As one of the tech world's leading image-sharing and social media sites, Pinterest (PINS -0.55%) might have caught your eye as a potential addition to your investment portfolio.
Here, we'll go over how to buy Pinterest stock on an online brokerage platform, whether you should invest in Pinterest, if Pinterest is profitable, and whether Pinterest pays a dividend.
We'll also list a few ETFs that contain Pinterest to consider if you only want indirect exposure to the stock and briefly review the potential for a Pinterest stock split in the future.
Pinterest may make for a compelling investment idea for some growth investors. As with any investment, be sure to do your research first.
How to buy
How to buy Pinterest stock
Buy shares of Pinterest or any other publicly traded company by following these steps:
- Open your brokerage app: Log in to your brokerage account where you handle your investments.
- Search for the stock: Enter the ticker or company name into the search bar to bring up the stock's trading page.
- Decide how many shares to buy: Consider your investment goals and how much of your portfolio you want to allocate to this stock.
- Select order type: Choose between a market order to buy at the current price or a limit order to specify the maximum price you're willing to pay.
- Submit your order: Confirm the details and submit your buy order.
- Review your purchase: Check your portfolio to ensure your order was filled as expected and adjust your investment strategy accordingly.
Should I invest?
Should I invest in Pinterest?
As with any investment decision, it's smart to do a fair amount of research before making a trade. The decision around Pinterest stock is no different, and whether it's the right pick for you is entirely subjective. However, there are a few reasons Pinterest might be interesting to you as a portfolio addition.
Why you may want to invest in Pinterest:
If you're a growth investor, Pinterest might be worthwhile. Between 2020 and 2023, the company almost doubled its revenue to just over $3 billion. The company's business has thrived alongside a robust and growing user base.
Pinterest also offers a relatively unique product offering and an attractive space for monetizable ads; there is great potential for further expansion.
Why you may want to avoid Pinterest:
If you are an income investor looking for monthly or quarterly cash flow, Pinterest isn't the best bet. Since Pinterest is a growth stock in the tech space, you shouldn't expect a dividend payout anytime soon. You might consider looking at some of the blue chip dividend payers, like defensive stocks in the utilities and/or healthcare sectors.
Pinterest also faces a number of challenges. First, the company spends a great deal on marketing and other mechanisms to capture new users, which has translated into slim profit margins.
Pinterest competes in a space with both Meta's (META 0.82%) Instagram and TikTok, two giants in the visual search sector. Finally, as tech has spiked and fallen over the last few years, any potential investor should be prepared to deal with some amount of volatility in the stock.
Pros and cons
Pros and cons of investing in Pinterest
Some advantages of investing in Pinterest include:
- High-intent users. One of Pinterest's major appeals to advertisers is that its users tend to visit the platform with purchase intent. Many are seeking inspiration for a wedding, vacation, home renovation project, etc. Pinterest continues to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities to improve personalization and ad targeting.
- Growing monthly active users. Pinterest continues to grow its base of active monthly users, albeit at a slower pace than it did in the past. The platform continues to gain popularity among Gen Z users, as well as those outside the U.S.
- Strong balance sheet. As of the first quarter of 2025, Pinterest had about $2.6 billion in cash and short-term investments and only $144 billion in long-term debt.
- Potential acquisition target. Rumors have long swirled about Pinterest's potential as an acquisition target. Though these are just rumors, when acquisitions occur, shareholders often receive a premium for their shares over the market price.
Some downsides to investing in Pinterest stock:
- Vulnerability to a recession. Pinterest users tend to visit the platform for inspiration on discretionary spending, like fashion, travel, and decorating, which could make it vulnerable to a prolonged economic downturn.
- Intense competition. Pinterest faces heavy competition for e-commerce dollars from behemoths like Instagram, Alphabet's YouTube, Amazon, and TikTok, all of which have far deeper pockets.
- No dividends. Pinterest is still in growth mode and has yet to pay a dividend in its history as a publicly traded company.
Profitability
Is Pinterest profitable?
Pinterest has also shown a unique ability to increase its revenue, taking gross sales from $1.1 billion in 2019 to more than $3.6 billion in fiscal 2024. After posting a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) net loss of $36 million for 2023, the company reported net income of $1.86 billion in fiscal 2024.
The company boasts more than 570 million monthly active users, or MAUs, which are attractive for advertisers, affiliate marketers, and potential brand partners.
Above all, Pinterest offers a centralized space for sellers to promote products and for advertisers to lock onto a particular target audience. This makes it a compelling option from a revenue perspective.
Still, its uneven profit history makes it a challenging investment call.
Dividends
Does Pinterest pay a dividend?
As a growth-focused company, Pinterest does not pay a dividend to its shareholders.
This doesn't necessarily mean that Pinterest will never pay a dividend, but it's a safe bet that they won't be paying one anytime soon.
ETF options
ETFs with exposure to Pinterest
Pinterest may seem like a compelling investment to you, but it's understandable that you may not want direct exposure to the stock itself. The company's performance has been uneven at best, and you may not want to watch your investment portfolio whipsaw back and forth on a daily basis.
There are several exchange-traded funds (ETFs) available that include Pinterest as a major holding.
The Global X Social Media ETF (NYSE:SOCL) has 7% of its funds invested in Pinterest, along with other social media titans like Meta and Reddit (RDDT -1.99%).
Similar ETFs include the SPDR S&P Internet ETF (NYSEMKT:XWEB) and the Invesco Next Gen Media and Gaming ETF (NYSEMKT:GGME).
Each of these ETFs contains significant exposure to Pinterest, but investors wouldn't bear Pinterest's risks to the same degree as the company's direct common stockholders.
Overall, ETFs are generally sensible for investors who don't want direct exposure to any one particular stock but do see value in a specific theme (in this case, social media). Before investing in any ETF, make sure you understand its core holdings as well as its expense ratio (the amount you'll pay to own the fund).
Expense Ratio
Stock splits
Will Pinterest's stock split?
It's impossible to know if Pinterest's stock will split at some point in the future, but we do know that it hasn't split yet and doesn't have a split scheduled in the near future. As long as Pinterest shares can be had at a reasonably accessible price, a split remains unlikely.
Related investing topics
The bottom line
The bottom line on Pinterest
Pinterest common stock can make sense for some investors, but others might feel that the risks are too much to bear.
No matter what you ultimately choose to do, make sure that you've first done your own research on the company and that you've made a commitment to holding the stock for the long term if you choose to buy it.
A long-term horizon is key to successful investing and wealth creation. Once you make an investment decision, be prepared to hold it for a significant period of time to take full advantage of the potential benefits.
If investing directly in a company's common stock feels unnecessarily risky, consider adding ETFs or mutual funds to your portfolio for diversification.
FAQ
Investing in Pinterest FAQ
Can you buy stock in Pinterest?
You can buy stock in Pinterest. Common shares are available on pretty much any online brokerage platform. The stock is quite liquid, so there won't be an issue buying or selling small lots quickly.
Where can I buy Pinterest stock?
You can buy Pinterest stock on most online brokerage platforms, like Fidelity, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, and others. Many platforms offer these trading services for free.
Does Pinterest have a future?
While it faces fierce competition from platforms like Meta's Instagram and TikTok, Pinterest still appears to have decent growth prospects. In the first quarter of 2025, Pinterest grew its monthly active users by about 10% and saw strong growth in average revenue per user among its international base.
Is Pinterest dead?
No, Pinterest isn't dead. The platform continues to grow its revenues and number of monthly active users, albeit at a slower pace than it did in the past.
