Pinterest's Advertising API has real endpoints for campaigns, reporting, Customer Lists and conversions — the technical shape is solid. What's not solid yet is our own access: Pinterest reviews every developer app before granting write access (Trial tier first, roughly 1,000 requests and 300 writes a day, then Standard tier once approved), and that review is Pinterest's process, on Pinterest's timeline, not ours. This page tracks the real status — not connected today, actively scoped — rather than a date we can't guarantee.
Coming
Pinterest ads cost, and what's coming to Ads and Pixels
Pinterest's own Advertising API is real, and it's under review — Ads and Pixels hasn't cleared that review yet, so this page tells you what's true today, cost included.
One place. Every screen.Explore below
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Why Pinterest isn't live yet
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What Pinterest ads cost, based on real search data
Pinterest ads cost is one of the more searched questions about the platform, and the honest answer is that Pinterest's own auction sets the price, not us — we don't have sourced first-party data on typical CPCs or CPMs to publish here, and we won't invent a number. What we can say: Pinterest is broadly considered a lower-competition auction than Meta or Google for comparable ecommerce and lifestyle categories, which is part of why it keeps showing up in channel-mix conversations even before an integration exists. Once live, Pinterest ads cost and performance will sit in the same Results Map as every other channel, so the real number — your number — will be visible rather than estimated.
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Run Pinterest manually until then
Track Pinterest spend as a manual channel today: a tracked link and UTM-tagged landing page per campaign, spend entered or an invoice uploaded, and the Audience Vault attributes saves-to-sale results the same way it would for a connected network. That history carries forward once the integration goes live — nothing gets rebuilt from zero.
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Shopping and catalog ads, specifically
Pinterest's own product is closer to a visual search engine than a social feed, which changes what a catalog-driven advertiser should expect from it once it's live. Customer Lists (Pinterest's audience-matching format) and Pinterest's shopping ad types both read against a product catalog the same way Meta and Google Shopping do, so the plan is to reuse the same feed already syncing from Shopify or WooCommerce for those two rather than build a third, separate catalog connection. That matters because Pinterest users searching for a product idea — a kitchen remodel, a wedding dress, a gift — tend to be earlier in a longer decision than a Meta or Google shopper, so the same catalog can support both a cold "idea" ad and a later retargeting ad once someone's saved a Pin, without maintaining two different product feeds for one platform.
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Who's asking about Pinterest
Ecommerce brands with a strong visual catalog — home goods, fashion, weddings, food — are the ones most often weighing Pinterest ads cost against Meta and Google before committing budget, because Pinterest's audience arrives already in a buying or planning mindset rather than a scrolling one. Agencies running seasonal campaigns (holiday, back-to-school, wedding season) mention it too, since Pinterest's own usage patterns skew heavily toward long-lead planning windows that don't map cleanly onto a paid-social calendar built around Meta and TikTok.
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What Pinterest will look like here once it's live
The same Basic/Advanced workflow every other channel gets: campaign build mapped to your goal, Customer List retargeting from the Audience Vault, AI creative sized for Pinterest's Pin format, and the same honest attribution rules that credit a conversion only as deep as real click evidence goes. Pinterest's own API supports Customer Lists and conversions today at the tier level Ads and Pixels is targeting, so once access clears, retargeting and server-side conversion tracking should be available from day one rather than added later.
A little more clarity
Frequently asked questions
Real answers before you make a decision.
Is Pinterest advertising available in Ads and Pixels today?
No. It's scoped and pending Pinterest's own developer-app review, not connected. Track it manually in the meantime using the option above.
What does Pinterest ads cost compared to Facebook or Google?
We don't have sourced first-party cost data to publish, and Pinterest's own auction ultimately sets the price for any given account. Broadly, it's considered a lower-competition auction in most ecommerce and lifestyle categories — directionally useful, not a number to plan a budget around.
Why does Pinterest take a review process to connect?
Pinterest gates write access behind an app review — a Trial tier with daily request limits first, then Standard tier once approved — to control the volume of automated campaign activity on its API. That's outside our control to accelerate.
Will Pinterest's Trial tier limits affect how fast campaigns launch once it's live?
Possibly, early on — roughly 1,000 requests and 300 writes a day is a real ceiling for an agency running several clients at once. Ads and Pixels queues and rate-limits automatically against whatever tier we're on, the same way it already does for every other network's own API limits, so a host account hitting a ceiling shows up as a delay, never a silent failure.
Will my manually tracked Pinterest data transfer once it's live?
Yes. Tracked links, promo codes and logged spend stay in the same Audience Vault record; going live adds automated campaign build and direct reporting on top of history that already exists.
What can I run today instead of Pinterest?
Facebook and Instagram are the closest live equivalent for a visual, discovery-driven audience, and both are fully connected now with the same attribution and AI optimizer Pinterest will eventually share.
Will Pinterest catalog ads use the same product feed as Meta and Google?
That's the plan — the Shopify or WooCommerce feed already syncing to Meta catalog and Google Merchant today is built to extend to Pinterest's shopping formats once access clears, instead of a separate catalog connection you'd have to set up again from scratch.
Where does the Pinterest ads cost data on this page come from?
It doesn't come from a published rate card — Pinterest doesn't publish one — so this page states plainly where sourced Pinterest ads cost data exists (nowhere, yet) versus where it's directional industry context, rather than presenting an estimate as fact.
Is there a minimum budget once Pinterest ads cost data is confirmed?
Unconfirmed for now. Once access clears, Basic mode will show the realistic Pinterest ads cost range for your goal the same way it does for every live channel, instead of a guess published ahead of real account data.
Your next move
Start on what's live, add Pinterest when it ships
Track Pinterest manually today, and move it into full campaign control the moment access clears.