Pinterest Hashtag Effectiveness Calculator

1. Pick two groups of similar pins from the same period: one group with hashtags in the description and one without. Keep the topic, format and boards as alike as you can.
2. From Pinterest Analytics, add up impressions, saves, Pin clicks and outbound clicks for each group and enter them.
3. Read the engagement rate lift, then check the significance test before you change your habits.

What each result tells you:

Pinterest hashtag effectiveness is the difference in results between your pins that use hashtags and comparable pins that do not. The only honest way to measure it is with your own analytics, because Pinterest publishes no hashtag score, no ideal hashtag count and no reach figure for hashtags.

What Pinterest does say is limited and factual. Its Help Center notes that a pin description can include hashtags, and that you can tag up to 10 related topics to help people find a pin. When Pinterest launched hashtag feeds in 2017, its newsroom advised choosing specific, descriptive hashtags that clearly describe the pin. The pin description itself can hold up to 500 characters.

This tool helps bloggers, shop owners and social media managers test that question on their own account. It is not a ranking predictor and it does not score hashtags.

The calculator turns each group into rates per impression and then tests whether the engagement rates differ by more than chance.

1. Engagement rate, save rate, outbound click rate and Pin clicks per impression are worked out for each group.
2. Lift compares the two engagement rates.
3. The pooled rate p = all engagements / all impressions, and n1 and n2 are the impressions in each group.
4. The two-sided p-value comes from the normal distribution, as in the NIST two-proportion test.

The engagement definition matches the one in Pinterest Business Help, which counts saves, Pin clicks and outbound clicks.

Example values only, not benchmarks. A food blogger posts 5 recipe pins with hashtags and 5 similar pins without, in the same month.

The lift is +6.6%, but z = 1.06 and p = 0.29. Meaning: a gap this small could easily come from chance, so the test does not show that hashtags helped. In the larger second example, the lift is +25.9% with p below 0.0001, which is a much stronger sign.

Hashtags are rarely the only difference between two groups of pins, so these factors decide whether a result means anything.

Sample Size

Small groups swing widely. With about 1,200 and 1,100 impressions in the two groups, an 8.6% lift gives p = 0.75. Collect thousands of impressions per group.

Content and Image

A stronger image or topic in one group can outweigh any hashtag effect. Pair pins by topic and format.

Timing and Season

Pins published in different weeks meet different demand. Run both groups over the same dates.

Title, Description and Topics

Keyword-rich titles and tagged topics also help people find a pin. Keep them equal so hashtags are the only change.

Board and Audience

Pins saved to a busy board with many followers start with more reach. Use the same boards for both groups.

Pinterest offers several ways to describe a pin, and they are easy to confuse.

To study saves on their own, try the Pinterest save rate calculator.

Deciding Whether to Keep Hashtags

Run a month with half your new pins using hashtags and half without, then compare before you change your workflow.

Reporting to a Client

Show the rates, the lift and the p-value instead of a made-up score, so the client sees the evidence and its limits.

Checking Traffic, Not Just Saves

For a shop or blog, the outbound click rate matters most. Track per-pin results over time with the pin performance calculator.

1. Trusting a Hashtag Score

Scores built from invented weights look precise but measure nothing. The old version of this page used one, and we removed it.

2. Following a Fixed Hashtag Count

Advice such as "use 20 to 30 hashtags" has no support in Pinterest documentation. Test counts on your own pins if you want to know.

3. Comparing Different Periods

A holiday month against a quiet month shows the season, not the hashtags.

4. Ignoring Chance

A 5% lift on a few hundred impressions means little. Check the p-value, or read more in the p-value calculator.

5. Stopping at the First Good Result

Checking daily and stopping the moment p dips below 0.05 raises the chance of a false result. Decide the test length first.

6. Mixing Paid and Organic

Promoted pins get extra impressions. Filter to organic pins, or compare paid with paid.

The rates and the test are exact for the numbers entered, but they cannot prove that hashtags caused a difference.

Pinterest Help still lets you include hashtags in a pin description, but it publishes no figure for how much they help. The honest answer for your account comes from testing your own pins, which is what this calculator does.

Pinterest gives no recommended number. Its 2017 launch post advised specific, descriptive hashtags, and the description has a 500-character limit. Test a small set against none and let your data decide.

Pinterest publishes no standard. Compare your rate with your own past pins, or use the comparison group in this tool as the baseline.

It is the chance of seeing a gap at least this large if hashtags made no difference at all. Below 0.05 is the usual line for calling a result unlikely to be chance.

More is better, because small samples produce wide swings. In our tests, groups of about 1,200 and 1,100 impressions gave p = 0.75 for an 8.6% lift, while 40,000 and 38,000 gave p below 0.0001.

No. Topic tags are chosen from a list when you create a pin, up to 10 per pin. Hashtags are typed into the description. Test them separately.

It relied on invented weights and a fixed "20 to 30 hashtags" rule with no official source, and it produced errors. The new version reports only measured rates.

Yes, if both groups are promoted with similar budgets and targeting. Do not mix promoted and organic pins in one comparison.

Outbound click rate, because it measures clicks to your site. Save rate matters more for long-term reach on the platform.

No. The calculation runs in your browser and nothing is sent to our servers. Anything you choose to Save stays in this browser only.

• Pinterest Analytics metric definitions: engagement rate, save rate, outbound clicks (Pinterest Business Help).
• Create a Pin: hashtags in the description and up to 10 topic tags (Pinterest Help).
• Now hashtags work on Pinterest (2017 launch post, archived) (Pinterest Newsroom Archive).
• Creative best practices: pin title and 500-character description specs (Pinterest Business).
• Comparing two proportions: the z-test (NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods).