Pinterest® Research · Pinfluence Discover
Should You Use Hashtags on Pinterest® in 2026?
By Pinfluencing.com · Last updated
Hashtags won’t lift you. The right keyword will.
We looked at nearly 128 million times a pin showed up across about 1.3 million Pinterest® searches. At first glance, pins with hashtags ranked a little higher (average position 48.2 versus 51.3).
But once we compared accounts of the same size, that edge flipped. Hashtag pins ranked slightly worse in every group, and about 90% of pins don’t use any hashtags.
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- Almost nobody uses them. Hashtags appear on just 9.9% of pins in search, and only 6.7% of unique pins. Roughly 90% of everything that ranks uses no hashtags at all.
- The raw numbers look pro-hashtag. Pooled together, hashtag pins averaged position 48.2 against 51.3 for pins without, and reached the top 10 more often (12.5% versus 9.8%). (Remember – a ‘lower’ position is better.)
- That actual ‘pro-hashtag’ edge is not real. Compare accounts of similar follower size and it reverses. In all three size groups, hashtag pins ranked a little worse: under 1,000 followers (48.7 vs 47.8), 1,000 to 10,000 (49.4 vs 48.2), and over 10,000 (47.6 vs 46.9).
- Where the illusion comes from. The “no hashtag” group quietly includes several million pins we either don’t have the actual follower account data for, or (more often the case), the account that pinned them had 0 followers. These pins with no-hashtags rank worse for unrelated reasons, which dragged the no-hashtag average down and made hashtags look good by comparison.
- No help at the top results. In the top 10 results, the typical position was the same with or without hashtags, and it stayed the same inside every size group.
- Bigger accounts see a small drag. For accounts over 10,000 followers, hashtag pins ranked slightly worse at every depth we checked.
- The trustworthy comparison is large. The account-size cut (i.e. removing pins that were pinned by accounts with zero followers), which only counts pins where we know both the description and a real follower count, covers about 18.5 million pins.
What this means for you
Do not add hashtags expecting a ranking boost. The data appears to show no competitive edge, and for larger accounts they look like a small negative.
Your description is valuable space. Spend it writing naturally about what the actual pin is trying to show, what your URL is about (if you are linking to a URL) and why they’d want to click through.
Do this all in the words real people type into search. That is the context Pinterest needs to help better rank you.
A better lever that actually moves your ranking is using the right keyword(s) and putting your keyword(s) in the right places, which we cover in where to put your keyword on Pinterest.
Do hashtagged pins really rank higher?
In the raw numbers, pins with hashtags rank ever so slightly. This is the comparison most hashtag advice is built on, and on the surface it looks convincing.
| Hashtags? | Pins | Avg. position | Median | Top 10 | Top 50 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | 12.6M | 48.2 | 46 | 12.5% | 54.3% |
| No | 115.1M | 51.3 | 51 | 9.8% | 49.8% |
Taken at face value, hashtag pins sit about three spots higher on average and reach the top 10 more often. Plenty of guides stop right there.
Plenty of guides stop right there.
However, the problem is hidden in that “No” column. It mixes tiny new accounts with established ones pulling millions of monthly viewers. Until we separate those out, we cannot tell if the gap is about hashtags or about who uses them.
What happens when you compare similar accounts?
The edge disappears, and then some. Accounts with larger followers rank better for reasons that have nothing to do with hashtags, like history and audience.
They also use hashtags at different rates than accounts with low or no followers. Once you line up accounts of similar size, count only pins where we know the description, we see that the picture actually inverts.
| Account size | Without hashtags | With hashtags | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1,000 followers | 47.8 | 48.7 | hashtags 0.9 worse |
| 1,000 to 10,000 | 48.2 | 49.4 | hashtags 1.2 worse |
| Over 10,000 | 46.9 | 47.6 | hashtags 0.7 worse |
In every group, pins with hashtags rank slightly worse, by about one position. So why did the overall numbers say the opposite?
Mainly because many of these pins come from accounts that have zero followers, or have no actual description within their results.
Those accounts (and pins) rank worse for unrelated reasons, so they weighed down the “without” column and made hashtags look better than they are. Compare like with like and hashtags don’t appear to add anything.
