Resize Image for Pinterest

Why Vertical Pins Dominate the Pinterest Feed

Pinterest is built around vertical scrolling, and the platform's grid layout heavily favors tall images. The recommended pin size of 1000x1500 pixels (2:3 aspect ratio) occupies more visual real estate in the feed than any square or landscape alternative. A properly sized vertical pin can take up twice the screen area of a square image, which directly translates to more impressions and higher click-through rates.

The 2:3 ratio is not arbitrary — Pinterest specifically optimizes its layout algorithm around this proportion. Pins taller than 2:3 (such as the old 1:3 infographic style) get truncated in the feed with a "See more" overlay, which kills engagement. Pins shorter than 2:3 get compressed into smaller grid cells. The 1000x1500 sweet spot gives you maximum visibility without truncation.

Mobile dominates Pinterest usage, with over 80% of sessions happening on phones. On a mobile screen, a 2:3 pin fills nearly the entire viewport width and extends well below the fold, creating an immersive visual moment that square images simply cannot match. When you resize your images to 1000x1500 before uploading, you are designing for the device where most of your audience will see your content.

Text overlays on pins require careful planning around safe zones. Pinterest's grid displays pins at roughly 236 pixels wide on desktop and varies on mobile. Any text on your pin needs to remain legible at that reduced display size. Place key text in the center 60% of the image — the top and bottom edges are where Pinterest overlays its UI elements (save button, source attribution, and board selection). Keep headline text to 5-7 words maximum, and use a minimum apparent font size of 20px at the 1000px-wide resolution. Bold, high-contrast text on a semi-transparent background bar consistently outperforms text placed directly on busy photography.

Compression behavior on Pinterest is aggressive. The platform re-encodes every uploaded image as JPEG, typically reducing quality to around 80-85%. If you upload an already-compressed JPEG, Pinterest's re-compression creates generation loss — each round of JPEG encoding introduces more artifacts, especially around text edges and high-contrast boundaries. The solution is to upload the highest quality source you can within Pinterest's 20MB limit. Start with a PNG or a JPEG saved at 95%+ quality, and let Pinterest handle the final compression. You can compress your images to stay under the size limit while preserving maximum quality for Pinterest's encoder.

Rich Pins pull metadata directly from your website and display it below the pin image — product prices, article titles, recipe ingredients. This metadata appears as additional text beneath your pin, which means your image does not need to duplicate that information. A clean, visually striking image paired with Rich Pin metadata outperforms a cluttered image that tries to include title, price, and description as text overlays. Set up Rich Pin markup on your site, then let your images focus on being visually compelling rather than informationally dense.

Pinterest's image format support is straightforward: JPEG, PNG, and WebP are all accepted. JPEG is the practical choice for photographs and most pin designs because Pinterest converts everything to JPEG anyway. PNG offers no advantage unless you need transparency during the design phase — and since Pinterest renders pins on a white background, transparency rarely matters in the final output. If your source images are in WebP or AVIF, convert them to JPEG or PNG before uploading to ensure predictable quality. For the best image format for web use cases beyond Pinterest, JPEG remains the pragmatic default for photographic content.

Board covers display at 222x150 pixels on desktop — a landscape crop of your pins. Pinterest auto-selects a board cover from your recent pins, but you can set a custom one. Design board covers as separate 600x600 images (Pinterest crops them to landscape for display) with a clear, centered subject that reads well at the tiny display size. Profile photos render at 165x165 pixels from a square source, so any square crop at 400x400 or above works well.

Pinterest advertising introduces additional dimension requirements. Standard promoted pins use the same 1000x1500 format, but carousel ads accept 1000x1500 or 1000x1000 per card (2-5 cards). Shopping ads pull product images from your catalog feed, where 1000x1000 minimum is required. Collections ads use a hero image at 1000x1500 plus smaller product images. For a detailed breakdown of every Pinterest placement, consult the comparison table below and our Pinterest image size guide.

The social media image sizes hub covers dimensions for all major platforms if you are preparing images for cross-posting. Pinterest's vertical format rarely works well on landscape-oriented platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn, so plan separate crops rather than forcing one image to serve every platform.

Pinterest Image Dimensions (2026)

Notes: Pinterest re-encodes all uploads as JPEG regardless of source format. Upload at the highest quality within file size limits to minimize generation loss. Pins taller than 2:3 get truncated with a "See more" overlay in the feed.