Sizes and safe zones, network by network
Networks do not answer in pixels: they answer in aspect ratios, and on top of that their own interface covers part of the frame. Pick the network, the format and the shape, and you get the canvas, the band that gets accepted, and what blocks a publish against what only warns. The figures are read from the same module that checks a post before it is sent, so they cannot go stale without the product going stale with them.
The piece
The height follows from the shape. 1080 is the width almost everyone works at.
What this surface accepts
Canvas
1,080 × 1,350 px
4:5. This shape falls inside the band the format accepts.
Required ratio
4:5 to 1.91:1
Blocks the publish
Recommended ratio
Any
Pixels
No documented limit
Max weight
8 MB
Warns and lets it through
The safe zone
You will not find a safe zone percentage here, and that is not an oversight. No network publishes where its interface sits, the overlay moves with the app version, with the handset and with how long the caption runs, and the figures that circulate come from design blogs copying one another. Measure yours once and the drawing does itself.
It takes a minute: post a piece with a grid on it, take a screenshot on your own phone, and read off what share of the height the interface eats at the top and at the bottom.
The frame
4:5
With both margins at zero the whole canvas is drawn. Type in the one you measured and the covered band appears shaded, with the clear middle counted in pixels.
- The safe zone. No network publishes where its interface sits, and what gets drawn here is the one you measured rather than an invented one, so the frame is worth exactly what your measurement is worth.
- The profile grid crop. A piece that fits the feed band can still be squared off in the profile grid, and the file does not decide that.
- Text burned into a video. Once it is baked in it does not move when the network changes its interface, which is the reason to leave more margin than looks necessary.
- Compression. Every network re-encodes what you upload, so the file your reader sees is never exactly the one you exported.
Frequently asked questions
What size is an Instagram post?
The feed accepts a band rather than a size, and inside that band the one that fills the most screen is the 4:5 portrait: at 1080 wide that is 1080 by 1350. The square and the landscape end publish too. What does not fit is 1080 by 1920, which is 9:16 and falls outside the band the feed and the carousel accept, so it gets refused. That is the most common mistake of the lot, and it comes from reusing a file cut for a reel or a story.
Why does this page not give an exact safe zone percentage?
Because that percentage does not exist as data. No network publishes it, the interface that covers the frame moves with the app version, with the screen size and with how long the caption runs, and the figures that circulate come from design blogs copying one another with no date and no source. What is exact is the one you measure on your own phone, so the tool asks for that one and turns it into pixels and into a drawing.
Which aspect ratio works across several networks at once?
For feeds, 4:5: several of the highest reach networks share it without argument, and it is also the one that fills the most height on a phone. For vertical formats, 9:16. What does not exist is a shape that serves both groups at once: a feed that accepts a landscape band and a format that only accepts portrait have no ratio in common, and there you export twice instead of hunting for a crop that will be refused anyway.
What blocks a publish and what only makes it look worse?
The line runs between geometry and encoding. A ratio outside the band, the pixel floor and a file type the format does not take are facts about the file that nothing between here and the network can fix, and they stop the publish. Weight, length and the resolution ceiling are warnings: recompressing, downscaling and trimming are things a delivery channel does every day, so respect them if you care about quality, and none of them will leave a piece unpublished.
Fourteen days to decide
Connect one account, schedule a week and see whether it fits. If it does not fit, cancel before day 15 and nothing is charged.
Keep reading
- Guides
Instagram post size, and the sizes for every other network
The ratios each network and format accepts, the characters that fit and the maximum length, read out of the module that blocks a publish when they do not.
- Guides
Repurposing content across networks without it showing
What travels from one network to another is the idea; the format, the caption and the call to action get rewritten every time.
- Features
Cross posting from one network to another without uploading twice
A standing rule that carries what you already posted on one account to another, in the format the destination accepts.