Carousels are the format that still converts for a small account, and they are also the one most often shipped at the wrong size — usually square, because square is the default everywhere and nobody checked.
The four ratios, and the choice
| Ratio | Pixels | Feed height | Use for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4:5 portrait | 1080 × 1350 | Tallest allowed | Almost everything |
| 1:1 square | 1080 × 1080 | Shorter | Grid-first accounts, product tiles |
| 9:16 vertical | 1080 × 1920 | Cropped in feed | Stories, not carousels |
| 1.91:1 landscape | 1080 × 566 | Tiny on a phone | Almost never |
4:5 wins for one unglamorous reason: it occupies more vertical space in a feed than any other permitted ratio, so a scrolling thumb spends longer inside your post. That is the entire argument, and it is enough.
Every card must share the ratio
This is the mistake that produces the most visibly broken carousels. Instagram sets the frame from the first card and fits everything else into it, so one square card among nine portrait ones does not appear square — it appears with bars, or the portrait cards appear cropped.
- Decide the ratio before you design card one. Changing it later means rebuilding every card, not resizing them.
- Export every card at identical pixel dimensions. Not just the same ratio — the same numbers.
- Mixing photos and designed cards is fine, as long as the photos are cropped to the same ratio first.
- Video in a carousel is allowed and must match too. A 4:5 carousel with a 9:16 clip in it crops the clip.
Safe margins
Less interface sits over a carousel than over a reel, but there is still a grid crop to survive and an edge nobody should design into.
| Zone | Keep clear | Why |
|---|---|---|
| All edges | 60px minimum | Breathing room; some devices shave the edge |
| Bottom of the card | ~120px | The dot indicator sits over it |
| Outside the central square | — | The grid shows a 1:1 centre crop of a 4:5 card |
| Right edge, card 1 | ~80px | Where the swipe affordance appears |
The third row is the one that catches people. Your profile grid crops a 4:5 card to a square from the centre, so a heading at the very top of card one is cut off in the grid even though it is fine in the feed. Anything that must survive both goes in the middle — the same constraint as reel covers.
How many cards
Instagram allows up to twenty. Six to ten is where most well-performing carousels sit, and the reason is mechanical: the platform measures how far people swipe, and a carousel nobody finishes performs worse than a shorter one they do.
| Cards | Works for | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| 3–5 | One idea, quickly | Feels slight |
| 6–10 | The usual sweet spot | None |
| 11–15 | Genuinely deep how-tos | Swipe-through drops |
| 16–20 | Rarely | Most people leave by card eight |
- Card one earns the swipe. It is the only card most people see, and it is the grid tile. Treat it like a cover.
- Card two earns the rest. Deliver something immediately; a card two that is still setting up loses the people card one won.
- The last card asks for something. Save it, follow, or reply with a word — one ask, not three.
- Never split a sentence across cards. Each card should be complete on its own; the swipe is a beat, not a line break.
Export settings
- JPEG at high quality, or PNG for flat colour and text. PNG keeps type crisp; photographs are better as JPEG.
- 1080px on the short edge. Larger is downscaled and gains nothing; smaller is upscaled and looks it.
- sRGB. A card exported in another colour space shifts noticeably once uploaded.
- Under 8MB per card, comfortably. Heavier files are compressed harder.
- Type at 60px or larger at 1080 wide. Thin small type is what platform compression destroys first — the same problem described in why Instagram ruins your video quality.
Making them look like one account
The same three rules that carry every other format: one typeface system, one palette, one layout grid. A carousel is nine chances to be inconsistent, and inconsistency across nine cards in a single post is more visible than across nine separate posts.
Build the card as a template with fixed positions — heading here, body there, handle in the corner — and change only the words. That is the same argument as reusable text overlays, and in Easy Reels it is the same machinery: carousels use the layered editor and the media library that reels use, at 4:5, 1:1, 9:16 or 16:9, with the same saved filters and colour adjustments.
The short version
- 1080 × 1350, every card, no exceptions.
- 60px margins, and anything critical inside the central square.
- Six to ten cards.
- Card one is a cover, card two delivers, the last one asks.
- One template, one palette, only the words change.