As such, it offers your business a unique opportunity to showcase what your products or services can do. You can use the platform to provide solutions or inspiration to your target audience. If you have yet to start using Pinterest for your business, here are 34 mind-blowing statistics to convince you to start. 

Mind-blowing Pinterest Stats for 2023:

1. 445 Million People Use Pinterest per Month

According to data shared by Statista, as of Q3 2022, Pinterest boasted 445 million monthly active users across the globe. While this is up slightly from the previous quarter (Q2 2022), the number of monthly active users declined gradually since it hit its peak in Q1 2021.  At the beginning of 2021, 478 million people were using the platform for inspiration on what to wear, what to cook, ways to style their homes, and so much more. Just like with many other social media apps, this growth was attributed by the company to global lockdowns that forced people in. Pinterest gained significant users in 2020, peaking in Q1 2021. As people were “locked up” in their homes, they needed something to do with their newfound free time, and many chose to spend it by viewing and pinning images and videos to Pinterest.  However, the growth wouldn’t last, and as the world opened up and people’s lives returned to normal, users eventually left the platform. Despite this, Bill Ready, Pinterest’s new CEO, announced he is proud of the team’s results for Q3 2022, which saw the first increase since the decline started in Q2 2021.

2. It Was the Fastest Site to Reach 10 Million Unique Monthly Visitors

While their number of unique monthly users might have dwindled lately, there’s one impressive feat regarding monthly users that remains. They’re the fastest social network to have reached 10 million unique monthly visitors.  To put this achievement further into perspective, for a long period during its launch, it was invite-only. Also, Pinterest only filed for an IPO nearly nine years after it was launched in 2010. Both Twitter and Snapchat waited only six years before filing.  However, this growth slowed down and it currently doesn’t rank that high in terms of the number of monthly active users. As of January 2022, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok, Snapchat, Telegram, and a few other Asian social networks all have more users, according to Statista. It does, however, beat Twitter (and, no, we’re not going to open the can of worms regarding Twitter’s spam bots). 

3. It Ranks 14th Among Domains With the Most Linked to Websites

According to a list shared by Statista, Pinterest ranked 14th among the domains with the most referring subnets. As of July 2022, it had nearly 217,000. In first place was Google, followed by Facebook and YouTube. 

Pew Research found that Pinterest ranked fourth after YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, with 31% of US adults claiming to have used it. 

5. Its biggest user base is in the US

The United States has by far the highest number of Pinterest users, according to data shared by Statista. As of the beginning of 2022, Pinterest had just over 86 million users in the US. This works out to about 44% of the website traffic coming from the US. The US was followed by Brazil with 27 million users (though, they only account for about 8% of the traffic to the website) and Mexico with nearly 18 million users.  Over in Europe, Pinterest is most popular in Germany with just over 15 million users. This is followed by France (11 million) and the United Kingdom (8.76 million).  If you break it down by region instead, there are 94 million monthly active users in North America, 120 million in Europe, while the rest of the world accounted for 220 million. So while the United States might be the country with the most users, if you add up all the users across Europe, it falls short, though not by too much. 

6. Women Use Pinterest More than Men

For some time, there have been considerably more female Pinterest users than male. As of the beginning of 2022, more than 75% of its user base were women. Just over 15% were male and 8% were unspecified.  The high Pinterest use rate among women may be because it encourages users to form emotional bonds with the platform.  A significant impact of this finding is that as women are the primary decision-makers in terms of buying household products and services, it can be a great place for businesses in this niche to leverage. 

A survey of Pinterest users in the US found that 32% of people aged 18-29 years used Pinterest at the beginning of 2021, as did 34% of those aged 30-49 and 38% of those aged 50-64. Compared to Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram; Pinterest, like Twitter and Reddit, had significantly less Gen Z users in 2022. 

Pinterest also gets much usage from those households earning more than $75,000 (40%). While it was used the least often by households in the lowest income bracket (less than $30,000), this pattern was not the same across the board.

8. People Don’t Spend Hours on End on Pinterest After All.

Similarweb found that there were on average 929.73 million total website visits per month between April 2022 and June 2022. Per visit, 5.5 pages were visited and the average visit duration was almost six minutes. The bounce rate was about 44%.  To put this into perspective, here’s how many website visits competitors and similar sites attract on average per month:

Facebook 19 billion Twitter 6.8 billion Instagram 6.3 billion TikTok 1.8 billion

Though, it’s not all doom and gloom. Compared to Tumblr, another visual-heavy platform, it’s doing much better. Tumblr’s monthly visits add up to “only” 275.7 million.  With regards to social media traffic referrers, YouTube is the leading source and generates about 26% of social media traffic, as of May 2022. Facebook is in second spot with 18% and Twitter in third spot with 7%. 

