How to make money on Pinterest - 12 ways to make money in Pinterest today
Are you not bored with blogs that list how to make money on Pinterest, and that’s about it? I’m going to go deeper than that for you, friend! I’m going to give you an unbiased view of the level of ease (or difficulty) and how to make it happen throughout:
Does this mean it is too tough to learn how to make money in Pinterest, and you’re wasting your time?
I simply wouldn’t be here sharing this with you. Making money on Pinterest is what I know best and why I’m a Pinterest expert.
So you are here with me to discover exactly what best fits you.
Full disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links that, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission from.
Is it easy? Is it difficult?
The simple answer to “Can you make money on Pinterest” is an absolute yes!!! I can tell you that I make $$$$$ online thanks to Pinterest, and you can too!
Plus, Pinterest is the platform where you can avoid daily social media burnout! You pin, and that’s it! No need for engagement stuff 20 minutes before or 30 minutes later, daily approaching strangers with comments and all that nonsense that consumes hours of your week.
Yay!!!
I love it when my inbox pops up with emails like this, sales on autopilot from Pinterest traffic!
There is more to it.
Imagine you’re looking over the shoulder of a Pinterest wizard to copy his formula for the potion of how to make money in Pinterest. Shhhhhhh… Don’t make too much noise, or it will see you staring! (haha, you can tell I love Lord of the Rings!).
Here are the four elements that you need to make money on Pinterest:
Understanding Pinterest inside out
Creating profitable content
Attracting leads that convert
Monetizing your Pinterest traffic
Most of the struggles to make money on Pinterest come from a weakness in one of these pillars. Today, you’ll dive into the fourth pillar, monetizing Pinterest traffic.
I hear you. You know very little and fear that you don't know how to get started? I’ve got you covered! Grab your FREE cheat sheet with the 7 Essential Steps To Kickstart Your Pinterest For Traffic On Autopilot.
I was in your shoes not that long ago, scratching my head at what platform to pick to start making money online. The quest is always intense and comes with a number of personal needs.
That’s why in this blog, I unveil how to make money on Pinterest in various, very different ways, and I split into:
how to earn money on Pinterest without a blog
how to make money on Pinterest with a blog
There is a common misunderstanding that, unless you have a blog, Pinterest isn’t for you.
Seriously?!
This all comes from one of the biggest strengths of Pinterest: you can link every single pin to a different page if you choose to.
That’s where many ask themselves how to make money on Pinterest without a website.
Well, the answer is simple, you can link almost to anything. That’s why Pinterest is such a powerful traffic generator!
From Pinterest, you can link to:
Your affiliate links
Your social media content (Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook…)
Your YouTube channel
Your sales pages
Your sign-up forms for your email list
A third-party online selling platform like Shopify, Etsy, Redbubble, FineArtAmeerica…
Your online shop
Your website
Your blog
Other content platforms
You see, you don’t need a blog as a must to generate traffic and make money on Pinterest!
Plus, to be very clear about how to start making money on Pinterest, everything starts with traffic.
Traffic is the currency that will make you money online. Choosing a platform that achieves traffic for you is the cornerstone of your online business success.
When you ask yourself, “How to make money on Pinterest without a website,” this blog is for you.
That’s exactly why Pinterest is my choice. It’s a traffic generator on autopilot.
By the way, and before we start getting into it, I’m delighted also to invite you to join my signature course, The Profitable Pinterest Secrets. Eliminate the social media burnout, grow your audience, and create a lead-generation engine for your online biz with my 4-pillar Pinterest system.
I remember how long it took me to launch my website. It felt like an eternity. I wanted a website to demonstrate credibility to make money online.
While nothing is wrong with that, how to make money in Pinterest doesn’t depend on having a website.
I see you, my friend, if you haven’t got one yet, or it is in the works, or you need to make money online first to invest in having your website. While I will always strongly recommend having a website, don’t make the same mistake I did. It doesn’t need to be the first thing you do.
This section of the blog about how to make money in Pinterest today is specially for you if you haven’t got a blog or a website (It’s far more common than you think!).
