What is a safe zone in an ad?

A safe zone is the area of the frame that the platform interface does not cover. In full screen vertical placements such as Reels, Stories and YouTube Shorts, the top strip carries the account name and progress bar, the bottom third carries the caption and call to action, and the right edge carries the reaction buttons. Anything essential placed there can be hidden. Keeping text and logos toward the centre of the frame is what makes a creative survive across placements.

What size should a Reels ad be?

9:16, commonly exported at 1080 x 1920. The ratio is stable across Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels and YouTube Shorts. What is not stable is how much of the frame the interface occupies, so keep essential text and branding out of roughly the top 14 percent and the bottom third, and preview in the live placement before launch.

How much text can a Meta ad have?

As much as you like inside the image. The old 20 percent image text rule was retired, so heavy text overlay no longer causes rejection. What still bites is truncation in the text fields: primary text is commonly documented as showing about 125 characters before a See more link, and headlines cut off much sooner. Ads Manager shows the live truncation point as you type.

Which aspect ratios cover the most placements?

Two files cover most of paid social and a good share of Google: a 9:16 vertical at 1080 x 1920 and a 4:5 at 1080 x 1350. Add 1:1 at 1080 x 1080 and 1.91:1 at 1200 x 628 and you have covered Meta, Google display, Amazon custom images and most of YouTube other than 16:9 in-stream.

Why does this reference avoid exact pixel margins?

Because they go out of date quietly. Aspect ratios have been stable for years and are safe to build against. Reserved interface areas change with app releases, and a page that publishes a confident pixel number becomes wrong without anyone noticing. Percentages of frame age better, and every page here links to the platform specification so you can confirm before production.

How often should ad specs be re-checked?

Ratios, rarely. Safe zones and character limits, before any significant production run. The cheapest check is not reading a spec sheet at all: it is uploading the asset into the platform preview, which validates against the live rule and shows you the actual crop.

Do these specs apply to organic posts as well as ads?

The ratios and safe zones do, because they are properties of the placement rather than of the buy. Character limits and file requirements differ, since ad text fields and organic captions are separate systems with separate rules.

Ad specs: sizes, safe zones and character limits by platform

In short

Five aspect ratios cover almost all paid advertising: 9:16 for full screen vertical, 4:5 for tall feed placements, 1:1 for square, 1.91:1 for landscape link units and 16:9 for in-stream video. Those ratios are stable and safe to design against. Safe zones are not fixed numbers: they are the parts of the frame the app interface covers, and they move with every redesign, so they are best treated as a percentage of the frame rather than a pixel margin. The instruction that survives all of it is to keep essential text and branding toward the centre of the frame and preview the ad in the real placement before launch.

Check this before you ship

Ad specs change, often quietly. Aspect ratios are stable and safe to build against. Exact pixel margins, file size ceilings and duration caps are not, and reserved interface areas differ by placement and by app version. Treat the numbers on this page as a starting point, then check the platform's own current specification before you sign off on a production file.

Last reviewed: 24 July 2026. Every platform page below links to that platform official specification.

The specs by platform

Meta ad specsFacebook and Instagram in one system: four aspect ratios, one set of text limits, and the safe zones for Stories and Reels.Instagram ad specsFeed, Stories, Reels and Explore. Includes the Reels safe zone overlay guidance and the caption truncation point.Facebook ad specsFeed, right column, Marketplace, in-stream and Stories, plus the carousel and collection formats.Google Ads ad specsResponsive search ad character limits, display image ratios, the standard banner sizes, and what Performance Max does to your assets.YouTube ad specsSkippable, non-skippable, bumper, in-feed and Shorts. Durations, ratios and the Shorts safe zone.Amazon Ads ad specsSponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display: what you upload, what Amazon supplies, and the product image rules.

Five ratios, most of the internet

Before the platform detail, this is the shape of the whole problem. Build these five and you can serve almost anything without handing the crop decision to an algorithm.

