Pinterest has over 518 million monthly active users worldwide, making it one of the leading visual discovery platforms. It commands an 8.9% share of global social media traffic, trailing behind Facebook (60.7%) and Instagram (10.9%) but outperforming platforms like Twitter (8.1%).
Women make up approximately 76% of Pinterest’s user base, although the number of male users is steadily increasing. Millennials and Gen Z dominate the platform, with over 50% of users under 40. The most prominent demographic is women aged 25–34, who account for more than 20% of all users.
The platform sees strong engagement, with the average user spending about 14.2 minutes per session, often browsing and discovering new content. Users save an impressive 1.5 billion Pins each week, reflecting high interaction levels. Plus, Pinterest has a vast global reach, with nearly 77% of its users located outside the US. [1]
For advertisers, Pinterest presents a compelling opportunity. Recent studies show its conversion rate is 40% higher than other comparable platforms. Pinterest ads deliver a 2.3x more efficient cost per conversion and typically yield a 32% higher return on investment compared to other social media channels.
However, several alternative platforms offer equally compelling benefits, often catering to more specialized needs like video content, long-form storytelling, or niche communities. These alternatives may provide access to distinct audiences, diverse monetization opportunities, or lower competition in certain industries.
Here, I present the top Pinterest competitors that can help you diversify your presence, reach target audiences effectively, and optimize your marketing strategies across multiple platforms.
Did you know?In FY 2024, Pinterest reported a revenue of $3.33 billion, a 16.2% increase year over year. By the third quarter of 2024, the platform’s average ad revenue per user showcased significant regional variations: $7.31 in the U.S. and Canada, $1.00 in Europe, and $0.14 across the rest of the world. [2]
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13. Mix — Expand your mind
Founded: 2018Number of Users: 100,000+
Competitive Edge: Offers a clutter-free experience
Mix is a content discovery platform that helps you curate and share articles, images, videos, and other web content that align with your interests. It uses AI and machine learning algorithms to offer content tailored to your interests.
Mix was launched in 2018, succeeding StumbleUpon, a popular discovery tool that shut down in the same year. It is developed by Garrett Camp, one of the founders of StumbleUpon and Uber.
Currently, the platform has over 100,000 explorers. It offers a completely ad-free experience and no influencer-driven content. Unlike Pinterest, which emphasizes visual content, Mix integrates broader content types, including articles and blogs, enhancing intellectual engagement. However, it lacks the robust shopping features Pinterest has developed, making it less appealing to marketers. [3]
12. Dribbble
Number of Users: 16 million+
Competitive Edge: Integrated hiring solutions
Dribble is an online community for creatives to showcase, promote, and discover design work. It is a great platform for graphic designers, illustrators, UI/UX designers, and other creative professionals.
Unlike Pinterest, which is developed for broad visual inspiration and shopping, Dribbble is laser-focused on providing a professional hub for designers. It allows designers to sell digital products (like templates, icons, and fonts) and employers to post jobs and hire designers. [4]
As of 2024, Dribble had a community of over 16 million users, including individual designers and design teams worldwide. Although its user base is significantly smaller than Pinterest’s, it dominates its niche with about 10% market share of professional design platforms.
11. Houzz
Founded: 2009Professionals on Houzz describe five new kitchens they designed with dark and moody elements. https://t.co/xmvCk38SCg pic.twitter.com/GkFtbJTgAB
— houzz (@houzz) November 18, 2024
Number of Users: 60 million+
Competitive Edge: Professional-quality photos of home interiors and exteriors
Houzz is an online platform for home remodeling, interior design, and landscaping. It has established itself as a one-stop destination for home improvement, design ideas, and e-commerce. It combines inspiration, product discovery, and professional services in one platform.
The platform attracts over 60 million monthly active users worldwide, including approximately 2.7 million home professionals such as architects, contractors, and designers.
According to Zipppa, Houzz’s annual revenue is approximately $340 million. A substantial share of this income comes from subscription-based tools for home professionals, priced at $99 per month, as well as its online marketplace, which offers furniture, décor, and renovation materials. Plus, the platform generates a smaller portion of its revenue from sponsored listings and brand promotions. [5]
10. Designspiration
Monthly Vistors: 390,000+
Competitive Edge: Color-search tool
Designspiration is a niche platform dedicated to creative professionals, offering curated visual inspiration across various design disciplines. It serves as a resource for graphic designers, architects, photographers, and other creatives seeking fresh ideas and trends.
The platform has a minimalistic interface, prioritizing ease of use and a clutter-free browsing experience. What sets it apart is its search functionality. It has a color-search tool that allows users to find content based on specific color schemes. [6]
Designspiration has a small but meaningful market share in the design inspiration niche. It is often considered a complement to larger platforms like Pinterest, with a refined selection of designed-focused visuals, such as typography, graphic design, architecture, and photography.