And if you do have a website, you’ll still going to find ways to make money on Pinterest can complement your revenues.
When you start thinking about making money online, and in particular how to make money in Pinterest, you essentially have two questions:
How much do I need to invest upfront?
Can I earn money from Pinterest… and how much?
Every single penny at the beginning counts, and being able to choose something that minimizes how much you need to invest before you even start earning is such a relief!
Even better, I will give you options with zero upfront cost.
The first one is to create your digital products.
You can create certain digital products for free and then sold on platforms where you haven’t got ongoing costs.
These are some of the prin-on-demand products that I have created and sold, one of my pins to them:
Here are some of my digital templates:
When thinking about how to make money in Pinterest selling digital templates, you know you have great benefits:
You can create product pins that link directly to where you’ve got your products for sale.
You can showcase your product on Pinterest with before/after photos, carousel pins, behind the scenes…
Pinterest becomes your marketing window to drive traffic for free to your digital product shop.
By creating digital products, you don’t need to hold stock (the same is also true for print-on-demand)
Now, to the question of how much you can make.
These products are between $5-$50 each, depending on what you sell. You need to generate a good sales volume to get to $10k months. This is a great way to start earning money online and complement your income, as well as a great way to learn the ropes of online business and how to make money on Pinterest for beginners.
Don’t miss this blog: 33 Genius Side Hustles From Home You Can Easily Start To Become A Successful Online Entrepreneur To Combat Inflation.
Is it possible? Absolutely! Nothing is more magical than when your pin converts into a sale overnight!
Affiliate marketing is the go-to place for how to make money in Pinterest.
If you’re wondering what affiliate marketing is, it’s a way for you to make money online without your own products or services. Yes, that’s precisely it. You can make money on Pinterest without a website, without a blog, and even without your own products!
You promote other people’s products and get a commission whenever someone buys through your link. Neat!
Now, I promised a reality check in this blog. So here comes the first one.
I see too much content out there that feels autogenerated by AI, frankly… or wants to paint an unrealistic picture of online business.
Affiliate marketing is a powerhouse of online income online when done right. It can be a total waste of your time and hopes when it becomes a spammy way to throw links at people to buy without any value.
I’ve made $$$$ on affiliate marketing, and there is one thing that all of my sales have in common: I used the products, I know them inside out, I’m open with why I love them and use them, and the limitations.
When you go after affiliate marketing without a blog, I recommend doing it for low-ticket items, literally under $50 or less.
This is why? Would you decide to invest in an online course priced $1497 from just a graphic promoting it in one click? The short answer is you wouldn’t.
There is a limit to what you can achieve with affiliate marketing on Pinterest (or any other platform for that matter) when you are only asking for the sale without providing personal value.
So the answer to how to make money on Pinterest with affiliate links and no blog is to focus on low-ticket items and grow your Pinterest followers with idea pins where you deliver content related to your affiliate.
How to make money with Pinterest and Clickbank is a question I see from time to time.
There is no point in going on an affiliate platform like Clickbank and jumping into a high-ticket product that offers 40% commission because you can feel the money in your eyes (this reminds me of Duck Donald in some stories!). And I don’t recommend that you start picking up products you know nothing about to promote. Your credibility will soon disappear.
In The Profitable Pinterest Secrets, I have a dedicated masterclass on Pinterest affiliate marketing for you. Have a peak below!
How to make money in Pinterest isn’t just about selling your products or someone else’s. You can sell your time and become a Pinterest virtual assistant for people who want to outsource that part of their marketing strategy.
So this is how to become a Pinterest virtual assistant in a nutshell:
Learn Pinterest for business
Create your own Pinterest business account and grow it. This is going to be your shopping window to demonstrate credibility.
Become familiar with the tools (typically Canva and Tailwind)
Understand what a Pinterest VA does: create pin graphics, create pin descriptions,, schedule them, provide Pinterest analytics analysis, suggest Pinterest strategies
Create a landing page to offer your services
Develop your processes and systems to deliver a great experience and service
Market your services:
With pins on Pinterest
In Facebook groups
On social media
Freelance websites like Fiveer
In-person events
Referrals from your clients
Get testimonials
In fact, you can offer all kinds of services on Pinterest beyond Pinterest VA services to build a multi-revenue stream online business.
