# Instagram carousel sizes, and the one to actually use

> Four aspect ratios are allowed and one is right. The pixel dimensions, why every card must share a ratio, the safe margins, and how many cards to make.

Canonical: https://easyreels.io/blog/instagram-carousel-sizes

[Blog](https://easyreels.io/blog) · Explainers

14 September 20264 min read

Use 1080 × 1350 (4:5) for carousels. It is the tallest ratio the feed allows, so it takes the most screen on a phone, and every card must share it, because mixing ratios in one carousel crops them all to the first card's shape. Keep text inside a 60px margin and make six to ten cards.

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.

9:16 is not a carousel ratio, even though the editor will let you build one. The feed crops it back toward 4:5, so you lose the top and bottom of every card, usually the heading and the call to action.

## 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 |
| The left and right edges | n/a | The grid shows a 3:4 tile, a slightly narrower 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 now shows posts as 3:4 tiles, so a 4:5 card loses a sliver at each side, and anything set right against the left or right edge 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](https://easyreels.io/blog/reel-cover-and-thumbnail).

## 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](https://easyreels.io/blog/reel-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](https://easyreels.io/blog/reusable-text-overlays), and in [Easy Reels](https://easyreels.io/) 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.

Which means the palette that makes your reels recognisable also makes your carousels recognisable, without a second set of decisions. That consistency across formats is most of what makes a small account look established.

## The short version

1. 1080 × 1350, every card, no exceptions.
2. 60px margins, and anything critical inside the central square.
3. Six to ten cards.
4. Card one is a cover, card two delivers, the last one asks.
5. One template, one palette, only the words change.

**About this article.** Written by the team that builds Easy Reels, which cuts your clips to the beat of a song and renders a finished vertical reel. Last checked 20 October 2026. Spotted something wrong or out of date? Write to [support@easyreels.io](mailto:support@easyreels.io).

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## Read next

- [Vertical video and reel size: 1080×1920, 9:16, safe area](https://easyreels.io/blog/vertical-video-dimensions)Vertical reel size is 1080×1920 at 9:16. The one resolution that works everywhere, why it is the native spec, and the margins where the interface covers text.
- [Reel covers: the frame your grid is made of](https://easyreels.io/blog/reel-cover-and-thumbnail)The cover is doing two unrelated jobs: stopping a scroll and holding a grid together. Why the default frame fails at both, and how to pick one that does not.
- [Text overlays that stay on brand across every video](https://easyreels.io/blog/reusable-text-overlays)Hook, handle and call to action, styled once and reused. Why re-typing text per video is what makes a feed look inconsistent.