Content types - Pins, Rich Pins, Idea Pins

Pinterest has more content formats than most brands realize, and the choice between them is not purely aesthetic. Each format serves a different distribution purpose, earns different engagement signals, and sends different quality cues to the algorithm. A brand that defaults to publishing only standard image Pins is leaving several high-performing format options unused, some of which require no additional content creation effort beyond what is already in the existing publishing workflow.

This article covers every Pinterest content format, how each one works, what it is best suited for, and how brands should think about using them together.

What are the core Pinterest content formats?

Standard image Pins

The standard image Pin is the foundational content format on Pinterest and still the most widely published. A standard Pin consists of a single image, a title, a description, and a destination URL. The image can be any aspect ratio, though Pinterest recommends a 2:3 ratio (1000 x 1500 pixels) for optimal display in the feed and search results. Standard image Pins are the most flexible format because they work for any category, link directly to any external URL, and can be created with any image that meets basic quality standards. They are the default format for most content strategies and the one against which every other format should be evaluated for fit.

Video Pins

Video Pins play inline in the feed and search results, which gives them a visual presence advantage over static images in busy search result pages. Pinterest supports video lengths from a few seconds up to fifteen minutes, though the strongest performance tends to come from videos between six and fifteen seconds for discovery contexts and longer formats for tutorials or detailed how-to content. Video Pins display a cover image before playback begins, which means the cover frame is as important as the video itself for earning initial clicks. Video Pins are particularly effective in categories like food, beauty, DIY, and fashion where motion can demonstrate a process or transformation that a static image cannot convey.

Product Pins from catalog feeds

Product Pins are generated automatically when a brand connects its e-commerce catalog to Pinterest. Unlike manually created Pins, Product Pins pull title, description, price, and availability data directly from the catalog feed and update in real time when the product data changes. This means a sold-out product Pin displays its out-of-stock status without any manual intervention, and price changes are reflected automatically. Product Pins are eligible for Pinterest Shopping spotlights and shopping-specific browse surfaces that manually created Pins cannot access. For e-commerce brands, the catalog-generated Product Pin is the most efficient format available because it populates hundreds or thousands of Pins from a single integration rather than individual creation effort.

Collections Pins

Collections Pins display one hero image or video with three smaller supporting images below it in the feed, creating a visual grouping that functions like a mini catalog page. Tapping the Collection expands it to a full browsing surface where users can view and shop the individual items shown. Collections work best for brands with multiple related products, such as a room set, an outfit with accessories, or a recipe with the ingredients displayed as individual purchasable items. The format is only available to brands with a connected product catalog and is designed specifically for the shopping discovery context where a user is comparing related options rather than looking for a single item.

Carousel Pins

Carousel Pins display two to five images in a single swipeable Pin, with each image able to link to a different URL. This makes carousels useful for brands that want to showcase multiple products in a single Pin, walk through a step-by-step process across several images, or present before-and-after content with distinct frames. Each card in the carousel can have its own title and description, which provides additional keyword surface area within a single Pin. Carousels tend to earn higher engagement time than single-image Pins because the swipe interaction keeps users in the Pin longer, which sends a positive engagement signal to the algorithm.

What are Rich Pins and how do they work?

What Rich Pins are and how they differ from standard Pins

Rich Pins pull structured metadata directly from the linked web page and display it as additional information on the Pin, beyond what the person who created the Pin manually entered. When a user saves a standard Pin, the title and description they see are whatever the publisher typed when creating it. When a user saves a Rich Pin, the displayed information is drawn from the page's own metadata and stays synchronized with the source page. If the page title, price, or description changes, the Rich Pin reflects the update automatically. This synchronization is what makes Rich Pins more reliable and more informative in search results than standard Pins for the categories they cover.

Article Rich Pins

Article Rich Pins display the headline, author, and story description from the linked article, pulled from the page's Open Graph or Schema metadata. This is the format most relevant to content creators, bloggers, editorial brands, and any brand whose Pinterest content links to written articles. In search results, Article Rich Pins stand out because they display a headline that is larger and more prominent than standard Pin text, which increases the click-through rate relative to standard Pins on comparable content. Enabling Article Rich Pins requires adding Open Graph metadata to the linked pages and validating the Rich Pin through Pinterest's developer tools.

Product Rich Pins

Product Rich Pins display the product name, price, and availability status pulled directly from the product page. Even for brands that have not connected a full catalog feed, Product Rich Pins allow individual product pages to surface their current pricing and stock status in Pinterest search results without manual Pin updates. When a product goes out of stock, the Pin updates automatically. When a price drops, the Pin reflects the change. Users who save a Product Rich Pin and return to it later see accurate information rather than the outdated price or title from when the Pin was created. This currency advantage makes Product Rich Pins meaningfully more trustworthy to purchase-ready users than standard Pins with static information.