If you’re an online course, a web designer, a copywriter, an SEO expert, a social media manager, a blog writer, a video editor, a podcast editor, or a YouTube thumbnail expert…. you can leverage the power of Pinterest traffic to generate leads for you on autopilot.
Selling your services means that you are exchanging your time for money and hence, how much money you can make is determined by the following:
How many clients have you secure
How much you charge
So clearly, in this way, Pinterest money generation is limited by your time capacity and fees.
Having said that, you can undoubtedly achieve multiple 6 figures selling services, and Pinterest is the perfect lead generation engine for you.
Why? Get ready to be amazed!
Pinterest has the highest buying intent compared to any other social media platform! Yeah!
The great benefit of selling your services is that you aren’t relying on any platform or product development. This is typically the quickest way to start to make money in Pinterest from a speed-to-market perspective.
You don’t need a website too (although I always think it is advisable to have one). And you certainly don’t need a degree or a certification. Great if you have, and not a problem if you don’t.
Create Pinterest pins to showcase your knowledge, expertise, and services
Start with a landing page to offer your services
Create pins that link to your landing page
Create your website later on.
Want to learn more about using Pinterest? Get your FREE Pinterest Cheat Sheet here.
You might have yet to hear of the Pinterest Creator Fund. The Pinterest Creator Fund offers financial and educational support to select eligible creators (typically from disproportionately underrepresented communities) to help their growth on Pinterest. It typically opens for application typically every three months.
If you’re selected to be part of the program, you get a $25k grant and a 5-weeks program to learn Pinterest best practices, understand how to leverage trends, and more.
If you want to learn more about how to make money on Pinterest Creator Fund, read my blog about it here.
When considering how to make money in Pinterest, you might think about this after a while.
You are very used to this on social media: the concept of influencers.
Well, my friend, that is also a thing on Pinterest!
This is how you achieve that:
You can start creating Pinterest pins using, reviewing or showcasing products on Pinterest.
Grow your Pinterest presence.
Approach brands to collaborate with them on paid content
Use the paid partnership tool on Pinterest to tag the brand you’re collabing with
When looking at how to make money in Pinterest, this is a medium-term revenue generation option. It can become a great source of income, but you’ll need to create your presence, traffic, and following before most brands consider a paid partnership.
Remember always to disclose your paid partnership.
So now that you know how to make money in Pinterest without a blog, let’s dive into other ways to make money in Pinterest with a blog (or a website).
If you think that blogging is dead, that there are too many blogs out there, that is why you should bother, think again.
In today’s online business world, content is the start of everything.
And something always remains super powerful… long-form content. What is that?
A blog
A YouTube video
A podcast
Long-form content delivers value in mass to your audience and builds credibility and trust. It is a must-do, as simple as that.
It is more essential to create long-form content than social media posts.
So, my friend, blogs are super powerful, even in today’s world of AI and Chat GPT.
AI tools are super powerful. Still they can give you incorrect, out-of-date, unreliable data. Only you have the real experience that will make your blog stand out! If you want to know more about this, don’t forget to read my blog about xxx.
Let’s now look at how to make money on Pinterest with a blog!
First, this section isn’t about paying ads on Pinterest to promote your pins.
It’s about you making money thanks to traffic coming from Pinterest to your website.
Let me start with a statement that may surprise you… Making money on Pinterest with ads is not for everyone! Yes, I said it.
I, for example, have purposely chosen not to have ads on my website and my blog. It isn’t you know how to make money on Pinterest with AdSense or Mediavine that you should. It is your choice.
Ads in your blog can be a great way to make money with Pinterest, but they can also clutter your blog and, more importantly, drive traffic from your website to other websites. The user experience can deteriorate quickly, especially with pop-up or video ads left, right, and center.