Perhaps surprisingly, Pinterest is more popular in rural areas than in more populated regions, although not by much. According to a survey completed by Pew Research Center at the beginning of 2021 about US social media users, 34% of US adults in rural areas use Pinterest, compared to 32% in suburban areas and 30% in urban areas.  According to Ask Any Difference, rural areas are generally open and spread out with a small population. Suburban areas are residential areas with a larger population than rural areas, whereas urban areas have a high population for both living and working. Rural areas are basically countryside, suburban areas have a lot of single-family housing areas surrounding the larger cities, and urban areas generally have more than a thousand people per block.

11. Pinterest Has the Third Most Visits of Any Social Media Platform in the USA

While Pinterest is well down on the list of popular social sites, Statista found that Pinterest has more than its share of visits across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices combined. As of May 2022, Facebook dominates this, with about 73% of all social media site visits in the United States, while Twitter comes in second with nearly 10% of all US social media site visits. In third spot, it’s Pinterest with 8.23% of all US social media site visits.

12. There’s Little Buzz Around Pinterest in the US

While the United States is responsible for a lot of its traffic, there’s actually little buzz around the brand. In March 2022, less than 20% of US social media users read about Pinterest in the media (including social media) over the previous four weeks.  That being said, while they might not have heard about it recently in the news, it has no issue with brand awareness. Almost 80% of social media users could recognize the brand’s logo and written brand name. It might not be the social network with the best brand awareness in the US, but it beats LinkedIn which measured only 69% and Reddit, Tumblr, and Twitch. 

13. Branded Searches on Pinterest Are Rare

According to data shared by the platform in one of their Newsroom articles, as much as 97% of the top searches on the platform are unbranded. The top searches also generally only have a few words (about two to three).  The implication of this for brands is that Pinterest is actually a very effective channel to reach consumers. Pinterest users are still considering what their next purchase should be. As they haven’t made up their mind about which brand to buy, they’re open to other options. In other words, brands get the opportunity to capture people at the decision-making process stage. To take advantage of this trend, your brand content should be useful for the target audience’s decision and should focus on showing how it can be the solution to an idea they have.

14. UK Users Spend Less Than an Hour on Pinterest Per Day

A survey completed in 2022 revealed that the vast majority (72%) of fashion and lifestyle consumers in the United Kingdom spend less than one hour per day on the platform. However, 5% admitted to spending hours each day on it. 

15. Most of Its Traffic Is Direct

Similarweb also found that Pinterest receives 68.1% of direct desktop traffic and 28.5% from organic search.  However, note that these statistics only refer to desktop visitors. 

16. Pinterest Is Great for Finding Ideas

In one of Pinterest’s posts published on their Newsroom, they eloquently describe their platform as a place that’s “about your self, not your selfie”. Instead, it’s a place for finding inspiration. It’s a place for finding ideas.  The vast majority of Pinterest users (85%) have shared that they visit the platform when starting a new project. What’s more, nine out of ten (90%) weekly Pinners describe it as filled with positivity, “an online oasis”. On the other hand, less than a third felt the same about other mainstream social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube.   According to Pinterest, over 400 million people come to the platform each month to search for their next inspiration. This fuels their Trends 2023 report where they make predictions on fashion, health, beauty, and design trends that will shape the coming year.

17. It’s the Only Major Platform to Ban Ads About Weight Loss

As their goal is to create a place where people find inspiration and feel inspired, they took the bold step in July 2021 to ban all ads that included weight loss images or language, making them one of the first major platforms to do so.  In less than a year, searches with the keywords “weight loss” decreased by 20%. Instead, more Pinners are turning to the platform to find “quick and healthy meals” (this phrase was up by 65 times) and “healthy food motivation”. 

18. Its Ad Revenue Is Expected to Exceed $4 Billion by 2026

It might have prohibited ads about weight loss, but its ad revenue is still pretty healthy. According to data shared by Statista, it’s anticipated that its global ad revenue will be $4.1 billion by 2026. In 2021, this was just over $2 billion. So, it’s expected to double in just five years.  Though, you need to spend money to make money, right? In 2021, its advertising expenses totalled nearly $95 million. It was quite a big increase from previous years. The closest it came to spending that much was in 2019 and that was merely $55 million. 