Recipe Rich Pins

Recipe Rich Pins display the recipe title, serving size, cook time, and ingredient list pulled from the linked recipe page. For food bloggers, recipe publications, and food brands that publish recipe content, this format is the standard rather than the exception because it makes Pins significantly more useful to users who are planning a meal. A user searching for "weeknight pasta recipes" can see from the Pin itself how long the recipe takes and how many people it serves before clicking through, which means the traffic the Pin generates is more qualified and more likely to convert into a visit that stays on the page. Recipe Rich Pins require Schema markup on the recipe page to pull the structured data correctly.

How to enable Rich Pins

Enabling Rich Pins requires two steps: adding the appropriate metadata to the linked web pages, and validating the setup through Pinterest's Rich Pin validator. For Article and Recipe Rich Pins, this means adding Open Graph or Schema.org markup to the page header. For Product Rich Pins, it means ensuring the product page includes the relevant metadata fields. Once the metadata is in place, the Pinterest Rich Pin validator at developers.pinterest.com confirms the setup is correct and applies the Rich Pin format to all qualifying Pins from that domain. The validator needs to be run only once per domain; all existing and future Pins from that domain that link to pages with the correct metadata will automatically display in Rich Pin format.

What are Idea Pins and how should brands use them?

What Idea Pins are and how they differ from standard Pins

Idea Pins are a multi-page format that can include up to twenty pages of images, videos, and text within a single Pin. Unlike every other Pinterest format, Idea Pins do not have an outbound link: users cannot click through to an external website from an Idea Pin. This is the most important structural difference between Idea Pins and all other Pinterest formats, and it means the objective for Idea Pins is brand building, follower growth, and engagement within the platform rather than website traffic generation. Brands that measure Pinterest success primarily through referral traffic should not treat Idea Pins as a direct substitute for standard Pins; they serve a different purpose in the content mix.

The multi-page format and how it works

Each Idea Pin can contain a combination of full-screen images, short video clips, and text overlays across its pages, which makes it the closest thing Pinterest has to a native storytelling format. A food brand might use an Idea Pin to walk through a full recipe with one image or video per step. A home decor brand might use it to show a room transformation across a series of before-and-after frames. A fashion brand might build an outfit formula across five pages, showing each piece individually and then the finished look. The format is consumed in sequence, which creates a more engaged viewing experience than a single static image and encourages saves from users who want to return to the full content.

How Idea Pins affect distribution and account reach

Pinterest has consistently given Idea Pins strong distribution in its recommendations and topic feeds since the format launched, making them one of the more efficient formats for reaching new users who do not know the brand. Because Idea Pins appear in the Watch feed and topic browsing surfaces in addition to standard search results, they reach users at different points in a browsing session than standard Pins do. For accounts looking to grow their follower count and build brand familiarity on the platform, Idea Pins are often the highest-reach format available. The trade-off is the absence of an outbound link, which means the audience built through Idea Pins must be converted to website visitors through other Pins in the account.

When Idea Pins work well for brands

Idea Pins are most effective for brands that have content naturally suited to a sequential format: tutorials, step-by-step guides, process reveals, before-and-after content, and multi-item collections. They are also effective for brand storytelling and behind-the-scenes content where the goal is building familiarity rather than driving immediate traffic. Brands in the food, beauty, home, fashion, and DIY categories tend to find the strongest natural fit with the format because their content involves processes and sequences that benefit from multiple frames. Brands whose content is primarily static product photography or article links will find less natural application for the Idea Pin format.

Combining Idea Pins with standard Pins in a content strategy

The most effective Pinterest content strategies use both Idea Pins and standard Pins for different objectives within the same account. Idea Pins build brand awareness, earn followers, and generate strong platform engagement signals that benefit the account's overall quality score. Standard Pins, Rich Pins, and Product Pins drive outbound traffic and direct purchase behavior. Publishing Idea Pins on the same topics as the account's highest-performing standard Pins creates a reinforcing loop: the Idea Pin builds awareness and earns saves from users who then encounter the standard Pin in search and click through to the website. Using the formats in combination rather than choosing between them produces better results than committing to either one exclusively.

For how each of these formats is distributed by Pinterest's algorithm, see how the Pinterest algorithm works. For the visual design approach that makes Pins earn saves in competitive search results, see Pinterest Pin design strategy. For the organic strategy that uses these formats to build consistent traffic, see Pinterest marketing and organic growth. For setting up Rich Pins and catalog integration, see setting up your Pinterest business account.

Frequently asked questions