If you sell your products and want to grow your email list with your freebies on your website, you need to consider carefully how to make money in Pinterest with ads or even not at all.
It isn’t an all-or-nothing decision, though. You can choose a middle ground.
Ads have clear advantages when you aren’t developing your own products or going after affiliate marketing.
The business model of many blogs is to generate thousands from ads. And for that, Pinterest is irreplaceable!
Pinterest offers an incredible opportunity to leverage its vast user base and drive substantial traffic to your website while earning income through ads. By understanding how to make money on Pinterest with ads, you can tap into the platform's immense potential and maximize your earnings with programs like Mediavine or Google AdSense.
How to make money on Pinterest with ads isn’t complicated:
Create blogs your audience is interested in (check the search volumes on Google)
Create pins that link to your blog
Join Google AdSense or Mediavine
Align the ads you show on your website and blog with your audience's interests
Keep on driving tons of traffic from Pinterest to your blog
By following these steps, you can harness the power of Pinterest to generate income through ads on your website. With a strong Pinterest presence and optimized pins, you can attract a larger audience to your blog, increase engagement, and boost your revenue through established ad programs like Mediavine or Google AdSense.
Your revenue from ads can rump up significantly, from a few dollars to increase to thousands per month.
Plan to have other means of income while your revenue rump-up period goes on.
Here is an example for you of a website that clearly targets advertising revenue in their blog from thedreamingdad.com.
Now I want you to project yourself… Imagine you have an established blog, regular traffic, and authoritative blogs demonstrating your credibility in your niche.
This is the perfect moment to consider sponsored content.
What do I mean by how to make money in Pinterest with sponsored content?
When your blog and website get traffic, and your content is as fab as you know you can do, believe my friend, you’ll get frequent emails proposing to pay you for blogs others create to be published on your website that promote their products. And yes, businesses will pay you for it!
See below an email from my inbox with a proposal for sponsored content.
That’s another way to have a Pinterest money-making revenue stream.
Only you will know whether the sponsored content fits your business well and whether you want it on your website.
Your email list is one of the strategic things that have tangible value. The more you grow it, the more you can monetize it…
The best conversion rates happen from your email list. These people hang out with you every week, becoming superfans through your content.
So yeah, you get it. The larger the email list, the better…
The power of Pinterest is its magnetic ability to drive traffic to email list sign-ups, directly or indirectly through your blog.
Why? Users on Pinterest are action-takers!
My list growth is Pinterest driven, so I am sharing this with you!
Your list might be nonexistent or small, and you feel this is not for you. I remember when I had ten people on my list. And then it moves to 30. Oh my god! And now, with thousands, I know you too will grow it to success.
I would do you disfavor if I were not saying what comes next.
If you are serious about affiliate marketing, the most impactful way to generate revenue is through driving traffic to a specific affiliate-related blog where you promote the affiliate product.
It can be:
a review,
a behind-the-scenes,
a before and after,
a comparison,
a box opening,
a cost comparison,
a list blog…
The essential element is to know and provide deep value and insights about what you are promoting. The most honest and knowledgeable you are, the more trust you build, the more affiliate revenue you generate.
In your blog (or YouTube video) you can go into detail, demonstrate your knowledge about the product, be open about the plus and minuses, and especially demonstrate the benefits to your readers.
This is particularly relevant for Pinterest affiliate marketing for high-ticket items.
What’s Pinterest's role in all of this? TRAFFIC.
Here is one of these magic emails I receive when Pinterest makes me money by bringing eyes to my blogs for affiliate marketing.
Do you remember I previously covered a few digital products when showing you how to make money with Pinterest without a blog?
Did you notice I did not mention online courses? Exactly!
Selling an online course without a website and long-form content will always be uphill.
Does it mean you should not create your online course because you haven’t yet a website? Not really. It means that it needs to be part of your strategy at some point. There are so many things that need to be done when you want to make money online, especially as a solopreneur or a small business owner, that you’ll have to prioritize. That is absolutely perfect!
