Ad aspect ratios for every placement, from the platforms themselves
The ratio and pixel size Meta, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and X each recommend for their main placements, linked to their own spec pages, plus the three shapes that cover almost everything.
Every ad platform publishes a spec page, and every spec page is slightly different. Search for "Instagram ad size" and you get a dozen answers, most of them copied from each other and some of them years out of date. So we went to the source. Every number in this post comes from the platform’s own documentation, with a link, and where a platform does not state a number we say so instead of guessing.
If you just want to do the maths, the free aspect ratio calculator simplifies any size to its ratio, solves the missing side, and shows how an image crops into each shape.
The short version: three shapes cover nearly everything
Before the full table, the pattern. Almost every placement asks for one of three shapes:
- 9:16, full-screen vertical. Stories, Reels, TikTok and Shorts.
- 4:5, tall feed. Facebook and Instagram feed, and LinkedIn’s vertical image ad.
- A landscape shape. 16:9 for YouTube, and 1.91:1 for LinkedIn and X link-style image ads.
Add 1:1 as a safe fallback (LinkedIn and X both take it) and 2:3 for Pinterest, and you have covered every row below.
The full table
| Placement | Ratio | Pixel size |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook Feed image ad | 4:5 | 1440 × 1800 |
| Instagram Feed image ad | 4:5 | 1440 × 1800 |
| Facebook Stories image ad | 9:16 | 1440 × 2560 |
| Instagram Stories image ad | 9:16 | 1440 × 2560 |
| Instagram Reels ad | 9:16 | 1440 × 2560 |
| TikTok In-Feed ad | 9:16 (1:1 and 16:9 accepted) | No recommended size; at least 540 × 960 |
| YouTube video | 16:9 | 1920 × 1080 at 1080p |
| YouTube Shorts | Square or vertical | Not stated |
| LinkedIn single image ad | 1.91:1, 1:1 or 4:5 | 1200 × 628, 1200 × 1200, 720 × 900 |
| Pinterest standard Pin | 2:3 | 1000 × 1500 |
| X standalone image ad | 1:1 or 1.91:1 | 1200 × 1200 or 1200 × 628 |
| X vertical video ad | 9:16 | Max 1080 × 1920, min 720 × 1280 |
Meta: 4:5 in the feed, 9:16 everywhere full screen
Meta’s Ads Guide now recommends 1440 pixels wide for its image placements: 1440 × 1800 for Facebook and Instagram Feed, and 1440 × 2560 for Stories and Reels. Both are exact ratios. 1440 ÷ 1800 = 0.8, which is 4:5, and 1440 ÷ 2560 = 0.5625, which is 9:16.
Two details from the same pages are worth knowing. First, Meta allows a small tolerance on the ratio. The Instagram Feed and Stories image specs list 1%, and the Facebook Feed image spec lists 3%. So an image at 1440 × 1790 is 0.6% off 4:5 and still fits Facebook Feed. Second, the Reels page asks you to leave room for the app’s own buttons: at least 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom and 6% on each side free of text, logos and other key elements. On a 1440 × 2560 frame that is the top 358 pixels, the bottom 896 and 86 on each side. Our safe zone checker overlays those areas on your frame.
Organic posts meet one more ratio after they publish. Since January 2025 the Instagram profile grid shows every post as a 3:4 thumbnail, so a square post loses a quarter of its width on your profile and a 4:5 post loses about 6%, both from the sides. The feed still shows the full post. If you are splitting one picture across the profile, our Instagram grid maker cuts 1080 × 1440 tiles so the seams meet.
TikTok: vertical, with a floor rather than a target
TikTok’s In-Feed ad page recommends vertical 9:16 and also accepts horizontal 16:9 and square 1:1. What it gives for size is a minimum, not a recommendation: 540 × 960 or more for vertical, 960 × 540 for horizontal and 640 × 640 for square. Nothing on that page says 1080 × 1920, so we will not say it either. Exporting above the minimum is simply common sense. A full-screen ad also has TikTok’s own buttons and caption over it, so keep the words and the product inside the TikTok safe zone.
YouTube: 16:9, and Shorts that are square or vertical
YouTube’s upload settings page says the standard aspect ratio on a computer is 16:9, and lists recommended resolutions from 426 × 240 up to 7680 × 4320, with 1920 × 1080 for 1080p. For Shorts, YouTube’s own help says a Short is up to three minutes long with a square or vertical aspect ratio. For Shorts ads, Google Ads help goes one step further and says vertical 9:16 video is best suited to the format. Neither page gives a Shorts pixel size.
