How to sell on Pinterest
without Etsy fees
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How to sell on Pinterest
By the Sellfy team · Last Updated:
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Can you sell on Pinterest?
Yes. Pinterest doesn’t charge you to post Pins, and it takes no commission when someone clicks a Pin and buys.
It also doesn’t run checkout for most sellers. According to Pinterest’s merchant guidelines, Pinterest “is not involved in facilitating the purchase, sale or delivery of goods.”
So selling on Pinterest means two things. You create Pins that people find through search and their home feed. Each Pin links to a page where they can pay. Where that page lives decides your fees, how fast you get paid, and whether you keep the buyer’s email.
3 ways to sell on Pinterest
| Option | Best for | What you need | What it costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pins that link to your own store | Digital products, printables, patterns, small merch lines | A store with product pages, like Sellfy | Your store’s plan. Sellfy: from $22/mo billed yearly, 0% transaction fees |
| Product Pins from a catalog | Retailers with a website and many products | A claimed website, the Pinterest tag, a product data feed, return and contact policies | Free to set up. Your own site and checkout costs apply |
| Pins that link to Etsy listings | Sellers already on Etsy | An Etsy shop | Etsy’s 6.5% transaction fee plus $0.20 per listing |
Pins that link to your own store
- Best for
- Digital products, printables, patterns, small merch lines
- What you need
- A store with product pages, like Sellfy
- What it costs
- Your store’s plan. Sellfy: from $22/mo billed yearly, 0% transaction fees
Product Pins from a catalog
- Best for
- Retailers with a website and many products
- What you need
- A claimed website, the Pinterest tag, a product data feed, return and contact policies
- What it costs
- Free to set up. Your own site and checkout costs apply
Pins that link to Etsy listings
- Best for
- Sellers already on Etsy
- What you need
- An Etsy shop
- What it costs
- Etsy’s 6.5% transaction fee plus $0.20 per listing
Product Pins show price and stock right on the Pin. To get them, Pinterest’s catalog setup asks for a business account, a claimed website, the Pinterest tag and a feed with an ID, title, description, link, image, price and availability for every product. That’s worth it for a shop with hundreds of SKUs. For a creator selling ten printables, it’s a lot of setup for a price tag on a Pin.
Pins that link to your own store are what most creators use. Every Pin has a destination link. Point it at a product page and a buyer goes from Pin to checkout in one tap.
Is it free to sell on Pinterest?
Pinterest’s side is free. The business account is free, and so is every Pin you post. You only pay Pinterest if you run ads.
What you pay is set by where the sale happens:
- Etsy: 6.5% of every sale plus $0.20 per listing, before payment processing. Run your numbers with the Etsy fee calculator.
- Sellfy: a flat plan from $22 a month billed yearly ($29 monthly), with 0% transaction fees on every plan. Stripe or PayPal charge their usual processing fee. See pricing.
The math on $10,000 a year in printable sales: Etsy’s transaction fee alone is $650. Sellfy’s Starter plan billed yearly is $264, and it covers up to $10,000 a year in sales.
How to start selling on Pinterest, step by step
- Put your products in a store. Upload your files or create your merch on Sellfy. Each product gets its own page, and digital files are delivered by email the moment someone pays. If you don’t have a website, your Sellfy store is the website.
- Switch to a free business account. In Pinterest, go to Settings, then Account management, and choose Convert to a business account. Your Pins and followers stay. You get Pin analytics, which show outbound clicks per Pin.
- Add your store to your profile. Put your store URL in the website field of your profile. A custom domain keeps the link stable for years, which matters on Pinterest because old Pins keep getting found.
- Create Pins that link to product pages, not your homepage. Use a vertical image (Pinterest’s catalog guidelines ask for at least 1000 × 1500 pixels). Write the title and description with the words people search for: “printable weekly planner”, not “new drop”. Paste the product page URL into the destination link.
- Organize boards by what buyers search for. A board called “Printable meal planners” gets found. A board called “My shop” doesn’t. Pin each product to the boards it fits, and make several Pins per product with different images.