The next element to knowing how to make money on Pinterest as a course creator is to shortcut all the learning curve for:
Using Pinterest for results
Creating and selling your online course
I’ve already told you about my signature course, The Profitable Pinterest Secrets, for mastering how to use Pinterest and create profitable content for results.
Here comes the best advice I can give you to make your online course successful: don’t try to do it alone.
I spent months thinking, researching, doubting about what course, not knowing the tech, and even buying a course that didn’t help me implement anything.
And then, Louise Henry launched the Passive Profit Accelerator, and, having thoroughly enjoyed anything that she does, I joined.
I went through the course, implemented her very action-orientated lessons, followed the step-by-step guidance to avoid all the endless tech questions, and… got thousands in sales with my first online course launch and more since!
Pinterest was the catalyst for growing my audience and generating my leads.
Louise’s Passive Profit Accelerator was a must-have enabler to transform my online journey, and say today that I have a profitable portfolio of online courses with delighted customers! I’m part of her Course Club too.
You can too.
I have an exceptional FREE workshop from my mentor and friend, Louise, for you to watch to learn how she sells online courses in her sleep and how you can too. Access it here for FREE.
Did you see how I made this affiliate marketing offer for you? That’s precisely what I meant to demonstrate in this section!
My friend, you use tools, systems, programs, courses, and products you can meaningfully promote with Pinterest affiliate marketing.
And last but not least, what about becoming a Pinterest expert? Yeap. If you are thinking about how to make money in Pinterest, you can, like me, offer your services and expertise to others that need your genius to make Pinterest work for them.
Whatever path you want to take, don’t forget to get your FREE cheat sheet, 7 Essential Steps To Kickstart Your Pinterest For Traffic On Autopilot.
And if time is of the essence, book a VIP Day with me and achieve in a day the content clarity you’re missing to attract your ideal leads.
You don’t need a business to make money in Pinterest. You can do it without having formed a biz structure. That’s precisely what I did.
Want to save time with your Pinterest pinning? Grab my FREE pin templates for you:
Yes, yes, yes. A Pinterest business account is free and needed to make money with Pinterest.
Want to get a 1-hour FREE training on Pinterest. Watch my workshop below!
No, Pinterest isn’t a blogging platform or social media.
Pinterest is a visual discovery engine, a content search engine where the outputs are visuals called pins.
Your content on Pinterest is searchable and discoverable for years, not just hours like on social media.
Well, you know so much about this now. Let’s summarise what you’ve learned.
You can drive traffic from Pinterest to your website and blog to:
for affiliate marketing
ads revenue
sponsored content
sell products or services
establish authority
Followers aren’t a fundamental metric on Pinterest. To make money with Pinterest, you want traffic, meaning outbound clicks for conversions.
You can generate thousands in revenue without having thousands and thousands of Pinterest followers. I have four times fewer followers on Pinterest than on Instagram, and I get ten times more traffic from Pinterest!
Frankly, don’t concentrate on this goal.
Focus on getting your Pinterest kickstarted for results.
Monthly views are another metric that shouldn’t become your focus. Different niches have very different volumes of searches and, therefore, monthly views.
The monthly views fluctuate per season on Pinterest, and you could get over-anxious about a regular seasonality change.
While your content must be optimized for Pinterest SEO to show up on searches when thinking Pinterest thinks about traffic and leads instead of vanity metrics.
This is a great opportunity to recap:
How to earn money on Pinterest without a blog
Marketing your own products to make money on Pinterest
Pinterest affiliate marketing (for low-ticket items)
Becoming a virtual assistant
The Pinterest Creator Fund
Pinterest paid partnerships
How to make money on Pinterest with a blog
Ads on your website and blog
Sponsored content
Growing your email list
Pinterest affiliate marketing (big ticket items)
Becoming an online course creator
Selling your services as a Pinterest expert
I’m going to make this one simple:
Be you
Be different
Inspire
Drive action
Learn Pinterest and content strategy best practices to get your pins discoverable, clickable, binge-able and actionable
You probably would love to hear that you can make thousands in 30 days.