The ratios worth mastering
Ratio	Common export	Where it serves
9:16	1080 x 1920	Stories, Reels, YouTube Shorts, vertical video everywhere
4:5	1080 x 1350	The tallest image a Meta feed will render. Also a Google portrait asset.
1:1	1080 x 1080	Square feed, Amazon product images, Google square asset, logos
1.91:1	1200 x 628	Landscape link ads, Google landscape asset, Amazon custom images
16:9	1920 x 1080	YouTube in-stream, Facebook in-stream, Amazon video

Ratios are the stable layer. The export resolutions above are conventional recommendations rather than hard requirements, and platforms accept a range around them.

What a safe zone actually is

A safe zone is the part of the frame the app does not sit on top of. It is not a setting you switch on and it is not a file you download. In a Reel, a Story or a Short, the top strip carries the account name and progress indicator, the bottom third carries the caption and the call to action, and the right edge carries the like, comment and share buttons. Anything essential placed in those areas is at risk of being covered.

The reason this page states safe zones as percentages of the frame rather than pixel margins is that pixel margins are the first thing an interface redesign invalidates. Percentages move less. The concept is defined in more detail in the glossary entry for safe zone.

Keep essential text and branding toward the centre of the frame, and preview the ad in the real placement before you launch it.

Why this reference hedges

Most spec pages state every number with the same confidence, which is convenient and quietly wrong. Aspect ratios have barely moved in years. Pixel margins, maximum file sizes, permitted durations and character limits move regularly, sometimes without an announcement, and a page that states them flatly becomes inaccurate on a date nobody records.

So the numbers here are separated by how much they can be trusted. Ratios are stated as fact. Volatile values are labelled as commonly documented and paired with the official source. Where confidence was low, the number was left out. A shorter page you can rely on is worth more than a longer one you have to second guess, particularly if an AI assistant is going to quote it back to somebody.

Frequently asked questions

What is a safe zone in an ad?: A safe zone is the area of the frame that the platform interface does not cover. In full screen vertical placements such as Reels, Stories and YouTube Shorts, the top strip carries the account name and progress bar, the bottom third carries the caption and call to action, and the right edge carries the reaction buttons. Anything essential placed there can be hidden. Keeping text and logos toward the centre of the frame is what makes a creative survive across placements.
What size should a Reels ad be?: 9:16, commonly exported at 1080 x 1920. The ratio is stable across Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels and YouTube Shorts. What is not stable is how much of the frame the interface occupies, so keep essential text and branding out of roughly the top 14 percent and the bottom third, and preview in the live placement before launch.
How much text can a Meta ad have?: As much as you like inside the image. The old 20 percent image text rule was retired, so heavy text overlay no longer causes rejection. What still bites is truncation in the text fields: primary text is commonly documented as showing about 125 characters before a See more link, and headlines cut off much sooner. Ads Manager shows the live truncation point as you type.
Which aspect ratios cover the most placements?: Two files cover most of paid social and a good share of Google: a 9:16 vertical at 1080 x 1920 and a 4:5 at 1080 x 1350. Add 1:1 at 1080 x 1080 and 1.91:1 at 1200 x 628 and you have covered Meta, Google display, Amazon custom images and most of YouTube other than 16:9 in-stream.
Why does this reference avoid exact pixel margins?: Because they go out of date quietly. Aspect ratios have been stable for years and are safe to build against. Reserved interface areas change with app releases, and a page that publishes a confident pixel number becomes wrong without anyone noticing. Percentages of frame age better, and every page here links to the platform specification so you can confirm before production.
How often should ad specs be re-checked?: Ratios, rarely. Safe zones and character limits, before any significant production run. The cheapest check is not reading a spec sheet at all: it is uploading the asset into the platform preview, which validates against the live rule and shows you the actual crop.
Do these specs apply to organic posts as well as ads?: The ratios and safe zones do, because they are properties of the placement rather than of the buy. Character limits and file requirements differ, since ad text fields and organic captions are separate systems with separate rules.

Correct file size, wrong creative, still a loss

Specs stop an ad from looking broken. They do not tell you which one is burning budget. Muze reads Meta, Google, Amazon and Shopify from ChatGPT or Claude and answers that question. Every change previews first, and new campaigns are created paused.

See how Muze works

Ad specs that admit which numbers go stale.