Are You Using the Best Pinterest Pin Size for 2023?

Wondering what’s the best Pinterest Pin size?

Let’s see what Pinterest says, and what Pinners say is actually working!

We will cover:

• Latest Pinterest standard Pin size info.
• Alternate Pin sizes to the classic 2:3 – do they work?
• Idea Pin size and Video Pin sizes.
• How to Pin a large image while keeping your site load times FAST.
• And more!

UPDATED often with info from Pinterest. Most recent: January 2023.

I keep my “finger on the pulse” of this important visual marketing concern, and promise that I have the latest info for you.

What does Pinterest Say is the Best Pin Size?

Pinterest says the optimal Pin size is a 2:3 proportion, and gives 1000 x 1500 pixels as an example.

Years ago, it was 736 x 1104 pixels. In 2018, Pinterest recommended you create Pins at 600 x 900 pixel size.

Now Pinterest says 1000 x 1500 pixels is optimal – or any 2:3 aspect ratio.

When you pick images for Pinterest, think vertical. Most of our formats are vertical, and taller than they are wide. We recommend that you use a 2:3 aspect ratio for all of your Pins.

“Aspect ratio” may sound complicated, but it’s just a way to talk about an image’s width, compared to its height. A 2:3 aspect ratio means that your image’s width is ⅔ its height.

For example, your Pin could be 1,000 pixels wide, by 1,500 pixels tall. If your image falls outside this ratio, it could get truncated in people’s feeds and they won’t get to see your full Pin.

All these image dimensions represent a 2:3 aspect ratio, and appear to be Pinterest-approved.

Which Pinterest Pin Size Should I Use in 2023?

Any 2:3 size is strongly recommended by Pinterest (see other options below). Although I haven’t found this to be true, they now insist:

Other ratios … may negatively impact performance. source

Some of my readers have suggested that smaller sizes actually look best after uploading to the Pinterest platform.

I found that the 2:3 final size of 564 x 846 works best. The idea is to provide Pinterest with an image size they won’t need to “resize”. Because when they do, the blurring is so bad that the text on the cards aren’t readable.

Pinterest has never recommended smaller than 600 x 900 though. In fact, in a conference they said they prefer larger, higher resolution images, and specified 1000 x 1500.

And early in 2021, some Pinners started getting “warnings” that their Pin size wasn’t optimal. And now this happens every time I upload a smaller image:

When we asked about it in the Pinterest community forum, the moderator said:

2×3 aspect ratio is best practice, however, the bigger the better to avoid pixelation on mobile and high resolution screens. Technically speaking 600px x 900px is correct BUT 1000px x 1500px tends to be a bit better quality. They’re both the same aspect ratio, it’s just a larger version of the image.

I haven’t seen any evidence that the platform actually favors 1000 pixel width images over 600, though some Pinners assert that it does. Pinterest is really pushing for larger images, so you may want to test it for your own account!

You run a risk of affecting your website speed if you embed large images, and we’ll cover this later in this article.

What about other shapes? Read on…

Can I Pin Square Images to Pinterest?

Square Pins aren’t always the best performers, but they can work on Pinterest too.

I wouldn’t create square images for Pinterest specifically, but if you already have them, give them a go. Follow up with the stats to see if they’re working.

Surprisingly, my top Pin in early 2022 for Impressions was square: 60,000 in 30 days.

This same Pin did perform way better in 2021 though. It was tops not only for Impressions, but also Engagements, Closeups, and Link Clicks.

The image below shows stats for the 30 days from mid-December 2020 thru mid-January 2021.

 

Can I Pin Horizontal Images to Pinterest?

Yes, you can pin horizontal Pins! Whether you call them landscape, wide, or horizontal, these Pins can work too.

Surprisingly, my top Pins right now (January 2023) are almost all horizontal – for Impressions, Saves, and Clicks!

What Size Is a Pinterest Long Pin?

A Pinterest long Pin is 1:2.1 aspect ratio. For example, 1000 x 2100 pixels. In 2023, these still don’t get truncated in the Pin feed.

Because my top blog posts for Pinterest traffic have all had tall infographics, I even started making my “regular” Pins taller than 2:3. Others have raved about how well long Pins perform.

But now? Maybe not. Know what Pinterest called those feed-hogging, extra-tall Pins during that August 2018 webinar?

Giraffe Pins. And I don’t think they meant it in a cute way.

Pinterest says they’re out to quash those long, space-hogging Pins – but I haven’t found it to be true.