I’m not that kind of online entrepreneur, and my answer is the same whether you ask me about Pinterest, Instagram, your blog or YouTube.
There is always a ramp-up period to make money on any platform.
You need:
Commitment and patience
Understanding your audience and niche (yeap, research, research, research)
Marketing that stands out and works today
Profitable content creation (not just content for content's sake)
Best practice for online business and understanding Pinterest inside out
You can expect 3-6 months to make money on Pinterest. Obviously, I have seen it shorter and longer. I advise to anticipate six months while you sharpen up your products, marketing, and sales strategies.
3-6 months might sound long. It isn’t. In other platforms like Google, ranking and making money can take years. Just many out there aren’t open about this.
Time flies, and the earlier you start, the earlier you will get your genius to shine on Pinterest and make money online.
In all cases, I recommend you shorten your learning curve. I tried to work it all out by myself, and I lost sooooooooo much time. Truly. I wish I had decided to invest in the skills I didn’t have so much earlier.
Short-cut the learning curve and join The Profitable Pinterest Secrets today.
No, Pinterest is an audience growth and lead generation platform. You make money outside it.
For a while, Pinterest had a trial running in the USA called the Pinterest Creators Rewards, where they paid for content based on a set of result-based metrics and goals. Pinterest retired that trial at the end of 2022.
If you read about it in other content, know that it is old news.
You might think that the place to be in Instagram for photographers. The same for how to make money on Pinterest for an artist.
Hear me out, I love Instagram, and yes, Instagram is core for photographers and artists. Having said that, remember to grow your email list, not just chase likes and followers on social media.
That’s where Pinterest comes into play.
To make money on Pinterest as a photographer or as an artist, you can use Pinterest to:
Create brand awareness with inspirational pins that showcase your genius and services
Drive traffic to your website with your portfolio or online shop
Offer a lead magnet to grow your email list
Use Pinterest trends tool to ride the seasons and drive inspiration with your audience
Set up your sales funnels on Pinterest with special offers or promotions
Create shoppable pins on Pinterest.
Finally, in terms of how to make money on Pinterest for your YouTube channel is using all the strategies you have learned here already plus bringing traffic to your YouTube channel to increase your discoverability.
I don’t want to finish this blog without sharing with you my personal strategy and how I make money with Pinterest myself.
Always remember that the best combo for me might not be the best one for you. We all have different lifestyles and business goals.
Do what feels ok for you instead of copying someone else’s strategy that isn’t aligned with you. I can’t emphasize that enough.
I’ve learned plenty from understanding other online entrepreneurs' strategies. Still, only when I adapted to work for my biz, things started to fall together.
Ok, now that I’ve cleared that, here is how I make money with Pinterest.
I have a content marketing strategy based on:
Long-form content with my blog
Audience connection on Instagram
Traffic on autopilot to my website, blog, sign-up forms, and sales pages.
I make thousands of dollars with Pinterest traffic with my online courses and services, affiliate marketing in my blog, collaborations, templates, and print-on-demand products. I also generate new leads with Pinterest for my second business, our luxury holiday rental business.
I could not grow my email list and grow my customers without Pinterest.
You can too! Choose the combo that works best for you.
What next?
Time to take action. Don’t try to do all at once. One step at a time is so much better.
It's an absolute privilege to have you here!
Don't forget to grab your FREE Pinterest cheat sheet.
Hi! I’m Isabel
For years and years I have created and produced content, in particular visual content. You can find me very often with my cameras and tripod out and about!
My passion: to help you with your online presence and drive business growth through my blog and visuals collections (marketing templates, styled photos & video).
Ah, I have also worked for 24+ in the corporate world, leading quite a mix: transformation, marketing, coaching, sales, productivity, programme management, investments and product management.
I love sharing all these skills with you in my blog.
I am also founder of Agavea Properties, our family holiday rental business. My husband and I lead it with the passion with one goal in mind: serving our customers to create a memorable holiday experience for them.
So there you have it, that’s me! Ah... I almost forgot, my happy place is by the sea.
Thanks for being here with me!