Instagram post sizes: the four numbers
Portrait at 1080 × 1350 is the one to use most of the time. Here are the rest, and when each earns its place.
The numbers first, since that is what you came for. All Instagram images are 1080 pixels wide; the height is what changes:
- Square, 1:1 — 1080 × 1080 px. The classic feed post.
- Portrait, 4:5 — 1080 × 1350 px. Default to this; it takes up the most feed space on a phone.
- Landscape, 1.91:1 — 1080 × 566 px. Only for genuinely wide shots — a storefront, a skyline.
- Stories, Reels and video, 9:16 — 1080 × 1920 px. Full-screen vertical — and how Instagram video posts.
- Profile photo — 320 × 320 px. Displayed as a circle, so keep the subject centered.
- Carousel — same as the feed (1080 × 1080 or 1080 × 1350). Keep every slide the same shape so they don't jump as you swipe.
GigaDrip composes feed posts at 4:5 by default, and these match the sizes it outputs. Instagram can move the goalposts, so treat the date on any sizes page as part of the fact — last checked 2026-09-07.
Video is the same story, which trips people up: an Instagram video posts as a Reel at 9:16 — 1080 × 1920, the same numbers as the Stories/Reels line above. Format doesn't change the dimensions; the aspect ratio does. A still image, a carousel, and a video at the same shape are all the same pixel size — so "what size is an Instagram video" has the same answer as "what size is a vertical post." GigaDrip publishes video to Instagram as a Reel.
That's the answer. The rest of this page is the three things that actually change how a post looks, because the size was never the hard part.
**Shape: default to portrait.** The feed is a vertical strip on a vertical phone, so a taller image fills more of the screen per scroll. Default to portrait; keep square if you like a tidy grid; save landscape for subjects that are genuinely wide.
**Safe area: keep the important stuff in the middle.** Instagram draws its interface over the edges — username on top, buttons and caption at the bottom — and the profile grid crops every post to a square-ish preview, lopping the top and bottom off a portrait. So the offer, the date, or the phone number parked in the bottom tenth is the classic self-inflicted wound: invisible exactly where a thumb covers it, or cropped out of the grid entirely. Compose so the middle survives on its own and both the feed and the grid look right.
**Format: single image or carousel — a job decision, not a size one.**
- [Single image](/designs/single-image-posts): one thing, said once. The announcement, the finished job, the dish — strongest when the image needs no explanation.
- [Carousel](/designs/carousels): a sequence with an order. The before-and-after, the room-by-room, the step-by-step. A good carousel is exactly the images you chose, in order; a closing call-to-action slide belongs only when there's genuinely somewhere to send people.
One publishing note: direct publishing to Instagram needs a professional account (Business or Creator) — Instagram's API rule, not ours. On a personal account, GigaDrip's Share button sends the post and caption to your phone's share sheet to post yourself. More on the Instagram page.
Pick one shape — portrait, almost certainly — and stay with it; a consistent grid reads as intentional before anyone reads a word. The real work is what the post says on each platform and where the ideas come from. And if GigaDrip is building the visuals, it composes them at these sizes with the text inside the safe area automatically — so the numbers above stop being your problem.