How to Schedule Pins on Pinterest (3 Ways, Step by Step)

Pinterest rewards accounts that publish steadily. The problem is that "steadily" means every day, and nobody wants to open Pinterest every day to post one Pin at a time. Scheduling fixes that: you prepare a batch of Pins in one sitting and let them go out over the following days and weeks.

There are three practical ways to do it. Which one fits depends on how many Pins you publish and how many accounts you run.

Why schedule Pins at all?

Pinterest is a search and discovery engine more than a social feed. A Pin can keep bringing visitors for months after it is published, so the goal isn't to catch a perfect moment — it's to keep fresh Pins going out consistently.

Scheduling helps you:

• Publish consistently without being online every day.
• Spread Pins out instead of dumping twenty at once, which looks unnatural and gives each Pin less room to be seen.
• Plan seasonal content early. People search for Christmas recipes and gift ideas long before December, so seasonal Pins need to be live weeks ahead (more on that in our guide to the best time to post on Pinterest).
• Batch your work. Designing ten Pins in one session is far faster than designing one Pin ten times.

Way 1: Pinterest's built-in scheduler (free)

Pinterest has its own scheduler, available on business accounts on desktop and in the app. It is the simplest option if you publish a handful of Pins a week to one account.

1. Click Create and choose Pin.
2. Upload your image or video, then add a title, description, destination link and board.
3. Instead of publishing right away, choose Publish at a later date.
4. Pick the date and time, then click Schedule.

Your scheduled Pins appear on your profile until they go live, where you can review or delete them.

Good for: a few Pins a week on a single account. Limits: you schedule one Pin at a time, and you can only plan a limited window ahead — the date picker shows the current limit. There's no approval step, no shared calendar across several accounts, and no way to spread a batch automatically.

Way 2: A Pinterest scheduling tool

Scheduling tools connect to Pinterest through its official API. You sign in with Pinterest, approve access, and the tool publishes on your behalf. Because they use the official API, you never hand over your password, and you can disconnect the tool at any time from your Pinterest settings.

What a good scheduler adds on top of the built-in one:

• A calendar that shows every scheduled Pin, across every board and account.
• Automatic spacing: you choose a daily volume and a posting window, and the tool picks the times.
• Bulk creation from a spreadsheet or straight from your blog.
• An approval queue, so drafts never go out until you've checked them.

When you compare tools, check three things before price:

1. Is it an approved Pinterest partner using the official API? Avoid anything that asks for your Pinterest password.
2. Does it spread Pins out, or publish at fixed times? Posting at exactly 9:00:00 every day looks robotic. Small variations look human.
3. Can you review everything before it publishes? Automation you can't check is how accounts end up full of broken links.

Good for: bloggers and shops posting daily, and anyone running more than one account.

Way 3: Bulk upload from a spreadsheet

If you already keep your content in a spreadsheet — post titles, URLs and image links — bulk upload is the fastest path. Pinterest offers bulk Pin creation from a .csv file for business accounts, and most scheduling tools accept a CSV or a pasted spreadsheet as well.

A clean sheet usually has these columns:

Bulk upload is only as good as the data in the sheet. One wrong column and fifty Pins point to the wrong page, so spot-check a few rows before you publish.

How to space out scheduled Pins

Whichever method you use, the schedule matters more than the tool.

• Pick a daily number you can sustain. Five fresh Pins every day beats thirty on Monday and nothing until next week. If you're unsure where to start, read how many Pins per day you should post.
• Use a posting window, not a single time. Spreading Pins across, say, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. in your audience's time zone gives each one its own moment.
• Don't send the same link out back-to-back. If you make five Pins for one article, spread them over days or weeks rather than minutes.
• Start slowly on a new account. A brand-new account that suddenly publishes dozens of Pins a day looks like spam. Ramp up over a few weeks.
• Plan seasonal content early. Publish holiday and seasonal Pins well before the season starts.

A scheduling checklist

Before you schedule a batch, run through this list:

• Every Pin is a vertical 2:3 image with readable text on a phone screen
• The title leads with a keyword people actually search on Pinterest
• The description explains what's on the other side of the click
• Each link opens the right page — no 404s, no homepage-instead-of-post
• Each Pin is going to the most relevant board
• Alt text describes the image for people using screen readers
• The batch is spread across days, not stacked on one afternoon

Frequently asked questions

Can you schedule Pins on Pinterest for free?

Yes. Pinterest's built-in scheduler is free on business accounts. You schedule one Pin at a time and can plan a limited window ahead, which works well for a few Pins a week.

Do scheduled Pins get less reach than Pins published live?

There's no reliable evidence that they do. Distribution depends on the Pin itself — its image, its keywords, how fresh it is and how people engage with it — not on whether you pressed publish live or ahead of time.

What size should a scheduled Pin be?

Use a vertical 2:3 ratio. 1,000 × 1,500 pixels is the size Pinterest recommends for standard Pins, and it displays well on phones, where most Pinterest browsing happens.

How far ahead should I schedule Pins?

For everyday content, a week or two of scheduled Pins keeps you consistent without going stale. For seasonal content, publish well before the season so the Pins have time to be found when people start searching.