How to Do Pinterest Competitor Analysis (Step-by-Step Guide)

Your competitors on Pinterest have already run thousands of experiments for you. Every pin they published was a test, and the results are sitting in public: some pins collected tens of thousands of saves, most collected almost none.

Pinterest competitor analysis is the process of reading those results so you can skip the guesswork. Done well, it tells you which topics, formats and styles work in your niche before you spend hours making content. This guide shows you how to do it step by step.

What Pinterest competitor analysis tells you

A good analysis answers five questions:

1. Who actually wins in my niche? Not the biggest accounts, but the ones whose pins get saved.
2. Which topics perform? The ideas that collect saves again and again.
3. Which formats work? Video or static, text overlay or clean photo, list pins or single-product shots.
4. Where does the traffic go? Which websites keep getting the clicks.
5. What is missing? Popular searches with weak or outdated top pins: your opportunity.

Step 1: List your real competitors

Start with search, not with accounts you already know.

Type your three to five most important keywords into Pinterest search. For an Etsy candle shop, that might be "soy candle", "candle gift ideas" and "fall candles". Note which accounts and websites appear repeatedly in the top results.

These are your search competitors: the people winning the attention you want. They are often different from your business competitors. A small blog might beat a big brand on Pinterest simply because it pins better.

Tip: the account that shared a pin is often not the one that created it. PinBee Pro shows Creator, Shared by and Source on every pin card, so you can see the original creator and the website receiving the click at a glance.

Step 2: Find their best-performing pins

Pinterest does not show save counts in the search grid, so you need a tool. With the PinBee extension installed, every pin shows its saves, reactions, shares, comments and age, plus a viral score from 0 to 100.

Run your keyword searches again and sort by saves. The strongest pins rise to the top. For each competitor, note:

• Their top three pins and the save count of each.
• Whether those pins are video or static.
• How old they are.

Pin age matters a lot. A pin with 50,000 saves from 2019 tells you less than one with 5,000 saves from last month. PinBee Pro's time-period filter lets you limit results to the last 7, 30 or 90 days, so you see what is working now. We cover this workflow in detail in how to find the best-performing pins in any niche.

Step 3: Analyse whole accounts

Search shows you individual winners. To understand a competitor's overall strategy, look at their profile as a whole.

With PinBee Pro, open any Pinterest profile and click Analyse. You get:

• The account's top pins ranked by saves, among the pins analysed.
• Totals and averages for the pins scanned, so you can see typical performance, not just the outliers.
• Profile details such as follower count and website, which you can copy for lead research.

Use Scan more to analyse a larger share of their pins. The more you scan, the more reliable the picture.

Look for patterns:

• Consistency: does the account win with one style, or is it hit and miss?
• Topic spread: do they win across many topics or dominate one?
• Frequency vs results: do they pin a lot with weak results, or rarely with strong ones?

Step 4: Check which ads they run

If competitors pay to promote pins, their ads show you what they believe sells. A brand rarely keeps paying for an ad that does not work.

PinBee Pro detects promoted pins in your searches and groups them by advertiser, so you can see who is buying attention for your keywords and which creatives they use. Our guide on seeing the Pinterest ads competitors run explains the process.

Step 5: Record everything in one place

Competitor research falls apart when it lives in twenty browser tabs. Keep it organised:

• PinBee's Library saves every pin you scan on your computer, with stats, so you can search and sort it later.
• PinBee Pro can export to CSV, so you can build a competitor spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel. See how to export Pinterest data to CSV.

A simple spreadsheet with columns for competitor, pin link, topic, format, saves, age and notes is enough.

Step 6: Find the gaps

Now turn research into a plan. Look for:

• Strong demand, weak supply: keywords where the top pins are old, low quality or have modest saves. A fresh, better pin can win here.
• Formats nobody uses: if every top pin is a static image, a good video pin might stand out, and vice versa.
• Proven topics you have not covered: ideas that work for three competitors are likely to work for you.
• Angles with momentum: pins that gained saves quickly in recent weeks.

To decide which metric to trust when comparing pins, read saves vs reactions vs shares.

Step 7: Create better, not copies

Competitor analysis tells you what to make. It does not mean copying pins. Copying another creator's images or designs can break copyright and Pinterest's rules, and it rarely wins anyway.

Instead, take the proven idea and make it better:

• A clearer title or a more specific promise.
• A better photo, layout or video.
• More useful content on the page the pin links to.
• Your own angle, product or expertise.

If you need help turning research into designs, a pin template tool can speed things up. Then track your own results in Pinterest Analytics and repeat the analysis every month or two.

A quick checklist

• List 5 to 10 search competitors from your main keywords.
• Sort searches by saves and note each competitor's top pins.
• Filter to recent results to see what works now.
• Analyse each competitor's account as a whole.
• Check which ads they run.
• Save everything in a Library or spreadsheet.
• Write down five content gaps and five proven topics.
• Create better versions, publish, and measure.

The bottom line

Pinterest competitor analysis is simple once you can see the numbers. Find who wins your searches, study their best pins and accounts, check their ads, and look for the gaps. An hour of research can replace weeks of guessing.

Install PinBee free to see saves and viral scores on every pin, then upgrade to Pro when you are ready for account analysis, ads and time filters.