- Track what sells. Add UTM tags to your Pin links (for example
?utm_source=pinterest&utm_medium=pin). Sellfy shows visitors and conversion rate by traffic source, so you can see which Pins bring buyers and make more like them.
What sells on Pinterest
Products people plan for and search by name do best: printables and planners, crochet and sewing patterns, Canva templates, Lightroom presets, recipe ebooks, art prints and posters. Print-on-demand merch works too when the design is the product.
Impulse buys tied to a trend that’s gone next week do worse. Pinterest rewards things people save now and come back to later.
Is it better to sell on Pinterest or Etsy?
They do different jobs. Etsy is a marketplace with its own search and checkout. Pinterest is a discovery engine that sends people somewhere else to buy. Plenty of sellers use both: Pins bring the traffic, and the question is whether that traffic lands on an Etsy listing or on your own store.
Send it to Etsy and you pay Etsy’s fees on sales Pinterest found for you, and Etsy keeps the buyer relationship. Send it to your own store and you keep 100% of each sale minus processing, plus every buyer’s email for your next launch. If you want to compare the two in detail, read Etsy alternatives.
Is selling on Pinterest worth it?
For visual products people search for, yes, as long as you treat it as a slow build. You don’t need followers: people find Pins through search, so a new account can get clicks on day one. Results grow as your Pins pile up, because a Pin keeps being found long after you post it.
It’s a poor fit if you need sales this week, or if your product doesn’t photograph well. In that case, put your effort where your audience already is, like Instagram or TikTok.
Your Pins bring the buyers. Your store keeps the sale.
Pinterest doesn't pay you for the traffic it sends. Your buyers do. Here's what changes when your Pins link to a Sellfy store.
0% transaction fees, unlike Etsy
Etsy takes 6.5% per sale plus $0.20 per listing. Sellfy charges a flat plan and nothing per sale, whether you sell 10 products or 10,000.
Every Pin can link straight to checkout
Each product has its own page. Point a Pin at it and buyers land on that product, not a homepage they have to dig through.
Paid the same day
Money goes straight to your Stripe or PayPal account when someone buys. No holding period, from your first sale.
Printables and merch behind one link
A printable planner, a pattern pack and a tote bag can sit in the same store. Digital files deliver automatically. Print-on-demand orders are printed and shipped for you.
You keep every buyer's email
Pinterest gives you no buyer data. Sellfy adds every buyer to your list, and cart recovery emails follow up with people who clicked a Pin but didn’t finish checking out.
No website needed
Your Sellfy store is the website. If you already have one, embed a buy button or your whole store on it.
You're in good company
Join 75,000+ creators selling products with Sellfy
How Linda's crochet patterns from 2011 are still earning today
Linda Skuja taught herself to crochet from magazines. In 2011, she entered a competition and won the Best New Designer Prize, which led her to realize her patterns had commercial value. She set up her Sellfy store in 30 minutes and started uploading. She didn’t post on Pinterest. But crochet enthusiasts pin things they want to make later, and her designs started spreading through other people’s boards. Pinterest traffic came without her asking for it.
That’s how the back catalog builds. Patterns she published in 2011 are still bringing in buyers today.
"The moment I release a new pattern, create promo codes with Sellfy, and send out a newsletter. I can just sit back and relax and watch the sales come in!
Linda Skuja / Crochet pattern designer
“It’s really a ‘no stress’ kind of platform, and I can understand why so many people feel comfortable using it.”
EfikZara, content creator
Product Pins from a catalog or Pins to your Sellfy store?
Product Pins put price and stock on the Pin, but they need a catalog feed and a website that meets Pinterest’s merchant rules. A Sellfy store gives every Pin a checkout to link to, with no feed to maintain.
If you run a retail site with hundreds of products, set up a catalog. If you sell printables, patterns, templates or a small merch line, link your Pins to a Sellfy store and start today.
FAQs
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