Pinterest does not pay creators for views the way some video platforms do. Money from Pinterest comes from what happens after someone clicks through to your site: ad revenue on your blog, commissions from affiliate links and sales of your own products. This calculator models all three from one number, your monthly outbound clicks.
Each income stream has its own inputs, so you can switch off the ones you do not use. The result shows monthly and yearly earnings, how much each stream contributes and what one click is worth to you, which tells you how much a new pin is worth. Default values are example inputs to replace with your own.
The math behind each income stream
Display ads: clicks ÷ 1,000 × session RPM. Use session RPM, not page RPM, because one Pinterest visitor may view several pages. Affiliate: clicks × affiliate conversion rate × average commission. Products: clicks × conversion rate × order value × profit margin.
Earnings per click (EPC) is total earnings divided by clicks. If your EPC is $0.05, every 1,000 extra monthly clicks adds about $50 a month. That makes it easy to judge whether a new batch of pins or a paid campaign is worth the cost.
Ways to earn more from the same traffic
Send pins to the pages that earn most. A pin pointing to a post with a strong affiliate offer or a product can earn many times more per click than one pointing to a general article. Make several fresh pins for those pages with the pin variations generator.
If you promote affiliate products directly from pins, add a clear disclosure. The affiliate disclosure generator writes one for you.