Pinterest NYSE: PINS reported stronger-than-expected first-quarter 2026 results and emphasized ongoing efforts to translate growing engagement into more consistent monetization, driven by AI-powered product improvements, measurement upgrades, and changes to its go-to-market organization.
Q1 results top guidance as revenue exceeds $1 billion again
CEO Bill Ready said Pinterest entered 2026 focused on “delivering the next phase of growth,” and noted the company delivered “more than $1 billion in revenue, up 18% year-over-year,” alongside adjusted EBITDA of “more than $207 million.”
CFO Julia Donnelly said the company delivered over $1 billion in revenue for the third consecutive quarter, with Q1 revenue of $1.008 billion, up 18% year-over-year (15% on a constant currency basis), “above the high end of our guidance range.” She added that the quarter’s performance reflected progress in “fully monetizing the engagement and commercial intent on our platform,” while acknowledging the company remains in the “early stages” of that opportunity.
Adjusted EBITDA totaled $207 million, above guidance, with a 20% adjusted EBITDA margin, up 40 basis points year-over-year. Donnelly attributed the upside to “flow-through from higher revenue,” and also cited “a reversal from Canada Digital Services Tax following its repeal.” Free cash flow was $312 million, which Donnelly noted is typically seasonally strong in Q1 due to collections patterns.
Users reach 631 million as engagement deepens
Pinterest ended Q1 with 631 million global monthly active users (MAUs), up 11% year-over-year and a record high. Donnelly said growth was broad-based across regions:
- U.S. and Canada (UCAN): 106 million MAUs, up 4%
- Europe: 159 million MAUs, up 7%
- Rest of world: 367 million MAUs, up 15%
Ready highlighted that Pinterest’s 631 million MAUs are “all of whom are logged in,” and described Pinterest as an “AI-powered shopping assistant” supported by its image corpus and proprietary Taste Graph. He said the platform now sees “more than 80 billion monthly searches,” about half of which are commercial in nature.
On engagement, Ready said “searches and outbound clicks are both growing,” and reiterated that over 50% of the platform is Gen Z, calling it both Pinterest’s largest and fastest-growing cohort. Donnelly added a seasonal note for Q2, saying it is “typically our seasonally softer period” for sequential user growth, particularly in Europe.
AI product updates drive measurable gains in search and ads performance
Management repeatedly tied product momentum to AI investments. Ready said 10 straight quarters of double-digit user growth reflect “multi-year investments in AI,” including improvements to personalization and curation. He pointed to several Q1 launches and updates:
- PinRec generative retrieval system: Extended in Q1 to serve content globally site-wide. Ready said the launch improved “search fulfillment by approximately 180 basis points,” and drove a “roughly 180 basis point reduction in CPA and CPC for advertisers.”
- Search ranking model update: Pinterest expanded user context windows “by 30-fold,” using “up to 16,000 user actions over a two-year period.” Ready said this improved search fulfillment by about 70 basis points and saves by about 390 basis points.
- Canvas image generation model: Ready described Canvas as trained on Pinterest data and operating at “an order of magnitude lower cost than leading third-party models.” He said it supports Performance+ creative optimization, with newer capabilities including real-time high-fidelity image editing and planned expansion to “more creative experiences for users and advertisers.”
On advertising, Ready said Pinterest Performance+, its AI-powered performance ad suite, is driving adoption. “Just over a year in,” he said “approximately 30% of lower funnel revenue is now running through Pinterest Performance+ campaigns.” He added that in Q1, Performance+ adopters “grew their lower funnel spend nearly twice the rate of non-adopters.”
Pinterest also launched a native A/B testing tool in beta in Ads Manager. Ready cited one example: Mejuri ran a four-week test in which a Performance+ campaign delivered a 46% increase in ROAS and a 62% increase in conversions versus its business-as-usual approach, which led the advertiser to adopt Performance+ more broadly.
