Developer policy

Our philosophy

Our goal is to help people discover, save and do things that inspire them. As a developer, you can play an important role in making that happen. This means you should:

Build something that’s your own:

• Don't build something that recreates or replicates Pinterest’s core functionality, look or feel, or that misrepresents your affiliation with Pinterest.
  • Review our brand guidelines for general rules around using our brand assets and showcasing Pinterest content.
  • Get approval from Pinterest before mentioning Pinterest in press.

Be transparent and honest:

• Don’t mislead, deceive or confuse Pinners.
• Keep Pinterest spam-free.
• Don’t promise money or other rewards like discounts or coupons in exchange for taking actions on your app or service.
• Be open about the functions and features of your app or service.
• In general, only use API data to help users succeed on Pinterest.
• Respect our open endpoints and only use supported APIs. As a reminder, it’s a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy to use any undocumented or unsupported method to access, search, scrape, download or change Pinterest or anything on it.

You’re responsible for complying with all applicable laws, regulations and industry codes, and for following our Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, Privacy Policy and other Pinterest policies. Keep in mind that you can't use our API if your app or service is directed at children under 13. Also follow any technical specifications, like rate limitations.

When you're accessing information from our APIs:

• Don’t store or change any images (unless you have permission from the copyright owner), and don’t enable users to print images from Pinterest.
• Don’t store any data other than Pins.
• Don’t share data (including derivative data) from a Pinner’s account without their express permission. Any non-public information (for example, domain performance) must also be anonymous and aggregated.
• Don’t use or share any data (including derivative data) with advertising or monetization services or data brokers, don’t sell it to anyone, and don’t use it to target users off of Pinterest.
• Don’t join Pinterest API data with personally-identifiable information (unless it’s to identify a Pinner who’s given you access to their Pinterest account) or with device-level information (e.g. a cookie or device identifier).
• Don’t access, modify, store, share or use content on secret boards (unless Pinterest has given you permission).
• Immediately stop using and delete all data (including derivative data) from our APIs about a Pinner if they or Pinterest revokes your access or asks you to.
• Keep your data in sync with Pinterest’s data. For example, if somebody deletes Pins from their board, you must delete that Pin too.
• Let people know how their data will be used by providing a privacy policy that’s easily accessible.
• Provide people with clear, conspicuous ways to share content on Pinterest. For example, If you use Pin data for personalization or making recommendations, make it easy for users to save content back to Pinterest.

When you're reporting, publishing content or taking actions on a user’s behalf:

• Link Pins back to either their source or Pin URLs if you’re rendering Pins. Also, make sure that it’s clear that the Pin image or data comes from Pinterest.
• Don’t cover or obscure content that is being rendered from Pinterest.
• Don’t create new content from Pins that can be distributed as pieces of content on your app or service.
• Let people know and agree to anything you do on their behalf, like:
  • Adding content to Pinterest.
  • Changing any part of their Pinterest profile.
  • Following or unfollowing Pinners, interests or boards.
• Respect sites that don't allow Pinning.
• If you offer reporting to users about their accounts with other platforms besides Pinterest you must use a separate Pinterest service, or a separate Pinterest section of your service, to report Pinterest metrics.

We reserve the right to suspend your access to the API or terminate our relationship for any or no reason.

If you access our Ads API or use information from any Pinterest API to provide an advertising service, also do the following:

• You must comply with Pinterest’s Advertising Standards.
• When a Pinner gives you permission to access their account via an API:
  • only use information from their account on their behalf,
  • don’t combine their account information with information from other Pinners’ accounts or other services, and
  • don’t use information from the Pinterest API except to serve and evaluate the performance of that Pinner’s ads on Pinterest.
• Don’t share information from the Pinterest API with a third party, including another advertising service, except with the Pinner whose account it’s from.
• Don’t reverse engineer or replicate any feature of Pinterest’s advertising service, including targeting options.
• If you report last-click attribution metrics, next to them with equal prominence you must show multi-touch metrics that divide attribution equally among each touch.
• Don’t disclose your Pinterest sales figures in public statements or marketing materials.
• In all invoices and anywhere else you report an advertiser’s Pinterest spend and performance:
  • prominently and separately disclose the fees you charge for Pinterest advertising and the fees Pinterest charges (both the absolute amount and by Pinterest billing metric, e.g. CPM or CPC), and
  • don’t combine your fees with Pinterest fees.
• We may disclose the above information to your advertisers if they request it.
• Don’t alter Pinterest’s fee structure when you charge advertisers for Pinterest advertising (e.g. by charging a fixed fee for auction-based advertising).
• We may require proof of your compliance with these terms.