19. It’s a Place for Finding Healthy Habits

Bathrooms aren’t the only thing that gets renovated after a session of Pinterest exploring. Increasingly more users are searching for topics about healthy habits (and not just wholesome meals as mentioned earlier). For example:

Searches for “how to change your mindset” increased by 50% Searches for “loving myself” increased by 36% Searches for “how to become more confident” increased by 32%

According to Pinterest, 8 out of 10 predictions in 2022 were realized. So, they’re pretty good at forecasting trends. After all, another reason why people turn to Pinterest is to plan for the future.  Using data for the period between September 2020 to September 2022, they identified in their  Pinterest Predicts 2023 report that the following trends will increase in 2023. These Pinterest trends can help you plan campaigns or develop new products to suit the needs of consumers:

Blue and black braids (+215%) Micro French nails (+235%) Burnt orange wedding theme (+695%) Mini pool ideas (+830%) Lace Top Long Sleeves (+225%) Fantasy mushroom art (+170%) Dystopian outfits (+215%) Seaweed snacks recipes (+245%) How to make paper rings (+1725%) Eclectic interior design vintage (+850%)

So, get ready to see some Gemini Hair styles as Gen Z’s mix and match their hair colors while donning 2000s romcom outfits.  And if you’re in the travel industry, you’d be overjoyed to learn that Gen Z and Millennials have renewed their love for travel and are looking at exploring the world by train.

Pinterest is helping its users to create lives that they love. They’ve highlighted trans creators through channels such as Pinterest TV, and their users are also exploring trans topics more. For example:

Searches for “transmac haircut” are 35 times higher Searches for “nonbinary wedding outfit” are eight times higher Searches for “transmasc aesthetic” and “nonbinary aesthetic fashion” are five times higher Searches for “trans pride” have increased by 80% Searches for “transgirl” increased by 66%

22. Pinterest Influences the Shopping Decisions of its Regular Users

Compared to other social media platforms, people who use Pinterest weekly are seven times more likely to say it’s the most influential platform in their purchase journey. What’s more, on top of discovering new favorite products, it’s also a place where they fall in love with brands. The majority of Pinners (70%) describe the platform as a place they go to find new services and products that they can count on.  As a result, they’ve increased their suite of shopping features for brands/advertisers significantly. These include: slideshow for collections, the Verified Merchant Program, and merchant details.    Though, it’s not all “business” on Pinterest. Their research reveals that users on the platform are 40% more likely to say that they “love shopping”, compared to those who don’t use it. 

23. Pinterest Users Have Bigger Online Baskets

Shoppers on Pinterest have 85% bigger baskets than shoppers on other platforms. What’s more, they spend twice as much per month. 

24. Pinterest Posts Have the Longest Lifespan

In short, a post’s lifespan refers to the time during which you can expect that it can still generate engagement (in other words, views, likes, repins, comments, and saves). After this engagement has died down, it’s very unlikely that it will increase again.   Pinterest posts have a lifespan of six months and, in some instances, it can even be a year. In fact, their Pinterest Predicts 2022 report showed that searches for Forest Resort sustained growth for longer than 13 months.  To put this into perspective, for Facebook it’s merely five hours. Instagram doesn’t far any better really and for a general feed post on Instagram the lifespan is only 48 hours. Though, that’s still much better than TikTok. Unless you’ve created a viral post don’t expect your post to last for longer than a few minutes.   The reason why Pinterest posts perform so much better is that it’s a search engine (in addition to a social media platform). So, just like with Google, people use it to search for topics that interest them. 

25. The Best Time to Post Is Noon and Night.

Posting on Pinterest isn’t something that you can do morning, noon, and night, at least not if you want to get the best engagement. CoSchedule found that the best times to post are: 

12:00 p.m. 6.17 p.m. 8:02 p.m.

With regards to day of the week, the best days to post on the platform for engagement purposes are:

Friday Tuesday Thursday Wednesday Monday Saturday Sunday 

26. It’s Used for Watching Videos Too

Pinterest has always been a visual discovery engine. While the rise of visual search has made Pinterest the favorite platform for people who would rather search images, it’s no longer just a platform for static images. In one of their blog posts, the platform shared that their community of Pinners is watching almost one billion videos on a daily basis.  That being said, Pinterest Lens that lets users search by image remains just as popular. According to the platform, there were three times as many visual searches using the Pinterest camera. 