Ready said Pinterest also “unified and retrained” shopping ROAS models in Q1; in experimentation, these drove ROAS gains “of up to 11%.” He emphasized the importance of measurement integrations so advertisers can “fully see and attribute the value” Pinterest generates, including pilots with large advertisers’ in-house measurement systems. In early testing with one advertiser prioritizing lifetime value, Ready said the advertiser cited a 15% to 20% improvement in lifetime value ROAS.
tvScientific acquisition and go-to-market changes aim to expand monetization
Ready said Pinterest’s acquisition of tvScientific closed in Q1 and is intended to extend Pinterest intent signals to connected TV campaigns. He said Pinterest has begun integrating its audiences with tvScientific’s buying platform and called early results “encouraging,” citing one early partner that saw a nearly 190% increase in incremental audience reach and a 159% increase in incremental sales after leveraging Pinterest audience data in CTV campaigns. Over time, he said Pinterest expects to integrate tvScientific capabilities directly into Performance+.
Donnelly said tvScientific’s Q1 contribution was “broadly in line with the updated guidance we gave in mid-February,” but she added the company does not intend to break out tvScientific’s revenue contribution going forward.
On sales execution, Ready said Chief Business Officer Lee Brown—who joined earlier in the year—is focused on making the monetization motion “more durable and scalable,” including leadership changes in parts of the international and go-to-market organizations, tighter accountability across the sales force, and broader adoption of internal AI tooling. He said the company is sharpening coverage to position sellers closer to clients, evolving incentive structures, and giving measurement and performance specialists “product activation and customer engagement targets.”
Donnelly and Ready both cautioned that go-to-market changes may create near-term variability. Donnelly said international growth is expected to moderate in Q2 due to leadership and structural changes, as well as more difficult comparisons related to reseller ramping and elevated cross-border spend last year.
Capital returns, Q2 outlook, and advertiser mix
Donnelly said Pinterest repurchased roughly $2 billion of stock year-to-date, or 109 million shares at a weighted average price of about $18. Funded with a $1 billion convertible note and cash on hand, she said the repurchase reduced shares outstanding by approximately 16% versus a quarter ago. Pinterest has $2 billion remaining on its board-authorized $3.5 billion repurchase program.
By region, Q1 revenue was $750 million in UCAN (up 13%), $186 million in Europe (up 27% reported, 16% constant currency), and $72 million in rest of world (up 59% reported, 50% constant currency). Donnelly said growth was driven by retail, with contribution from “smaller but faster-growing categories,” including financial services. She also said large retailers remained a headwind, though AI-driven bidding optimizations “began to offset some of this headwind later in the quarter,” and revenue growth excluding large retailers accelerated versus Q4.
For Q2, Pinterest guided revenue of $1.133 billion to $1.153 billion, representing 14% to 16% growth year-over-year, with foreign exchange expected to be about a one-point tailwind. Adjusted EBITDA guidance was $256 million to $276 million. Donnelly said non-GAAP cost of revenue is expected to rise mid-single digits sequentially due in part to the full-quarter impact of tvScientific and investments in GPU capacity, while sales and marketing spending will be a key area of year-over-year investment, including a new brand campaign in the U.S. and U.K.
In Q&A, management also addressed macro factors. Donnelly said the ad market environment looked “relatively consistent from last quarter,” while noting large retailers continue to face tariff-related margin pressure. She said the impact from conflict in the Middle East has been “small on a dollar basis,” primarily affecting rest of world and, to a lesser extent, Europe in certain verticals impacted by higher oil prices, and that it was factored into Q2 guidance.
Ready also discussed competition from AI chatbots, saying Pinterest is seeing users engage with both chatbots and Pinterest “at the same time, but for very different things,” and reiterated Pinterest’s focus on visual discovery and shopping. On regulation and youth safety, he said Pinterest welcomes rising standards and pointed to the company’s prior move to make accounts for users under 16 “private only,” which he said did not hinder Gen Z growth.
About Pinterest NYSE: PINS
Pinterest, Inc operates a visual discovery platform that helps users find inspiration and ideas for projects ranging from home design and fashion to cooking and travel. Users create and curate "Pins" — images or videos linked to content — organized on thematic boards. The service is available through its website and mobile applications and emphasizes personalized recommendations and visual search to surface relevant content based on user interests.
The company's primary revenue model is advertising, offering promoted content formats that integrate into user feeds and search results.
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