9. Pexels
Founded: 2014Number of Users: 34 million+
Competitive Edge: Contains over 3.2 million photos & videos
Pexels is a free stock photo and video platform that provides high-quality, royalty-free content for personal and commercial use. This free access model and commitment to supporting a global creative community set Pexels apart in the competitive stock media market. [7]
The platform offers a wide range of stock photos and videos across categories such as nature, lifestyle, business, and abstract art. Equipped with advanced search filters, it enhances content exploration and seamlessly integrates with Canva, making it a top choice for designers.
According to Similarweb, visitors spend an average of 5 minutes and 6 seconds per session exploring the platform. The largest age group of users is 25-34 years old, and it is particularly popular in the US, India, Brazil, and the UK.
8. Etsy
Number of Buyers: 91.5 million+
Competitive Edge: Offers unique, handmade, and vintage products
Etsy is a global online marketplace focused on handmade, vintage items, craft supplies, and unique goods. It connects artisans, independent creators, and small businesses with buyers seeking personalized, one-of-a-kind items.
Etsy holds 0.12% of the e-commerce platform market and about 15% of the online craft and handmade goods market. By 2024, it had 91.5 million active buyers and over 9 million active sellers, with 54% of sellers operating on multiple channels. [8]
The platform generates revenue from transaction and listing fees, along with advertising and subscription services. In FY 2024, it reported $2.79 billion in revenue (a 3.14% YoY increase) and a gross profit of $1.98 billion (a 3.72% YoY increase), highlighting its strong financial performance. [9]
7. SlideShare
Founded: 2006Number of Users: 80 million+
Competitive Edge: 28 million uploads across 40 categories
SlideShare is a professional content-sharing platform primarily used for hosting and distributing presentations, documents, infographics, and videos. It is widely recognized as a valuable resource for educators, students, and professionals to share knowledge and gain insights on various topics.
Optimized for search engines, SlideShare attracts over 80% of visitors through targeted search, with an average session length of 3 minutes 40 seconds, reflecting high engagement in educational and professional content. [10]
Its content can be seamlessly integrated into LinkedIn and Scribd for cross-platform visibility. While uploading and accessing content is free, advanced features like detailed analytics, lead generation, and custom branding are available through Scribd’s premium subscription (which starts at $11.99 per month).
6. Tumblr
Number of Users: 135 million+
Competitive Edge: Subcultural appeal
Tumblr is known for its creativity, fandom culture, and subcultural niches. This microblogging platform has been a hub for artistic and social expression since its inception.
Tumblr seamlessly combines blogging, microblogging, and visual storytelling, allowing users to craft personalized pages with unique themes and HTML customization. Users can share diverse content, including text, photos, audio, videos, GIFs, and links, offering immense creative flexibility.
The platform excels in fostering deep connections and freedom of expression within creative and fandom communities. Its highly customizable design and subcultural appeal set it apart, making it a preferred choice for those seeking an alternative to mainstream social media norms.
Tumblr generates revenue through its ad-free subscriptions ($6.99/month) and additional perks like badges and theme customization. A smaller portion of its revenue comes from advertisements, sponsored posts, and promotional tools designed for brands.
5. Threads
Launched: 2023Number of Users: 275 million+
Competitive Edge: Instagram integration, Ad-free experience
Threads is a text-focused social media platform developed by Meta. It aims to provide a microblogging experience similar to Twitter, emphasizing real-time conversations, text posts, and community interaction.
The app integrates seamlessly with Instagram, leveraging its massive user base to attract a wide audience quickly. It is free and doesn’t currently monetize via ads, although monetization is expected in the future.
Threads saw a very fast initial adoption rate, reaching 100 million signups within a short time of its release. By August 2024, it crossed 275 million monthly active users (MAU), up from 130 million MAU at the end of 2023. [11]
Unlike Pinterest, which prioritizes visual content, Threads focuses on sharing text-based thoughts, positioning itself as a platform for conversational engagement. However, as a relatively new entrant, its long-term success depends on maintaining user engagement and adding features to differentiate itself from established competitors like Twitter/X.
4. Flickr
Founded: 2004Groups are one of the most special things about #Flickr, because they truly reflect the breadth of interests, skills, and downright weirdness of our community. Get to know more about groups on the Flickr Blog! 📷https://t.co/youIbkaWM8#FlickrCommunity
— Flickr (@Flickr) June 14, 2024
Number of Users: 60 million+
Competitive Edge: Robust tagging and metadata editing
Flickr is a photo-sharing and hosting platform catering to both amateur and professional photographers. It allows users to upload, organize, and showcase high-quality images while connecting with a global community of photographers and exploring an extensive library of publicly shared content.
