Social media post size.

Instagram post size

There is no single social media post size, because each platform publishes its own rules and most of them publish a range rather than a number. Instagram is the clearest example.

Instagram states its rule as a range, and the range is what decides whether a photo is cropped:

So 1080 by 1350 pixels, which is the tall 4:5 shape, is the safest choice for a feed post. It sits inside the supported range and uses the most screen on a phone.

Two related rules come from the same help pages: a post can hold up to 20 photos and videos, and the orientation you choose applies to every item in it, as the Instagram carousel guide explains. The posting steps for every format are in how to post on Instagram, and Reels have length limits of their own in how long Instagram Reels can be.

TikTok post size

TikTok publishes its numbers for the web upload rather than the app.

The 720x1280 figure is a floor, not a target. It is the 9:16 shape, and anything you film on a modern phone already exceeds it.

The two routes differ in one way: a video uploaded through the web browser goes up in full, so trimming its length means uploading through the app instead. A photo post of up to 35 photos is covered step by step in how to make a slideshow on TikTok.

X post size

X publishes file sizes rather than pixel dimensions for photos, which is a more useful rule anyway.

An animated GIF cannot be included in a post with multiple images, and only one GIF can go in a post. How the 280 characters are counted, and why media costs none of them, is in the Twitter character limit.

YouTube thumbnail size

This is the section most size charts get wrong, because they still quote an older number. YouTube's current recommendation is considerably larger.

A vertical video with a 16:9 custom thumbnail will have it replaced, which is the trap for anyone posting Shorts from a template built for long form. Long videos have a second set of rules for chapters, in how to use YouTube chapters.

Custom thumbnails need a verified account, and custom Shorts thumbnails are currently only added in YouTube Studio on a computer.

Facebook, and a gap

Meta does publish image requirements, but they live in the advertising and catalog sections of the Meta Business Help Center rather than in one page about ordinary posts.

Facebook feed pixel sizes circulate widely, copied from one chart to the next, but none of the pages read for this guide state them, so none are given here. What the Meta Business Help Center does state is the posting limit in Business Suite: an Instagram post made from there takes up to 10 photos, half of what the Instagram app allows.

Aspect ratio, pixels and why both numbers matter

Two images can have the same aspect ratio and completely different quality, and two images at the same pixel width can be cropped differently. The words get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing.

The common ratios, and what each is used for:

Instagram's published range runs from 1.91:1 to 3:4, so every ratio in that table except 9:16 and 16:9 is inside it. A 9:16 image posted to the feed gets cropped, which is why vertical video belongs in Reels and stories rather than in a feed photo.

Profile pictures, covers and the rest of the page furniture

A profile picture is displayed as a small circle on most platforms, and a cover image is cropped differently on a phone than on a computer. Those two facts matter more than any exact pixel figure.

1. Use a square image for the profile picture, since it will be cropped to a circle. Anything near the corners is lost.
2. Put the subject in the middle, large enough to read at the size of a thumbnail in a comment thread.
3. Keep a cover image simple in the center, because the visible strip differs between phone and desktop.
4. Avoid text in a cover image unless you have checked it on both.
5. Use the same profile picture everywhere, so people recognize the account across platforms.

Meta's own profile picture and cover photo dimensions sit on help pages that require a login, and they were not read for this guide, so no Facebook figures are given here.

Vertical video, the one size that is not negotiable

Stories, Reels, TikTok videos and Shorts all use the full portrait screen, which is the 9:16 ratio and 1080 by 1920 pixels at the width everything else on this page uses.

TikTok's own floor of 720x1280 is the same shape at a lower resolution, so filming vertically on any recent phone clears it comfortably.

The part people get wrong is not the size but the safe area. The top and bottom of the screen carry the profile row, the caption, the buttons and the reply bar, so anything important belongs in the middle of the frame; the story frame is drawn in how to change the background color of a story.

The one size that works nearly everywhere

If you are exporting one image and it has to work in several places, export it at 1080 by 1350 pixels.

• It sits inside Instagram's supported range at the tall end, which uses the most phone screen.
• It crops predictably to square if a platform wants 1:1.
• It is portrait, which matches how people hold a phone.
• It is small enough to stay under every file limit on this page.

The exception is video, which should be 9:16 and filmed that way rather than cropped afterwards. And the other exception is a YouTube thumbnail, which is 16:9 and wants to be much larger.

Exporting so the platform does not ruin it

1. Design at the final size. Scaling a 2000 pixel design down to 1080 softens text in a way no filter fixes.
2. Use PNG for text and flat color, and a high quality JPG for photographs.
3. Do not send the file through a messaging app before uploading, since that compresses it once before the platform compresses it again.
4. Keep text away from the edges, where captions, buttons and usernames sit.
5. Check it on a phone before publishing, not on the monitor you designed it on.

When the quality drops anyway

A working set of templates

Most businesses need three canvases, not thirty.

1. 1080 by 1350 for feed posts and carousels.
2. 1080 by 1920 for stories, Reels covers and vertical video.
3. 3840 by 2160 for YouTube thumbnails, if you publish video there.

Build those three once, keep them in the same place, and the size question stops coming up. Keeping that kit consistent is part of social media management, and the free social media audit checks whether your posts are being cropped or compressed before anyone sees them.

How we will test this

Not run yetEverything above comes from the published sources listed below, and nothing here is presented as something we measured. Our own test on live accounts has not been run yet.

This is the test we will run: we upload the same image at several widths and ratios to each platform from our own test accounts, then download what the platform serves back and compare it with the original, recording where it was resized, cropped or compressed.

Platforms change behavior without announcing it, so once the first test is run we repeat it every quarter, and this section will say when it was run and on which devices and app versions.

Sources

Read on September 23, 2026.

• Instagram Help Center, Image resolution of photos you share on Instagram
• TikTok Help Center, Tools for creators
• X Help Center, How to post pictures or GIFs
• X Help Center, How to share and watch videos on X
• YouTube Help, Add custom thumbnails on YouTube

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