If you provide audience onboarding as part of your advertising service, you must comply with these policies:

• If you use Pinterest technology that stores and accesses cookies or other information on an end user's device, you must clearly disclose and obtain end user consent for that activity where required by law.
• You must not provide Pinterest with information that is collected from a child-directed website or app or from anyone you know is under 13, or that is associated with the following sensitive categories:
  • Health or medical condition
  • Racial or ethnic origin
  • Negative financial status or condition
  • Religious or philosophical affiliation or beliefs
  • Sexual behavior or orientation
  • Alleged or actual commission of a crime
  • Trade union membership like medical condition or ethnic origin
• If you provide Pinterest with data from your service that advertisers will use for online behavioral advertising, you must:
  • ensure clear and prominent notice is given to everyone you collect that data from letting them know that their information will be shared with third parties for targeted advertising,
  • ensure they’re given instructions on how to opt out of the use of their information for targeting advertising,
  • not send Pinterest information relating to people who have opted-out,
  • regularly update data to remove people who have opted-out, and
  • obtain any consents required by law.

PR policy

Before you do any PR (like a press release or blog post), make sure that:

• Your app’s been approved to go public.
• You’re following the API policies listed above.
• You’re following our brand guidelines.

Once you’ve put together your press release or blog post, send the draft to [email protected]. Our press team will get back to you within 5 business days—you may not distribute or publish any PR until you’ve gotten written consent from Pinterest press.

Keep in mind that you’re responsible for distribution of your own release, although Pinterest may mention certain apps in press interviews. Once your app has launched, we’d love to hear from you if you have any interesting success metrics or stats related to engagement and traffic.

PR Guidelines

In your press, here's how to talk about:

Pinterest

• Don’t refer to Pinterest as a “partner”.
• Don’t position Pinterest as the company that’s announcing the news.
  • This:
    • “[Company] announced a new planning app built with Pinterest”.
    • “[Company] launches new planning app integrated with Pinterest”.
    • “Pinterest powers new travel app for planning dream destination”.
  • Not this:
    • “[Company] and Pinterest announced a new planning app today”.
    • “[Company] announced new planning app with Pinterest.
• Describe Pinterest as a visual bookmarking tool.
  • This:
    • “Pinterest, the visual bookmarking tool…”
    • “Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool for saving and discovering creative ideas.”
  • Not this:
    • Social network
    • Photo-sharing app
    • Scrapbooking app
• Other ways to talk about Pinterest:
  • “People use Pinterest to make future plans, like meals to cook, products to buy, places to travel and more.”
  • “Pinterest is a discovery engine that helps people find things they didn’t even know they wanted.”
  • “The mission of Pinterest is to help people discover the things they love, and inspire them to go those things offline.”
  • “Launched in 2010, Pinterest is based in San Francisco, California, and is available at pinterest.com, and on iOS and Android.”

Pinterest Developer Platform

• “Pinterest is a place where people save and discover the things they love. Apps and integrations built with the Pinterest Developers Platform will help people bring their creative ideas to life.”
• “People have saved more than 50 billion Pins on Pinterest. With the new API, developers will be able to reach millions of Pinners with apps that make these visual bookmarks actionable.”
• “Every day, millions of people use Pinterest to save recipes, articles, products, places to travel and more.”

General reminders:

• Pin: "Pin" is capitalized and Pinterest users are called "Pinners".
• Quotes: Pinterest won't be able to provide a quote for your release.
• Stats: If your release includes industry or Pinterest stats, include a source. If you'd like to use a Pinterest stat, ask [email protected] for the latest approved stats.

Sample press release

[Company] Launches [Type/Name] App Integrated with Pinterest

CITY, STATE - Month, XX, Year - [Company] today launched a new [Type/Name] app built with Pinterest’s Developers Platform. The app [does what?] for Pinterest’s community of Pinners.

[Quote from your company’s spokesperson]

[Paragraph to describe your app or integration, include stats from testing if available.] With the new experience, travel lovers around the world can bring their Pins to life and take their dream vacations.

About [Your Company]
[Your company’s boiler plate]