If not hashtags, then what?
Ranking comes from a lot of factors, not just tags. Pinfluence Discover hands you the exact keywords to target, maps the top-ranking pins in your niche, and shows what competitors are already winning with, so you build titles and descriptions on data, not guesswork.
Show Me the KeywordsDo hashtags help you reach the top results?
This is the part that matters most, because most clicks land on the first handful of results. Hashtags do not help you get there.
| Search window | With hashtags | Without hashtags |
|---|---|---|
| Top 10 | 5.41 | 5.51 |
| Top 25 | 12.53 | 13.06 |
| Top 50 | 24.17 | 25.64 |
Across all pins there is a tiny gap that favors hashtags, and it grows a little the deeper you go.
It is the same illusion as before, and it breaks the moment you split these windows by account size. Inside every real size group the gap shrinks to almost nothing and flips direction.
For accounts over 10,000 followers it runs the wrong way, with hashtag pins a hair worse at every depth. In the top 10, the typical position is identical with or without hashtags.
There is simply no hashtag advantage for the positions that bring the most traffic.
How we did this
This study uses the Pinfluencing.com research index, which organizes public information from Pinterest® search results.
For this article we used data we indexed across late May and early June 2026, ending with a snapshot on June 12. It covers 127,738,297 pin appearances, drawn from about 1.3 million searches across 55,998,390 unique pins. Each row records where a pin ranked for a search, using Pinterest’s own position, where 1 is the top.
- We build the index in two passes. The first records where each pin ranks and its title. The second fills in details like description, alt text, and follower count.
- Regular results only. Paid (promoted) placements are left out so ads cannot tilt the comparison.
- The default, logged-out view. These are the results a signed-out visitor sees, Pinterest’s standard ordering rather than a personalized feed.
- Hashtags means description hashtags. A pin counts as having hashtags when its description contains a # followed by a word. Title and alt-text hashtags are not counted.
- About the top 100. We capture roughly the first 100 results per search, so figures like “reached the top 50” are shares within that range.
- This shows a connection, not a cause. We can say pins with a feature tend to rank higher or lower, not that the feature put them there. We measure search position only, not saves or clicks.
See what ranks in your niche.
Every number above came from the Pinfluence Discover index. Point it at your own topics to find the keywords, see the top-ranking pins, and spot what competitors are winning with. Free daily searches, no credit card.
Try Pinfluence Discover FreeFrequently asked questions
Do Pinterest hashtags still work in 2026?
Not for ranking. Hashtag pins looked slightly better overall (average position 48.2 versus 51.3), but that edge disappeared once we compared accounts of similar size. Within every size group, hashtag pins ranked a little worse.
Do hashtags hurt your Pinterest ranking?
For most accounts they are roughly neutral, about one position in the wrong direction. For accounts over 10,000 followers, hashtag pins ranked consistently a touch worse, so there is a small hint they slightly hurt at scale.
Should accounts with large followings use hashtags?
Our data gives no reason to. Larger accounts are the one group where hashtag pins were measurably worse, so they gain nothing in search by adding them.
How many hashtags should I use on a pin?
We measured whether a description had hashtags, not how many, so we cannot name an ideal number. Presence alone gives no ranking lift, which makes a long string of them hard to justify. Spend that time on a clear description instead.
Do hashtags help you reach the top results on Pinterest?
No. In the top 10 results, the typical position was the same with or without hashtags, and that held inside every account-size group. They do not help you win the spots that drive the most traffic.
Why do so many guides say hashtags help?
Most are looking at the raw, all-pins comparison, where hashtag pins do appear to rank higher. That gap is real but misleading, driven by account size and by pins that may not even have anything in their description at all. Compare similar accounts and pins with actual descriptions (i.e. at least one word) and it vanishes.
About the data and Pinfluence Discover
Every number here comes from the Pinfluencing.com research index of public Pinterest® search results, indexed across late May and early June 2026 (snapshot dated June 12).
Pinfluence Discover lets you run the same kind of check on your own niche, free, with daily keyword searches and no credit card. If hashtags are not the lever, your titles, descriptions, and keywords are.
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