clean, organized, and trackable.

Tools like Pretty Links (WordPress) or Bit.ly allow you to shorten URLs, monitor click performance, and make updates easily—especially helpful when managing affiliate content across hundreds of pins.

Final Thoughts: Start Making Money on Pinterest Today

I always recommend to my viewers to Start Simple and Scale Slowly.

You don’t need to be a designer, influencer, or marketing pro to make money on Pinterest. 

Just start with one niche, create helpful content, and stay consistent.

Focus on building your pinning habit, improving your designs, and learning what works. Don’t wait for “perfect”—progress is better than perfection.

The beauty of Pinterest is that pins live longer than social media posts and can keep driving traffic—and income—for months or even years.

Whether you’re promoting affiliate links, selling digital products, or growing a blog, Pinterest rewards patience and quality content.

So pick a niche, start pinning, and watch your efforts compound over time.