Ad specs / Instagram
Instagram Stories ad size
An Instagram Stories image ad is 9:16 at 1440 × 2560 pixels. Keep the top 14%, bottom 35% and 6% of each side clear — at this canvas that is 358, 896 and 86 pixels, plus the bottom 40% of the right-hand 21%.
| File type | JPG or PNG |
|---|---|
| Recommended resolution | 1440 × 2560 pixels |
| Aspect ratio | 9:16 |
| Minimum width | 500 pixels |
| Aspect ratio tolerance | 1% |
| Maximum file size | 30 MB |
| Primary text | 125 characters (recommended) |
| Display duration | 5–16 seconds, or until the viewer swipes out |
Download as a template: a transparent PNG or SVG for your editor.
What the other guides get wrong
Guides give pixel counts for this placement that disagree with each other: 250 px at the bottom, 150 at the top, 160, a range of “250 to 1248”. They disagree because they are conversions of a percentage at canvas sizes nobody states. Some trace back to Meta itself: its Stories pages printed “14% (250 pixels)” for the top margin into 2026, and a few still do.
Source: Meta Ads Guide — image ads on Instagram Stories, as of ; the safe zone from Meta's help article on text overlays and the safe zone for ads on Facebook and Instagram, as of . Platforms revise specs without notice; check the source before you build a template on it.
Related reading
Check a file against this size in the free ad size checker, and see what Instagram’s buttons and captions cover in the safe zone checker. Terrads composes each placement for its own frame, instead of cropping one master down to it.