LinkedIn: three shapes, and a hint to go vertical
LinkedIn’s single image ad spec lists landscape 1.91:1 at 1200 × 628, square 1:1 at 1200 × 1200, and vertical 4:5 at 720 × 900. The page recommends vertical, with one catch it states plainly: paid vertical assets only serve on mobile devices. It also notes that images narrower than 401 pixels display as a thumbnail.
A small arithmetic footnote: 1200 × 628 is not exactly 1.91:1. The largest number that divides both is 4, so the exact ratio is 300:157, or 1.9108. It rounds to 1.91, which is why everyone calls it that.
Pinterest: 2:3, and taller is a gamble
Pinterest recommends 2:3, or 1000 × 1500 pixels, for standard image Pins. Its spec page also warns that Pins with an aspect ratio greater than 2:3 might get cut off in people’s feeds. For video Pins it recommends square 1:1 or vertical 2:3, 4:5 or 9:16.
X: square or landscape for images, 9:16 for vertical video
X’s ad specs recommend 1200 × 1200 for a 1:1 standalone image ad and 1200 × 628 for 1.91:1. Vertical video ads are 9:16 by recommendation, with a maximum resolution of 1080 × 1920 and a minimum of 720 × 1280, and the same section lists other formats it accepts: 4:5 at 1440 × 1800, 2:3 at 1080 × 1620, 1:1 at 1080 × 1080, 1.91:1 at 2064 × 1080 and 16:9 at 1920 × 1080.
How to plan one ad for all of them
Cropping is where most multi-placement ads go wrong. A centre crop keeps the middle and throws away the edges, and the numbers are harsher than they look. Crop a 1920 × 1080 landscape frame to 9:16 and you keep a 608 × 1080 strip: 608 × 1080 ÷ (1920 × 1080) is about 32% of the picture. Crop it to 4:5 and you keep 864 × 1080, or 45%.
So plan in the tall shape and widen, rather than shooting wide and cropping in:
- Start at 9:16. It is the most demanding shape and the one that covers Stories, Reels, TikTok and Shorts.
- Keep the subject and the words in the middle band. A 4:5 crop of a 1440 × 2560 frame keeps 1440 × 1800, the middle 70% of the height. Anything in the top or bottom 15% disappears in the feed version.
- Recompose for landscape. Going from 9:16 to 16:9 or 1.91:1 means adding picture at the sides, not cropping, so the landscape version needs its own layout.
- Check each version against its source. Specs change. Before a launch, click through to the platform’s page rather than trusting a table, including ours.
Words on the image also have to fit the placement they land in. If you are writing the copy that sits around the creative, our guide to ad copy character limits covers the text fields the same way this post covers the pixels.
Or let Hermoso make the other sizes
Hermoso is marketing on autopilot: it researches the ads already working in your market, makes on-brand image and video ads, schedules posts and runs campaigns on your own ad accounts. Point it at an existing static ad and ask for other sizes, and each one is laid out again for the new canvas rather than cropped: square, 4:5, 9:16, 16:9, 3:4 and 4:3, with the copy kept word for word. It can also reframe a video to another aspect ratio. It works in the web app, or inside Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor through its MCP server.
Questions people ask
What is the best aspect ratio for Facebook and Instagram feed ads?
4:5. Meta's Ads Guide recommends 1440 × 1800 pixels for Facebook Feed and Instagram Feed image ads, and 9:16 at 1440 × 2560 for Stories and Reels.
What size should a TikTok ad be?
TikTok recommends vertical 9:16 for In-Feed ads and sets a minimum of 540 × 960 pixels. It also accepts 16:9 at 960 × 540 or more and 1:1 at 640 × 640 or more. The spec page does not give a recommended pixel size.
Is 1200 × 628 the same as 1.91:1?
Nearly. The exact ratio is 300:157, which is 1.9108, so it rounds to 1.91:1. LinkedIn and X both list 1200 × 628 as their recommended landscape image ad size.
Can I crop one image to fit every placement?
You can, but you lose a lot. A centre crop of a 1920 × 1080 frame to 9:16 keeps about 32% of the picture. Planning in 9:16 with the subject in the middle and recomposing for landscape works better.