Platform specs
Instagram Story safe zone
By the KeyMo team · Updated
Meta's ad guide for Instagram Stories says to keep roughly 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom and 6% of each side free of text and logos, but an older page for the same placement says 14% and 20%. We found no figure for ordinary organic Stories, so keep text inside the stricter box.
Two Meta pages, two answers
We looked for an Instagram Story safe zone on Meta's own pages and found numbers only for ads. They also disagree. The Stories video ad page on facebook.com says to leave roughly 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom and 6% on each side free of text and logos. The en-gb version of the same page, read on 13 October 2026, gives only the top and bottom: about 14% (250 px) at the top and 20% (340 px) at the bottom.
| Source | Top | Bottom | Sides |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta Ads Guide, Stories video (main page) | ~14% | ~35% | 6% each |
| Meta Ads Guide, Stories video (en-gb page) | ~14% (250 px) | ~20% (340 px) | Not stated |
| Organic Stories on help.instagram.com | Not found | Not found | Not found |
The pixels on a 1080x1920 Story
Meta's Stories video ad spec is 9:16 at 1440x2560 with a 1% ratio tolerance, and video ads under 16 seconds can run in Stories. For ordinary Stories we found no size page, so we use the same 9:16 shape. Our recommended size is 1080x1920, which is also what KeyMo exports.
| Edge | Stricter page | On 1080x1920 | On 1440x2560 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | 14% | 269 px | 358 px |
| Bottom | 35% | 672 px | 896 px |
| Left and right | 6% each | 65 px | 86 px |
| Bottom, looser page | 20% | 384 px | 512 px |
Inside the stricter box the usable area on 1080x1920 is about 950 px wide and 979 px tall. Draw it over a frame with the safe zone checker rather than by hand.
What Stories add that Reels do not
A Story gets a reply bar and a sender name drawn over it, and viewers can add stickers, which is why people lose text at the bottom of Stories. We did not find an official Instagram page describing these positions, so this is a practical reason to trust the bigger bottom margin, not a measured number.
- Keep captions above the bottom band, not tucked against the reply bar area.
- Keep the speaker's face out of the top 14%, where the progress bar and name sit.
- If you resize a Reel into a Story, check the captions again, because a Reel's own buttons are at different places.
- Do not rely on a preview. Post a test to Close Friends and look at it on a phone.
If your source is a long video, KeyMo turns it into 9:16 clips at 1080x1920 with 12 caption styles, and the size matches these figures. See the Reels safe zone page for the Reels numbers.
Sources: Awareness Video ad specs on Instagram Stories (Meta Ads Guide) (checked 13 October 2026); Awareness Video ad specs on Instagram Stories, en-gb (Meta Ads Guide) (checked 13 October 2026).