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Instagram ads use three aspect ratios. 9:16 for Stories and Reels, commonly exported at 1080 x 1920. 4:5 for the Feed, commonly exported at 1080 x 1350, which is the tallest the Feed will show. 1:1 at 1080 x 1080 when one asset has to work in every placement. The Reels safe zone matters most: the app overlays a caption, an account name and an audio ticker along the bottom, and a column of like, comment and share buttons down the right edge, so keep essential text and logos out of roughly the top 14 percent, the bottom 35 percent and the right edge. Reserved areas vary by app version, so preview in the 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: . Official source: Meta Ads Guide, Instagram placements (official).
The rule that outlives every redesign
Keep essential text and branding toward the centre of the frame, and preview the ad in the real placement before you launch it.
Design the Reel as though the bottom third and the right edge are already occupied, because in the real placement they are.
Everything below is detail on top of that. Ratios are the stable layer and are safe to build against. Pixel margins, file size ceilings and duration caps are the volatile layer, which is why they are marked as commonly documented rather than stated as fact.
Instagram aspect ratios by placement
| Placement | Aspect ratio | Commonly recommended resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Reels | 9:16 | 1080 x 1920 |
| Stories | 9:16 | 1080 x 1920 |
| Feed, vertical | 4:5 | 1080 x 1350 |
| Feed, square | 1:1 | 1080 x 1080 |
| Feed, landscape | 1.91:1 | 1200 x 628 |
| Explore | 1:1 or 4:5 | 1080 x 1080 or 1080 x 1350 |
| Carousel | 1:1 or 4:5, consistent across cards | 1080 x 1080 or 1080 x 1350 |
Mixing ratios inside a carousel is the fastest way to make a paid carousel look broken. Pick one and hold it across every card.
Safe zones, as a share of the frame
There is no Instagram safe zone template you can download once and trust forever, because the interface moves. Percentages of frame move less than pixel numbers, so that is how these are stated.
Percentages are used here on purpose. Pixel margins go stale every time an app ships a redesign, whereas the proportion of the screen the interface occupies moves far less. Reserved areas still vary by placement and by app version, so treat these as a design margin rather than a measurement. For the concept itself, see safe zone in the glossary.
| Placement | Keep clear | What sits there |
|---|---|---|
| Reels | Roughly the top 14 percent, the bottom 35 percent, and about the right 12 percent | Account name, caption and audio ticker across the bottom. Like, comment, share, save and menu stacked on the right. Sound and menu controls at the top. |
| Stories | Roughly the top 14 percent and the bottom 20 percent | Progress bar, profile name and controls at the top. Call to action and reply field at the bottom. |
| Feed | No overlay, but leave a margin for the 1:1 crop | Nothing covers the image. The risk is a 4:5 asset being centre-cropped to square elsewhere in the system. |
| Profile grid thumbnail | Assume the cover frame will be re-cropped | Instagram has changed the profile grid crop more than once. Do not put a headline where only the current crop keeps it visible. Check the crop in the app. |
These percentages are widely used working figures, not published constants. Confirm against the official specification above, and preview the creative in the live placement before sign-off.
Text and captions
| Field | Commonly documented limit | What actually happens |
|---|---|---|
| Organic caption | 2,200 characters | About the first 125 characters show before a more link. |
| Hashtags per post | Up to 30 | A cap, not a target. |
| Ad primary text | 125 characters | Same Meta field, same truncation behaviour. |
| Ad headline | 27 characters | Short survives every placement. |
Character limits are enforced by the composer, so the composer is the source of truth. Check there before writing to a number from a blog post.
File limits
| Item | Commonly documented limit |
|---|---|
| Image formats | JPG and PNG |
| Image file size | Up to 30 MB |
| Video formats | MP4 and MOV |
| Video file size | Up to 4 GB |
| Stories video length | Up to 60 seconds per card |
| Reels ad length | Minutes are permitted, but the effective range is under 15 seconds |
Why the Reels safe zone is the one to get right
Feed placements do not cover your creative. Reels does, and it covers the two places designers instinctively use: the bottom, where a caption or a price wants to sit, and the right edge, where a logo wants to sit.
The result is a specific and very common failure. The ad looks correct in the export, correct in the preview thumbnail, and wrong on a phone, with the offer half hidden behind a comment button.
One master, three exports
Cut a 1080 x 1920 master with everything essential inside the middle 60 percent vertically. From that you can pull a 4:5 Feed version and a 1:1 version without redesigning anything, because the important content was never near an edge.
This is the whole discipline. It is not sophisticated, and it removes most of the reason to memorise pixel margins.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the Instagram Reels safe zone?
- It is the central area of a 9:16 frame that the Reels interface does not cover. The bottom of the frame carries the caption, account name and audio ticker, the right edge carries the like, comment and share buttons, and the top carries sound and menu controls. Keeping essential text and logos out of roughly the top 14 percent, the bottom 35 percent and the right 12 percent is the widely used guidance, and the exact reserved area changes with app versions.
- What size should an Instagram Reels ad be?
- 9:16, commonly exported at 1080 x 1920. That ratio is stable. What is not stable is how much of the bottom the interface takes, so keep the offer, the logo and any legal text away from the bottom third.
- Is there an official Instagram safe zone template?
- Meta publishes placement specifications in its Ads Guide and Ads Manager previews the creative in each placement, which is more reliable than any template file, because the preview reflects the current build of the app. Third party templates go stale silently, which is worse than being wrong loudly.
- What is the tallest post size on Instagram Feed?
- 4:5, commonly 1080 x 1350. Taller assets are cropped in the Feed. Full screen 9:16 belongs in Stories and Reels.
- How long can an Instagram caption be?
- Commonly documented as 2,200 characters, with roughly the first 125 shown before the more link. So the useful length is the first sentence, and the other 2,000 characters are for people who were already interested.
- Do Instagram ads and Facebook ads use the same files?
- They can, and that is the argument for building 9:16 and 4:5 masters. Both platforms are bought in Meta Ads Manager and share ratios and text fields. See the Meta ad specs page for the combined view.
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Specs are the easy half
Getting the file right is one afternoon. Knowing which creative is losing money this week is the other job. Muze reads Meta, Google, Amazon and Shopify from ChatGPT or Claude and tells you. Every change previews before it runs, and new campaigns are created paused.
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