As always, check your stats to see which Pins are working best for you.

What about Collage Pins and Infographics?

I recommend a 2:3 to 1:4 maximum height for infographics. Avoid 8, 10, or more times tall than wide. Pinterest is definitely suppressing these space-hoggers.

Even though long ones can be seen in their entirety once clicked, people get tired of scrolling. So, don’t make them too tall.

I’ve had great success with splitting a tall infographic into several shorter graphics. This gives you lots more Pins to share, multiplying your virality!

If you make collage Pins with several products, or the steps to create a project, I suggest you test 2:3 Pins as well. See which Pins get more Saves and drive more traffic.

I would not continue making needlessly tall “Giraffe Pins.” If you’re really tied to them, split test.

In March 2018, Pinterest confirmed that Pins longer than a 1:2.1 proportion will be cropped. Take this into consideration for your designs going forward.

In June 2018, Pinterest said their algorithm will favor Pins that are approximately 2:3 proportion. Deviate much from that “golden ratio,” and you may struggle to get traction.

Pins longer than 2:3 will have to earn their right to be seen. If you take twice up as much height as a 2:3 Pin, you’ll need twice as much engagement to get into the Smart Feed as often.

Space-hogging Pins are a bit obnoxious and many people won’t share them. But valuable, info-packed graphics are still saved and repinned widely.

I don’t expect their popularity to die down! Everyone loves a useful infographic – and when clicked, Pinners can still see the whole thing.

OK, so what size should I make my Pins already?

There’s not ONE specific size you must follow.

I still have infographics in my top 10 Pins for Impressions, Clicks, and Saves.

BUT I can no longer say that they outperform all others for me.

In 2019, 8 of my top 14 Pinterest-traffic images were TALL infographics.

But in 2020, almost all of the infographics driving traffic are 2:3 proportion, or close to it.

So yes, I do believe Pinterest IS now strongly favoring the 2:3 shape. I’ve seen it evolve over the years.

Pins taller than 2:3 proportion must provide additional value. DO NOT stretch out a boring, text-based Pin to make a space-hogging “Giraffe Pin.”

Infographics and helpful multi-photo Pins (especially step-by-step “instructographics”) should continue to perform, but I recommend split testing against shorter versions.

Determine Your Best Pin Size

I recommend making Pins no smaller than 564 x 846 (2:3 ratio) up to 564 x 1,184 (to not get cropped).

To make it simple, you can go with Pinterest’s 1000 x 1500 (2:3 ratio) and 1000 x 2100 (to not get cropped).

Or go with your blog width and do some simple math: 1.5 x blog width.

Anything larger than 564 will be scaled down proportionally, so use the width and compression that doesn’t slow down your blog.

Easiest: Best Pin sizes are one and one-half to two times as tall as wide.

Pin Sizes	Pixel Dimensions	(choose any)
1:1 Square pins	564 x 564 px	600 x 600 px	1000 x 1000 px
2:3 Optimal pins	564 x 846 px	600 x 900 px	1000 x 1500 px
1:2.1 Long pins	564 x 1184 px	600 x 1260 px	1000 x 2100 px

What Size Are Idea Pins?

Idea Pins’ aspect ratio is 9:16. If you create graphics first in another design tool, Pinterest recommends you use 1080 x 1920, the same as Instagram Stories.

To learn more: All About Pinterest Idea Pins

Pinterest Video Pin Size

Pinterest accepts a variety of shapes for video Pins.

The aspect ratio must be shorter than 1:2, which means twice as tall as wide, and taller than 1.91:1, which is landscape.

Within this range, there is a clear winner: the optimal video Pin size is 2:3 aspect ratio.

If you have a horizontal or square video, you can still make a tall Pin. Add a still photo and a title block using a tool like Keynote.

NOTE: Even though Pinterest recommends 9:16 format and accepts up to 1:2, these tall videos will be seen cropped at the top and/or bottom. Stick with 2:3 for best results.

How short should a video Pin be?

Pinterest keeps stats on promoted videos, where they say 6–15 seconds works best. Now that’s short!

It’s wise to keep the videos short and not give everything away, so Pinners need to click to your site for details.

Also be sure to specify a strong cover image. Your cover image shows up in people’s feeds and should provide a good sense of what they’re about to watch.

How to Pin a LARGE Pin without slowing your website

Savvy bloggers are aware that a fast-loading website is essential. Beware of high resolution images on your website.

Google knows that most web browsing now is done on mobile phones – many with slow internet connections. To avoid a bad user experience, they are down-ranking slow websites.

