Pinterest Board Cover Size Guide 2026

The recommended Pinterest board cover size is a square image, either 600x600 pixels as the practical minimum or 1000x1000 pixels for a sharper result on both desktop and mobile. Whichever size you choose, the important detail is that Pinterest does not display your square upload as a square: it crops board covers into a narrow landscape strip on your profile, so a naive center crop can cut off more than you expect.

Why the square upload does not display as a square

You upload a board cover as a square image, but Pinterest crops it down to roughly 222x150 pixels, a landscape strip, when it displays on your profile's board grid. That crop trims the top and bottom of your square image significantly, which is why board covers designed with important content spread evenly across the whole square frequently lose key details once they are live.

Designing for the crop

Center your most important visual element vertically in the middle of the square, closer to a horizontal band through the center than a full edge to edge design. Treat the top and bottom edges of your 1000x1000 upload as disposable margin rather than usable space, since that is what gets cropped away in the landscape display.

Quick reference

Spec	Value
Upload dimensions	600x600px minimum, 1000x1000px recommended
Aspect ratio	1:1 (square)
Displayed as	~222x150px landscape crop on profile
File formats	JPG, PNG
Max file size	32MB

Choosing a cover image versus letting Pinterest pick

Letting Pinterest auto-select a cover is the fastest option and works fine for boards you are not actively promoting, since it saves the extra design step entirely. For boards that represent your brand or a specific campaign, a purpose-built cover pays off: it lets you keep a consistent visual style across your whole profile grid rather than having each board's cover look like whatever pin happened to be saved to it first, and it lets you update the cover independently any time you add new pins without changing which pin gets featured.

Practical tips

If a board already has pins saved to it, Pinterest can auto-select a cover from an existing pin image, but that automatic choice rarely accounts for the crop the way a custom-designed cover does. Uploading a dedicated cover graphic, centered per the crop guidance above, keeps your board grid looking intentional rather than randomly cropped.

Once your boards are set up with clean covers, keep them active with a consistent pinning schedule through the Pinterest scheduler, and check pin descriptions against the Pinterest description counter before publishing. Sign up free to manage Pinterest alongside the other nine platforms Posted Once supports.