Instagram Story Size Guide 2026
The Instagram story size is 1080 × 1920 pixels — a 9:16 vertical frame that fills a phone screen completely. Design at that exact resolution and your story shows up sharp, uncropped and free of awkward borders. The same canvas also covers Reels, so one size genuinely does serve every full-screen format on the platform. Below: the numbers, the safe zones Instagram never tells you about, and the design habits that make stories readable in the two seconds people give them.
Story dimensions at a glance
| Format | Size | Ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Story | 1080 × 1920 px | 9:16 | Full-screen vertical. Keep text out of the top and bottom 250 px. |
| Reels & Reels cover | 1080 × 1920 px | 9:16 | Identical canvas to a story — one design covers both. |
| Feed post (portrait) | 1080 × 1350 px | 4:5 | Taller than square but far from 9:16 — don't reuse it as a story. |
| Feed post (square) | 1080 × 1080 px | 1:1 | Fills barely half of a story frame; design stories separately. |
The one number that matters: 1080 × 1920
Phones display stories full screen in portrait, and 9:16 is the ratio of that screen. At 1080 pixels wide, 9:16 works out to a height of exactly 1920 pixels — which is why every serious story template starts from a 1080 × 1920 artboard. Match it and Instagram has nothing to fix on upload: no crop, no bars, no resampling worth noticing.
Technically Instagram will take a story as small as 600 × 1067 pixels. It then enlarges the file to cover the display, and enlargement is exactly what makes small text mushy and clean lines ragged. There is no upside to uploading small — the file size savings are trivial and the quality cost is not.
Worth knowing about the format itself: a story lives for 24 hours and then vanishes from your profile (Highlights excepted). That short lifespan is an argument for designing fast from a template, not for designing carelessly — a blurry story still represents your brand for a full day.
Safe zones: the top and bottom 250 pixels are not yours
Instagram layers its own controls over every story. Up top sit your profile picture, username, timestamp and the close button; down below live the reply field, the share arrow and any link or poll stickers you add. A good working rule: treat roughly the top 250 pixels and the bottom 250 pixels of the 1080 × 1920 canvas as off-limits for anything that must be seen — text, logos, faces, product shots.
That still leaves you a generous 1080 × 1420 stage in the middle of the frame. Compose there, let backgrounds and textures run to the edges, and nothing important will ever sit underneath a reply bar.
Design tips for stories people can actually read
Size type for a thumb-scroll, not a desk. On a 1080 × 1920 canvas, keep body copy at 36–44 pixels minimum and headlines at 70 pixels or more; if you have to lean in to read it on your own phone, viewers never will. Fewer, bigger words beat paragraphs every time in this format.
Contrast does the rest. Put a translucent dark overlay between a photo and light text, or drop the text on a solid color block — the Graphtr editor has one-click text effects (shadow, highlight, outline) built for exactly this. And before you export, glance at the corners: if anything essential is hugging the top or bottom edge, nudge it toward the center where the safe zone protects it. Ready-made story templates already respect all of these rules, which is the honest shortcut.
Common story mistakes
Text hidden behind Instagram's own interface
A headline placed in the top strip disappears behind your profile picture and username; a CTA at the very bottom fights the reply bar and link sticker overlays. Both zones are invisible on your canvas — but very visible once the story is live.
Recycling a feed graphic as a story
A 1080 × 1350 or 1080 × 1080 design pushed into a 9:16 frame either floats on empty bars or gets zoomed until the edges are chopped off. Stories deserve their own layout built for the vertical frame.
Fonts sized for a desktop monitor
Stories are viewed on phone screens, often for a second or two. On a 1080 × 1920 canvas, body text below roughly 36 px becomes squint material; headlines work best at 70 px and up.
Low-contrast text on a busy photo
White text straight onto a bright photo is the fastest way to make a story unreadable. Add a dark scrim, a solid color block or a subtle shadow behind the text so it separates from the background.
Exporting under 1080 pixels wide
Instagram accepts smaller files — down to 600 × 1067 — but blows them up to fill the display. The upscale is where the fuzz comes from. Full resolution in, full resolution out.
Frequently asked questions
What size should an Instagram story be?+
1080 × 1920 pixels, a 9:16 aspect ratio. That matches the full-screen vertical format Instagram uses on phones, so your story displays edge to edge with no cropping or letterboxing.
What is the smallest story size Instagram will accept?+
Instagram accepts stories down to 600 × 1067 pixels, but it upscales anything smaller than 1080 × 1920 to fill the screen, and upscaling makes text and edges look soft. Treat 600 × 1067 as a floor, not a target — always export at 1080 × 1920 when you can.
Is a Reels cover the same size as a story?+
Yes. Reels and Reels covers use the same 1080 × 1920 canvas at 9:16. One thing to watch: the profile grid shows a cropped preview of each cover, so keep the title and any faces near the center of the frame.
How long does an Instagram story stay visible?+
A story is visible to your followers for 24 hours from the moment you post it. After that it disappears from your profile, though you can save it to your archive or pin it permanently as a Highlight.
Why does my story come out blurry?+
The two usual causes are exporting below 1080 pixels wide (Instagram stretches the image up to fill the screen) or uploading a non-9:16 image that Instagram has to zoom and crop. Export a PNG at exactly 1080 × 1920 and both problems go away.
Start from a perfectly sized story canvas
Graphtr gives you a 1080 × 1920 artboard the moment you open it — the right ratio, safe zones easy to respect, and PNG or JPG export at full resolution. Free, in the browser, no watermark.