Blog · 18 September 2026 · 4 minute read
Which ad size goes where: square, portrait, story and landscape
Five image sizes cover almost every place a small shop posts or advertises. Here is what each one is for, and what changes when the same ad has to fit all of them.
You have one good ad. Then the place you want to post it asks for a different shape, and the headline is cut off, the product is cropped at the knees and the button has slid under an app icon. Size is not a detail. The same message needs a different arrangement in each shape, and knowing which shape belongs where saves a lot of rework.
These five sizes cover nearly everything a small online seller needs. They are also the five sizes AdBatch makes.
Square post: 1080 × 1080
The square is the workhorse. It is accepted in the feeds of Instagram and Facebook, it is the default in most shop catalogues, and it survives being shown small. If you only have time to make one size, make this one.
The square gives product and words roughly equal room, so layouts that split the space in two work well: photo on one half, a colour block with the headline on the other. Keep the headline to two lines.
Portrait post: 1080 × 1350
The 4:5 portrait is a square with a quarter more height. In a phone feed that extra height matters, because the post covers more of the screen while someone scrolls past. Feeds on Instagram and Facebook accept it.
Use the extra height for the product, not for more words. A tall product such as a bottle, a lamp or a dress suits this shape naturally. A wide product, like a pair of sunglasses, may sit better in the square.
Story and Reel: 1080 × 1920
The 9:16 story fills the whole phone screen. It is used by Stories and Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts. It is also the size where most mistakes happen, because the apps draw their own interface on top of your picture: the account name and progress bars across the top, and the reply field, captions and buttons across the bottom.
Anything important placed in those strips will be covered. As a working rule, keep text and logos out of roughly the top 14 percent and the bottom 20 percent of the frame. Background colour and photo can run to the edges; words cannot. AdBatch keeps its story layouts inside that safe area and can show the zones as an overlay while you adjust an ad.
Stories are read in a second or two. One short headline, large, with the product filling the middle of the frame, is more readable than a paragraph.
Landscape: 1200 × 628
The wide rectangle, close to 1.91:1, is the shape of link previews and link ads: the image that appears above a headline and a web address on Facebook, X and LinkedIn. It is short, so there is no room to stack things. Product on one side, words on the other is the arrangement that works.
Because platforms put their own headline under this image, keep the text in the image brief. Say the offer or the main benefit and stop.
Large square: 1200 × 1200
The same shape as the square post with more pixels. Marketplaces, catalogue ads and shopping feeds often ask for a larger minimum size, and a 1200-pixel square clears most of those bars. It is also useful as the high-quality master for anywhere a square is shown large.
What should change between sizes, and what should not
Three things stay the same in every size: the product photo, the brand colours and the words. That is what makes five files feel like one campaign.
What changes is the arrangement:
- Where the product sits. Centred and large in a story, to one side in a landscape.
- How the headline wraps. Three short lines in a portrait, one long line in a landscape. The type size should be chosen per size so the headline fills its space without touching the product.
- What gets left out. A landscape ad has room for a headline and a button. The sub-line that fits in a portrait may have to go. It is better to drop a line than to shrink everything until nothing can be read.
Doing that by hand means rebuilding the ad five times. A layout engine does it by measuring: it knows the box each piece of text is allowed to use in each shape, tries sizes until the words fit, and checks that the text colour still stands out from what is behind it. You can see every AdBatch layout in every one of the five sizes, drawn live, on the Layouts page.
A sensible starting set
If you post organically and run the occasional promotion, start with three: a square for the feed and the shop, a story for Stories and Reels, and a landscape for link posts. Add the portrait when you want more presence in the feed, and the large square when a marketplace asks for it.
Platforms revise their recommendations from time to time, so check the current specification before a paid campaign. The shapes themselves, square, 4:5, 9:16 and wide, have been stable for years, and an ad made properly in each of them will be ready for most of what you need.