Instagram Story Size
A Story fills the whole phone screen, and the only frame that does so without padding or cropping is 1080 × 1920 — the 9:16 portrait shape. Upload any other shape and Instagram either pads it with a background colour or trims the edges, so the ratio comes first and the design goes inside it.
Instagram Story size calculator
Pre-filled with 1080 × 1920, the size Instagram expects for a story.
- Fraction
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- Closest common ratio
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- Reduced by
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Custom Ratio — pick a preset or type your own
- New size
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- Total pixels
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- CSS
aspect-ratio: —;
The 9:16 ratio is locked in. Edit New Width and the story height recalculates instantly; edit the height and the width follows. Sizes round to whole pixels, because platforms do not accept fractional ones.
Recently used sizes
Saved in this browser only. Click a size to load it back into the calculator.
Why a Story is 1080 × 1920
1080 pixels across and 1920 pixels tall is a 9:16 rectangle. Multiply 1080 by 16 and divide by 9 and you land on exactly 1920, so the number pair is not arbitrary: it is the smallest common phone resolution that fills a portrait screen with nothing left over.
Instagram does accept other shapes in Stories. A square or landscape image still publishes, but the app then either adds bars above and below or crops the sides. Because a Story is consumed full-screen, anything that is not 9:16 reads to the viewer as a compromise rather than as a deliberate choice.
Every Instagram placement and its pixel size
Stories and Reels share one canvas, which is the most useful fact on this page: export once at 1080 × 1920 and both placements take it as-is.
| Placement | Pixels | Ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feed post, portrait | 1080 × 1350 | 4:5 | Tallest feed post; takes the most vertical space |
| Feed post, square | 1080 × 1080 | 1:1 | Classic square; displays fine, just smaller on screen |
| Feed post, landscape | 1080 × 566 | 1.91:1 | Crops hardest in the grid; rarely worth posting |
| Story | 1080 × 1920 | 9:16 | Full-screen vertical; the placement this page is about |
| Reel | 1080 × 1920 | 9:16 | Same canvas as a Story, so one export covers both |
| Profile picture | 320 × 320 | 1:1 | Uploaded square, displayed as a circle |
How to size a Story without guessing
The arithmetic is a single division and a single multiplication. It is worth doing explicitly, because a file that is 2% off the ratio is the one that comes back padded.
- Fix the width first. 1080 px is the reference width Instagram expects; uploading wider only invites heavier recompression.
- Divide the width by 9 to get the size of one unit: 1080 ÷ 9 = 120 px.
- Multiply that unit by 16 to get the height: 120 × 16 = 1920 px.
- Compare your planned height against 1920. A gap of more than about 5% means the artwork is not 9:16 and will be padded or cropped.
- Place text inside the centre 1420 px and export at 1080 × 1920.
Worked example
Suppose a client sends a 2400 px-wide photograph. One unit is 2400 ÷ 9 = 266.7 px, so a true 9:16 crop would have to be 266.7 × 16 = 4266.7 px tall. Exporting 2400 × 4267 is wasted effort — Instagram shrinks it back to 1080 px wide anyway. Resize to 1080 × 1920 and crop the surplus height instead: the viewer cannot tell the difference, and the upload is a fraction of the size.
The safe zone, and what covers it
A Story is never shown as a clean rectangle. Instagram paints its own interface on top of your artwork: the progress bars and the account name run across the top, and the reply box, camera and share controls sit across the bottom. The upper right corner belongs to the close button.
In practice the outer band of the canvas is not reliably yours. Wording, logos and faces placed near the top or bottom edge end up underneath Instagram's controls on somebody else's handset, even when your own preview looks perfectly clear.
- Keep anything that must be read inside the middle of the frame — roughly the centre 1080 × 1420 area.
- Treat the top and bottom 15% as expendable. Background, texture and the continuation of a photo are fine there; words are not.
- Height is riskier than width. Stories are barely cropped horizontally, so the left and right margins can be tighter than the vertical ones.
- Link stickers, polls and question boxes are positioned by the viewer's thumb, not by your layout. Leave empty space where you want a sticker to land.
Instagram Story upload limits
The limits that matter in practice are the width, the card length and the text safe zone.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Recommended resolution | 1080 × 1920 px |
| Aspect ratio | 9:16 |
| Working minimum width | 320 px — below this the app upscales |
| Formats for stills | JPG, PNG |
| Formats for video | MP4, MOV |
| Video card length | 15 seconds; longer clips split into cards |
| Safe zone for text | Centre 1080 × 1420 px |
Instagram Story size FAQ
Can I post a square image to Stories?
Yes, Instagram accepts it, but it will not fill the screen. The app pads above and below with a background colour, so the result reads as a smaller image floating inside a coloured frame rather than as a full-screen composition.
Do Stories and Reels use the same size?
They do — both are 1080 × 1920 at 9:16. What differs is the app's own interface over the top, not the canvas, so a single export serves both placements.
Why does my text vanish behind the app's icons?
Because the top and bottom of a Story sit underneath the progress bar, the account name and the reply controls. Anything inside the outer 15% of the height is at risk, and the risk grows on smaller screens where the interface takes proportionally more room.
Is a bigger file better quality?
No. Uploading 2160 × 3840 gains nothing, because the app rescales to 1080 px wide and recompresses. Matching the display size keeps more of your original detail than uploading oversized.