Vertical Video Specs by Platform: A Cheat Sheet

Before you export a single clip, get the dimensions right. Wrong specs mean cropped faces, blurry uploads or rejected videos. Keep this open while you work. It supports our pillar, How to turn one long video into a week of Shorts and Reels.

The short version

All three major short-form platforms use a 9:16 vertical frame at 1080 × 1920 pixels. If you export at that, you're safe everywhere.

Platforms change limits often. Always confirm against each platform's official help docs before relying on a maximum length — treat the table above as a starting point, not gospel.

Safe zones matter more than you think

The full 9:16 frame is not all usable. Each app overlays its own UI — the username, caption, and like/comment/share buttons sit along the bottom and right edge, and a progress bar sits at the very bottom.

Keep anything important — faces, captions, key text — within the centre ~80% of the frame, with extra padding at the bottom. A caption pinned to the absolute bottom will be half-covered by platform UI.

[SCREENSHOT: a 9:16 frame with safe-zone overlay showing UI-covered edges]

Export checklist

• Format: MP4 (H.264) is the safest, most widely accepted container/codec.
• Frame rate: match your source (usually 30fps; 60fps is fine for motion).
• Resolution: 1080 × 1920. Don't upscale a low-res source — it looks worse, not better.
• Audio: keep it; most clips live or die on the spoken hook.

Next

With specs sorted, the next lever is retention — captions that boost watch time.