A Meta campaign rarely runs in one place. The same ad set can land in the Facebook feed, the Instagram feed, Stories on both apps and Reels on both apps, and each of those frames the creative differently. A picture that works as a 4:5 feed post can lose its headline in Stories, and a caption written for the feed can be cut to a single line in Reels. Most of the fixes are cheap if they are made at the brief, and expensive once the shoot is done.
What follows is taken from Meta's Ads Guide and Business Help Center, checked in September 2026. Meta changes these numbers from time to time, so treat the Ads Guide as the source of truth when something here disagrees with it.
Feeds: 4:5 is the shape to plan for
Meta recommends 4:5 for both feeds, at 1440 by 1800 pixels. Pictures from 1.91:1 to 4:5 are accepted, but anything taller than 4:5 may be masked to 4:5, which in practice means the top and bottom of a tall picture are cut in the feed. Video in the Facebook feed can be anything from 16:9 to 9:16, with the same masking to 4:5.
- Facebook Feed: JPG or PNG up to 30 MB, at least 600 pixels wide. Video from 1 second to 241 minutes, up to 4 GB.
- Instagram Feed: pictures from 4:5 to 1.91:1, at least 500 pixels wide. Video from 1 second to 60 minutes, with 9:16 now listed at 1080 by 1920.
- Square still works everywhere, and Meta's help pages still recommend 1:1 for single image ads on Instagram. 4:5 simply takes more of the screen.
A 9:16 video placed in the Instagram feed is best treated as if it will be seen through a 4:5 window. Meta's own guidance is to keep a vertical video's important parts inside the Reels safe zone when it runs in the feed, so that one edit can serve both.
Where the words get cut
The limits Meta publishes are recommendations rather than hard stops. You can write more, but the extra is hidden behind a See more or a more, and most people never tap it. Write the first line as if it were the only one.
- Facebook Feed primary text: Meta suggests 50 to 150 characters and warns that anything over 50 may be truncated. On a phone, the post shows roughly three lines before See more.
- Facebook Feed headline: 27 characters before it may be cut. The description is not shown in the mobile feed at all.
- Instagram Feed primary text: 125 characters, shown as two lines under the post before more. The headline is not shown in the Instagram feed; the button bar under the picture carries the call to action.
- Instagram Reels primary text: one line. Past 44 characters it ends in an ellipsis.
- Facebook Reels: about 40 characters of primary text, and a headline of up to 55.
- Stories: 125 characters of primary text is the suggestion, but on a full 9:16 ad it is the words in the picture that carry the message.
The practical rule is to lead with the offer or the hook, not the brand's name or a greeting. On Reels in particular, one line of caption is all most viewers will ever see.
Stories and Reels: 9:16, and the safe zone
Both Stories and Reels want 9:16, which Meta lists at 1440 by 2560 pixels; 1080 by 1920 is the size most teams export, and the Help Center recommends it with 600 by 1067 as the minimum. Reels also accept 4:5 up to 1.91:1, and Facebook Stories accept 1.91:1 up to 9:16.
Media shorter than 9:16 is not stretched. In Facebook Stories it sits on coloured gradient bars above and below, and the primary text is placed under it. It works, but it looks like what it is: a feed ad shown in Stories. A proper 9:16 cut almost always does better.
The safe zone is the part of a vertical ad that the app does not cover with its own name, caption and buttons. Meta's Ads Guide asks for roughly 14 percent clear at the top, 35 percent at the bottom and 6 percent at each side. On a 1080 by 1920 frame that is about 269 pixels at the top, 672 at the bottom and 65 at each side.
- Keep the headline, the price and the logo inside that middle area. Anything in the bottom third is likely to sit under the caption and the button.
- Reels ads that carry a disclaimer should keep the bottom 40 percent clear, according to the Help Center.
- Meta's figures are not perfectly consistent: one Stories page gives 250 pixels at the top and 340 at the bottom. The larger zone is the safe one to design for.
- Ads Manager has a safe zone guardrail that shows the covered areas over your creative, which is worth checking before the ad goes live.
Stories timing
A picture in Instagram Stories shows for about 5 seconds, and in Facebook Stories for 8. Video under 16 seconds plays whole in Instagram Stories; longer video can be split into up to three cards. In Facebook Stories the cut-off is 15 seconds. If the message only lands at second 20, a large share of the audience will not see it.
Sponsored is becoming Ad
Meta is replacing the Sponsored label with Ad. It told the press in March 2026 that Instagram ads now carry Ad, directly under the account name, and it has been testing the same change on Facebook at a small scale. Partnership ads carry a Paid partnership label. It is worth knowing before a client asks why their ads suddenly look different.
Buttons, in Meta's own words
The call to action comes from a fixed list: Learn more, Shop now, Sign up, Book now, Order now, Download, Contact us, Apply now, Get quote, Subscribe, Watch more and a handful of others, including Send WhatsApp message, which suits clients whose customers would rather message than fill in a form. Meta writes them in sentence case. Stories stickers show them in capitals.
Brief it once, check it everywhere
The simplest way to avoid surprises is to brief two masters from the start: a 4:5 for the feeds and a 9:16 for Stories and Reels, with the words inside the safe zone in both. For Arabic creative, check the safe zone on the right-hand side as carefully as the left, since the eye starts there.
The free ad mockup generator on this site shows a single ad in all six Meta placements at once, with the text cut where each app cuts it, the Ad or Sponsored label and the safe zone drawn over the picture. The image resizer crops one picture to the feed and Stories sizes in a single step.
