SMM and content
Image sizes for social media — 2026
One reference instead of ten browser tabs: current sizes, aspect ratios and safe zones for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads and Google Business. Plus a diagram of every format: you can see the shape of the frame and the strips the interface covers.
Four numbers that cover 90 % of the work
If you have no time at all — remember these four, and most of your posts will stop getting cropped.
The big change of recent years: the square is no longer the standard. The vertical 4:5 and 9:16 ratios take up more of the phone screen, so they earn more attention for the same ad money. If you are making one image for every network — make it vertical.
Ratio, pixels and the safe zone
Ratio is the relationship between width and height. It is what decides whether the network crops your image. 1:1 is a square, 4:5 and 3:4 are the vertical feed, 9:16 is the full phone screen, 16:9 is the horizontal format for YouTube and banners.
Pixels are resolution, which means sharpness. A 4:5 ratio can be 400 × 500 or 1080 × 1350. Both fit the feed without cropping, but the first will look soft on a phone screen. The rule is simple: keep the width at 1080 px and never start from a file smaller than the final size — losing quality is easy, getting it back is impossible.
Safe zone is the part of the frame free of the network interface. In stories your avatar and profile name sit at the top, the «send» button and reactions at the bottom. In Reels there is also a caption below and buttons down the side. Put text in those strips and it gets covered — the viewer sees neither your headline, nor the price, nor the call to action.
File format. JPG is for photographs: it compresses well without visible loss. PNG is for graphics, logos, screenshots and anything with fine text or transparency. Almost every network now accepts WebP, but for posts there is little gain — the network re-encodes the file its own way regardless. When in doubt: JPG for photos, PNG for graphics.
What happens to your file after upload. No network shows the original. Instagram, Facebook and TikTok compress images to their own sizes. That is exactly why small text in a thin typeface falls apart: it does not survive a second round of compression. Make captions large and bold — that is technology, not taste.
Every size in one table
Values in pixels. On a phone the table scrolls sideways.
| Network | Avatar | Cover | Post | Vertical video | Link preview |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 320 × 320 | — | 1080 × 1350 1080 × 1440 · 1080 × 1080 | 1080 × 1920 | — | |
| 320 × 320 | 851 × 315 groups 1640 × 856 events 1920 × 1005 | 1080 × 1350 1080 × 1080 | 1080 × 1920 | 1200 × 630 | |
| TikTok | 200 × 200 | — | 1080 × 1920 carousel also 4:5 | 1080 × 1920 | — |
| 400 × 400 | profile 1584 × 396 company 1128 × 191 | 1080 × 1350 1080 × 1080 | — | 1200 × 627 | |
| YouTube | 800 × 800 | 2560 × 1440 safe zone 1546 × 423 | cover 1280 × 720 | 1080 × 1920 | — |
| Threads | 320 × 320 | — | any; we suggest 1080 × 1350 | — | 1200 × 600 |
| Google Business | logo 720 × 720 | 1024 × 576 | 1200 × 900 | — | — |
The minimum for a Google Business Profile is 250 × 250 px, Google recommends 720 × 720 px or more, and the file must be between 10 KB and 5 MB.
Network by network
What a table cannot hold: where the crop falls, what the interface covers and what to watch for this year in particular. The diagram under each network shows the shape of the frame — grey is the image itself, red marks the strips the interface covers, the blue dashed line is the part still visible after cropping.
The profile grid is no longer square — it is vertical, in a 3:4 ratio. So a square post gets cropped top and bottom in the grid, and a horizontal one very heavily. If the overall look of your profile matters to you, post vertical.
For stories keep 310 px free at the top and at the bottom. Reels need more at the bottom: the caption, handle and buttons take about 420 px, so put your main text in the middle third of the frame.
On a page cover the avatar overlaps the bottom left corner — do not put a logo or a phone number there. On mobile Facebook shows the cover narrower than on a desktop, so keep everything important in the centre.
TikTok
The TikTok interface eats more of the frame than any other network: the description and music at the bottom, a column of buttons on the right. Leave about 130 px free at the top, 480 px at the bottom and 100 px on the right.
Photo carousels work surprisingly well here — up to 35 frames in a single post. It is a practical format for how-tos, round-ups and before/after shots with no video editing at all.
LinkedIn accepts ratios from 3:1 to 4:5 and centres anything outside those limits. A company page cover is very short, and the logo covers its left edge — so put your tagline and contacts to the right of centre.
For carousel documents (PDF) use vertical — people read them far more willingly on a phone.
YouTube
The channel banner is the trickiest format in this guide: on a TV the whole frame is visible, on a desktop a wide strip, on a phone only a rectangle in the centre. All the text and the logo have to fit inside the safe 1546 × 423 px; the rest is decorative background.
A video thumbnail is limited to 2 MB. In the feed it appears about the size of a business card, so big faces and three or four words work, while fine print does not.
Threads
Threads does not impose post sizes: ratios are preserved, you can mix vertical and horizontal frames in one post, up to 20 images.
Since there are no rules, use the same 1080 × 1350 file as for Instagram — it will look right and you will not have to prepare a separate layout. The avatar syncs with Instagram.
Google Business Profile
Formally it is not a social network, but for a local business — a salon, a clinic, a service centre — it is the first thing a client sees in search and on maps. Google accepts only JPG and PNG and crops the cover to 16:9.
Photos of the interior and the team bring more enquiries here than graphics with text: people are looking for proof that the place is real.
Meta ads
When a campaign runs across every placement at once, one file is not enough. The practical minimum is two: 4:5 for the feed and 9:16 for stories and Reels. A single vertical file for everything also works, but it will be cropped in the feed.
Meta has dropped the «no more than 20 % text on an image» limit, yet the pattern remains: layouts overloaded with text give a worse CTR and a more expensive click. One headline, one number, one action.
Ratios at the same scale
All five formats share the same width of 1080 px. Only the height differs — and it is the height that decides how much of the phone screen your post will take.
Red marks 4:5 — the format worth taking as the default if you are preparing one layout for several networks.
Seven mistakes we see most often
This is not theory — it is what we fix in client accounts every week.
One square for every network
A square gets cropped nowhere — and wins nowhere. In the feed it takes a third less screen than a vertical one, and in the Instagram grid it also gets cropped at the sides. Make your base layout vertical.
Text right at the bottom of a story
The most common loss: the call to action or the price is placed below the bottom edge, where the «Send» field covers it. The viewer sees a nice picture and misses the point.
A logo in the corner of an avatar
Almost everywhere an avatar is cropped into a circle. A square logo with lettering along the edge loses that lettering. An avatar needs its own version of the logo — compact, centred, with room at the edges.
A Canva layout scaled up by eye
A 600 px image stretched to 1080 px goes soft, and no filter will fix it. Resolution cannot be added after export — only rebuilding the layout at the right size will do.
Small, thin type over a photo
The network re-compresses the file and thin lines fall apart. A caption that looks elegant in the layout looks dirty in the feed. Large type and a heavy weight are a technical requirement, not a matter of taste.
A link preview «from the home page»
When a site has no og:imagetag, the network pulls a random image or none at all. The link looks like a technical error in the feed — and people do not open it. It is fixed once, in the site code.
No check before publishing
Looking at the post on your phone before publishing takes thirty seconds. Redoing a post that has already been served and lost its reach costs far more.