By 2024, Flickr hosted over 10 billion photos, with 25 million new images added daily. Notably, the number of photos shared under the Creative Commons license surpassed 500 million, making it a significant resource for creative collaborations.
The platform generates revenue through its premium subscription service, Flickr Pro, priced at $9.49 per month. Subscribers enjoy benefits such as unlimited storage, advanced analytics, ad-free browsing, and the ability to display photos in stunning 6K resolution. Flickr maintains an active user base of over 60 million members, including 4 million Pro subscribers. [12]
3. Amazon Inspire
Number of Users: 300 million+
Competitive Edge: Access to Amazon’s vast product catalog
Amazon Inspire is a shoppable feed designed to blend the elements of e-commerce and social media. This makes it easy for users to discover products and make purchases directly through an engaging, personalized content experience.
Launched as part of Amazon’s ecosystem, Inspire taps into Amazon’s 300+ million active user accounts. It leverages user interests, videos, and photos to create a TikTok-style shopping platform for modern consumers. [13]
Inspire primarily targets shoppers, streamlining inspiration into immediate purchases. Although its revenue isn’t reported separately, the platform generates income through affiliate programs, sponsored products, and ads integrated directly into the feed.
2. Behance
Founded: 2006Number of Members: 50 million+
Competitive Edge: Adobe integration
Behance is a leading platform for showcasing and discovering creative work. It allows creative professionals to display their projects across a broad range of disciplines, from photography and illustration to graphic design and motion graphics. It supports multiple file formats, including videos, animations, and 3D projects.
Behances also serve as a professional networking platform, connecting creatives with potential employers and collaborators. In contrast, Pinterest focuses primarily on idea discovery and lacks professional networking capabilities.
As part of the Adobe ecosystem, Behance integrates seamlessly with Adobe Creative Cloud tools, offering a streamlined experience for designers and creators. While the platform is free for basic features, additional perks are available through Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions, priced at $14.99 per month.
Subscribers gain enhanced control over their content, access to advanced analytics, and opportunities to maximize earnings. For instance, Behance charges 0% platform fees for asset sales, making it an attractive option for creators seeking to monetize their work. [14]
1. Flipboard
Founded: 2010If you use Flipboard you can now follow people in the fediverse. It’s a much healthier place for social connections (and is free of the tyranny of X).https://t.co/25JP5sQ1Re
— Flipboard (@Flipboard) August 14, 2024
Number of Users: 100 million+
Competitive Edge: Magazine-style layout
Flipboard is a personalized news aggregation platform that curates content from various sources, allowing users to discover, save, and share articles, videos, and other media in a magazine-style layout. It makes content consumption visually appealing and intuitive. [15]
Flipboard ranks among the top 10 content aggregation platforms and is available in 21 languages. It collaborates with prominent publishers like The New York Times, BBC, and National Geographic to provide high-quality content. The platform has over 10,000 publishers of social magazines and more than 25 million individuals curating content using its app.
According to Similarweb, 66% of Flipboard’s web audience is male, while 34% is female, with the largest age group being 55 to 64 years old. The platform is free for users and generates revenue primarily through advertisements and partnerships. [16]
Unlike Pinterest, which targets a broad audience of hobbyists and DIY enthusiasts, Flipboard caters to news readers, professionals, and content enthusiasts seeking to stay informed with curated, high-quality information.
Read More
Sources Cited and Additional References- Investor Relations, Earning presentation of Q3 2024, Pinterest
- Internet, Pinterest average quarterly revenue per user by region, Statista
- Mix – AI Powered Entertainment, Content from millions of sources across the internet, App Store
- Homepage, Discover the world’s top designers, Dribble
- Company Overview, Houzz’s annual revenue is $340 million, Zippa
- Homepage, Save & explore ideas that inspire your creativity, Designspiration
- Homepage, The best free stock photos, royalty-free images & videos, Pexels
- Market Share of Etsy, Etsy is focused on handmade or vintage items and craft supplies, 6Sense
- Company Financials, Etsy Revenue chart, Macrotrend
- About Us, 80 million professionals per month trust SlideShare, SlideShare
- Adam Mosseri, We crossed 275 million monthly active users on @Threads, Threads
- Flickr Help Center, Reasons to upgrade to Flickr Pro, Flickr
- Inspire, With Amazon Inspire, easily discover and shop products personalized to your interests, Amazon
- Behance Pro Overview, Advanced analytics, 0% platform fees, and profile customizations, Behance
- Homepage, Stories curated for you, Flipboard
- Flipboard.com Website Analysis, Traffic & engagement analysis, Similarweb