27. Pinterest Made $685 Million in Q3 2022

Pinterest ended 2021 on a high note, more specifically it was its highest note since 2016. The revenue generated for Q4 2021 was nearly $847 million.  Though, 2022 didn’t continue where they left off. The revenue generated for Q3 2022 was “only” $685 million, according to data shared by Pinterest.   This was an 8% growth compared to the past quarter, which they expect to continue until Q4 2022. While Pinterest may not end 2022 on a high note like 2021, the platform has shown that they could bounce back from the slump that plagued the entire social media industry as the pandemic ended.

28. 2021 Was the First Year Since 2016 That It Didn’t Incur a Net Loss

While its quarterly revenue might look impressive, from 2016 to 2020 it generated significant net losses. These net losses averaged around $150 million, but 2019 was a particularly “bad” year and it had a net loss of over $1.3 billion.  However, 2021’s numbers painted a different picture. According to numbers crunched by Statista, in the fiscal year 2021, it generated a net income of over $316 million.   This was short-lived though, as 2022 numbers showed Pinterest incurred a net loss of $65 million for the first nine months of 2022. This is expected to continue towards the end of the year. However, the net loss won’t be as high as 2019 figures.

29. It Spent $254 Million on R&D for Q3 2022 Alone

According to data shared by Statista, Pinterest spent just over $708 million on research and development in 2021. While it was up from the previous year ($606 million), it’s still not nearly close to what they spent in 2019 — a whopping $1.2 billion.  Despite the slump in 2022, Pinterest continues to spend for R&D and has spent $254 million for just the 3rd quarter of 2022.

30. Pinterest Has More Female Employees

Just like Pinterest is used more often by women than men, its workforce is also mostly women (although only marginally). In 2021, 51% of its global workforce (affectionately dubbed Pinployees) identified as female (in 2020 it was 49%). Though, only a third of the leadership positions are filled by women. The same holds true for the engineering department.  However, as part of their diversity and inclusivity plans, they announced their intention to boost the representation of women in leadership roles by 20% by 2025. In fact, they shared that they anticipate that they might meet these goals sooner.  Not only did the percentage of female employees increase, but there has been a steady increase in employment since 2018. At the end of 2021, it had 3,225 full-time employees. In 2018, there were only about half (1,797).  

31. Pinterest Was the 41st Most Relevant Brand in 2022

According to the Prophet Brand Relevance Index 2022, an index that shows “the 50 brands consumers can’t live without”, Pinterest is the USA’s 41st most relevant brand. Though, this is down from the10th position it held in 2021.  Apple continues to be #1.  However, Pinterest has helped people tap into their creativity and became instrument in the democratization of the creator economy. Along with YouTube and Etsy, it’s a brand that helped people tap into their authentic self-expression.  On the other hand, when it comes to brand intimacy it didn’t perform that well. According to MBLM’s Brand Intimacy 2022 report that’s based on data sourced from January 2021 to October 2021, it ranked 381th out of 435 brands. In its industry, it ranked 20th out of 26. About 14% of consumers who wrote about the platform showed some form of intimacy with the brand. 

According to Pinterest, their predicted trends last longer and grow faster than other trends on the Internet. This is what fuels them to release their Pinterest Predicts annual reports that measures search intent over the past two years. Trends spotted in this report are more likely to carry on to the new year.  In fact, Pinterest has recorded 80% accuracy in their predictions.

33. Marketers can Reach Over 200 Million via Pinterest

As of January 2022, Pinterest’s advertising reach was 226 million users. The platform’s comparatively small user base makes it ideal for marketers to reach their target audiences with ease. Combining unique and personalized images makes it easy for consumers to move from discovery to purchase. The platform also influences what brands people shop from, the products they buy, and the amount they spend.

34. More Millennials Are on Pinterest

According to Pinterest’s own statistics, their platform is becoming increasingly popular among younger audiences. Gen Z and male Pinners are up by 40% year over year, while US millennial Pinners are up by 35% year over year.  If this is your target audience, the platform also gives you targeting tools that you can use to reach people by demographics, keywords, and interests. Alternatively, you can use their auto-targeting and they’ll display your ads to the users that they think will enjoy it most. 

Wrapping Things Up

These statistics show that Pinners are dedicated shoppers who use Pinterest not only to get inspired but also to discover products to buy. Pinners are in discovery mode, and you can use great content, videos, and images to drive them through the sales funnel.  So, if you’re not already using Pinterest for your brand, start using it today. Whether it’s to boost your brand’s online social media presence or to showcase your products to the right kind of audience and drive engagement, with some skill and thought it can be used quite effectively.