Instagram Reel size
Caption and buttons cover the bottom and right.
Cropped in your browser · your image is never uploaded
1080 × 1920 for the video itself. The cover image is the complicated part: it is cropped to 4:5 in the feed and to a square on your profile grid, from the same 9:16 frame.
How to use the instagram reel size
The double crop on the cover is what people get wrong. You choose a cover from the 9:16 video, but that cover is never shown at 9:16; the feed shows a 4:5 crop and your profile grid shows a 1:1 crop, both taken from the middle. Any text on the cover therefore has to sit inside the central square to survive both. During playback there is a separate problem: the caption, the like, comment, share and audio buttons all sit over the bottom and right, which is roughly a quarter of the frame gone. Keep faces and subtitles centred and high.
Questions
1080 × 1920, 9:16 vertical.
Because it is shown at 4:5 in the feed and 1:1 on your grid, both cropped from your 9:16 frame. Keep cover text in the centre square.
Roughly the bottom quarter and part of the right side, between the caption and the action buttons.
Up to three minutes, though the shorter ones generally hold attention better.
It will be letterboxed with large bars. Shoot or crop vertical.