You’re creating on Pinterest, which means…

Who this catches

The business-account requirement turns on commercial purpose. A separate sentence in the same section attaches a separate consequence: posting content “that is sponsored or branded – like when a business partner pays or incentivizes you to post it – or is in any way commercial in nature” makes you “subject to our Commercial and Branded Content Guidelines” — a different document from the Business Terms.

Both apply, not one

The Business Terms do not replace the main Terms. They say up front that “these Terms include, and incorporate by reference, the following terms and policies”, and the Pinterest Terms of Service are first on that list. The Business Terms only win where the two actually conflict.

There is a penalty for skipping it

Section 8 of the main Terms attaches an indemnity specifically to anyone who uses Pinterest commercially “without agreeing to our Business Terms as required by Section 2(c)”.

It opens by giving it back

The section that takes the licence begins by handing you the copyright, and Section 4(b) says the same thing from Pinterest’s side — “Pinterest IP does not include User Content.” Pinterest’s own plain-English gloss on 3(a) is blunter: “If you post your Content on Pinterest, it still belongs to you.” Nothing in the grant that follows takes any of that away. It just makes owning it worth less than it sounds.

Direction of the grant

“you grant us” — this runs from you to Pinterest. The separate licence in Section 2(b) runs the other way and is much narrower; see the clause below.

And our users

The licence is not only to the company. Every other Pinterest user is a named licensee of your work on the same royalty-free terms. That is what a re-pin is, in contract terms.

Monetize, then no payment

The verb is in the list and the very next sentence rules out your share of the proceeds. Both halves are in the same paragraph.

Sublicensable and transferable

They can pass the right on, and pass the contract on. Section 13(b) says these Terms “may not be transferred or assigned by you, but may be assigned by us without restriction” — with one carve-out: “If you’re a consumer in the EEA, Switzerland, or the UK, either you or we may assign this agreement”. Everyone else has a one-way clause.

The modifiers are identical

Non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide — the same five words in the same order as the main Terms. Opening a business account does not soften the licence.

Two wordings differ, in opposite directions

This version limits the licence to your content “on Pinterest”, where the main Terms end at “distribute your User Content” with no such limit — that difference is narrower. But this version also drops a word: the main Terms say “publicly perform or display”, while here “display” and “perform” stand as two unqualified verbs. “Publicly” appears once in the Terms of Service and not at all in the Business Terms, so on that verb the Business grant is arguably the broader one. A business user is bound by both documents, and the main Terms hand the Business Terms the win only “to the extent of the conflict”.

Two grants, one body of work

A creator with a business account has granted this licence twice over the same pins. Neither grant expires, and neither is conditioned on the other.

Read the subject

“we hereby grant you” — this one runs from Pinterest to you. It is the reassuring half, and it is not the licence over your pins.

Mirror image

Yours is non-transferable, non-sublicensable and revocable. Theirs is transferable, sublicensable, and has no revocation clause at all. Section 2(b) of the Business Terms repeats this sentence word for word.

The word that isn’t there

Neither perpetual nor irrevocable appears anywhere in either document. Pinterest does not need them: the survival and retention clauses below do the same work.

Two different things

The first sentence is retention for backups, which is time-limited. The second is continued use, which is not. Only the first has a clock on it.

Every re-pin is a copy that stays

The clause reaches “any of your User Content that you or other users have stored or shared on Pinterest.” Closing your account ends your access, not their licence.

The licence section survives

The main Terms say “Upon termination, Sections 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 of these Terms will continue to be operative.” The Business Terms say “Upon termination, you continue to be bound by Sections 3, 4, 10 and 11-16 of these Terms.” Section 3 is the licence in both.

Stricter than the main Terms

In the Terms of Service the indemnity is conditional — it only bites if you use Pinterest commercially “without agreeing to our Business Terms as required by Section 2(c)”. Here it is unconditional, and it covers your User Content by name.

No consumer carve-out here

The main Terms lift European consumers out of arbitration outright — “If you are a consumer in the EEA, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom (UK), Section 11 doesn't apply to you.” — and disapply the $100 liability cap for them: “If we cause damage to you and you're a consumer in the EEA or UK, the above doesn't apply.” The Business Terms carry neither exemption, so the jury and class-action waiver quoted above binds everyone signed to them, and their own liability cap has no consumer paragraph after it.

England, not your home courts

The main Terms let an EEA, Swiss or UK consumer sue “in the courts of the country where you live”. The Business Terms send the same person to “the laws of England” and to London. England is named twice in the Business Terms and not once in the Terms of Service, and the word “consumer” appears in the Business Terms exactly once — inside the name of the AAA’s “Consumer Arbitration Rules”.

Closing the account closes the door

Section 10 of the Business Terms is a single sentence, and it runs the other way from a data-export right: permanently closing the account ends your access to “information provided or generated by you”. It does not end Pinterest’s licence over it — Section 3 survives termination.

Feedback goes further too

The main Terms say Pinterest has “no obligation to keep your feedback confidential or to compensate you for the feedback.” The Business Terms say Pinterest is “free to use them without any restriction or compensation to you.” That phrase appears in the Business Terms and not in the Terms of Service.

A third contract is waiting

Section 5 of the Business Terms points at the Creative GenAI Terms for Pinterest’s generative AI features. That name appears in the Business Terms and nowhere in the Terms of Service. It is a third contract, and it is not in this reading.