In addition, people are impatient. They’ll leave your site if it doesn’t load quickly. This is another bad signal to Google!

Large, high-resolution images can wreak havoc on your page speed scores. But you want those big images on Pinterest.

Yes, you can have it both ways!

In 2023, I do recommend creating Pins at the larger image size to future-proof your Pins, since mobile and desktop screen resolution keeps getting better and better. And then follow one of these to keep your site fast:

Option 1: Enable WebP technology. Do some research, or ask your web designer / techie friend.

Option 2: Show a small and/or very compressed image on your web page, and upload a high resolution version to Pinterest and/or Tailwind.

This is adequate if you don’t get a lot of site visitors pinning your images, or only care about your own Pin saves.

Option 3: Show a small image on your web page, and link it to a larger image that will be saved to Pinterest, by you or any visitor to the page.

This is a tad trickier as it involves some (very basic) coding. You do need to be able to access the “text” or HTML of your web page.

NOTE: You don’t want to resize a large image to look smaller on the page. This means the image still has to be loaded at full size, and then be resized. This isn’t helping your load time at all.

What you want to do is create a large, high resolution PNG24 file for Pinterest use only. 1000×1500 pixels is said to be optimal.

Then re-save it at the size you wish to display on your site as a JPG, compressed as much as you find acceptable in appearance. In Photoshop, I “Save for Web” at Medium 30.

How to link a small image to a large pinnable image

Add the small image you want to show on the website.

Go to the “text” side of your WP editor.

Find the code for that image <img src=”small-image.jpg”>

Before the closing bracket, link to the image you want pinned using data-pin-media as so <img src=”small-image.jpg” data-pin-media=”large-image.jpg”>

Of course your file names will be whatever you named them, and there’s other code WP puts in in there, but that’s the simple version to explain it.

Which File Types Does Pinterest Accept?

File types for static images are PNG or JPG. The image specs below apply to both standard organic Pins and standard Promoted Pins.

Pin Image specs

• File type: PNG or JPEG
• Max file size: 32 MB (previously only 10MB!)
• Aspect ratio: We recommend using a 2:3 aspect ratio, or 1000 x 1500 pixels. Pins with an aspect ratio that’s greater than 2:3 might get cut off in people’s feeds.

Video at standard width (organic or promoted)

• File type: .mp4, .mov or .m4v
• Encoding: H.264 or H.265
• Max file size: Up to 2GB
• Video length: Minimum 4 seconds, maximum 15 minutes
• Aspect ratio: Shorter than 1:2 (width:height), taller than 1.91:1. We recommend making your videos square (1:1) or vertical (2:3, 9:16).

Promoted Video at max width

• File type: .mp4, .mov or .m4v
• Encoding: H.264 or H.265
• Max file size: 2GB or less
• Video length: Minimum 4 seconds, maximum 15 minutes
• Aspect ratio: Square (1:1) or widescreen (16:9). Note that max. width videos can’t exceed the height of a 1:1 aspect ratio.

Promoted Carousel Image specs

• Image count: 2-5 images per Carousel
• File type: PNG or JPEG
• Max file size: 32 MB per image
• Aspect ratio: 1:1 or 2:3

Source for specs.

Make sure to use images that are visually compelling and will stand out in people’s feeds. Your Pin images should clearly highlight your brand or service, and give people context about what it is you offer.

Stay away from abstract imagery or stock photography that doesn’t help tell a story about your specific brand.

Save Pins to Pinterest from your website, or upload directly to Pinterest.

To upload an image or video, just click the red plus sign on desktop. Be sure to fill out all the fields.

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Conclusion: Pinterest Pin Size 2023

If you make squares or portrait shape image on Instagram, these can be cross-posted on Pinterest.

Note that the type of content that resonates with IGers isn’t always the same stuff that Pinners like! Quotes work well on both. But selfies are for Instagram and not Pinterest.

My top recommendation: 2:3 for static Pins and video Pins. You can test up to 1:2.1 for static Pins and squares for video Pins.

2:3 and up to 1:4 max for infographics. Make them simple, valuable, and enticing. Use tall ones sparingly until you find how these resonate with your audience.

Squares and horizontals can work too, but I wouldn’t create these specifically for Pinterest.

And don’t forget, once you’ve created great Pins, you also need to write great Pinterest descriptions!

What Pin sizes perform for you?

I’ll keep testing and reporting back. In the meantime, I’d love to hear what you’re finding to be the best Pinterest Pin size!

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