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Pinterest is a free online visual discovery app where people save and share pictures and links, and it makes money by showing ads to those users.
Pinterest is a visual search engine and mood board rolled into one. You type in an idea—dinner recipes, a bathroom remodel, a wedding outfit—and Pinterest shows you a wall of pictures and short videos from all over the internet. You save the ones you like into collections called boards, and other people can see them, save them, and remix them. It is less like Meta's Facebook, where you follow friends, and more like walking into a giant craft fair where strangers display things and you pocket whatever you want to remember.
Nearly all of Pinterest's money comes from advertising. Brands pay to slip a "promoted pin" into your feed, usually when you are close to buying something. That makes Pinterest unusual among social apps: people come with intent, often planning a purchase, rather than just scrolling for entertainment. Its core users have historically been women planning homes, weddings, and meals, which is why retailers and consumer brands love it. The company reported about $3.6 billion in revenue for 2024, up roughly 19% from the prior year, and it has been growing faster lately as it leans into shoppable ads and younger users. Pinterest has been profitable on a GAAP basis since 2021, but the real question is whether it can keep widening its audience. It still trails the giants in scale, and critics have long argued it risks being squeezed between Alphabet's Google and Meta's Instagram, both of which have copied visual search features. Pinterest's answer is to make itself more of a shopping tool: linking pins directly to products, partnering with retailers, and building tools for creators. Notably, it has stayed fiercely independent—Microsoft reportedly tried to buy it for about $51 billion in 2022, and Pinterest said no.
The company spun out of a scrappy start in 2010 and went public on the NYSE in 2019. Its founders built it quietly, and for years it grew almost entirely by word of mouth. Today it is a rare internet company with a clean balance sheet, a free product users love, and a single clear money-making engine: ads. The risk is that it is a one-trick business in a fast-moving ad world. The bet is that its search-driven, shopping-friendly audience is worth more to advertisers than the attention it gets credit for.
Saved answer · last researched 29 Oct 2026