Vertical Video Specs for Every Platform (2026 Reference)

Last month I watched a brand's caption get amputated on three platforms at once. The video was built edge-to-edge for TikTok, then blasted everywhere: Reels' UI covered the CTA, Shorts' subscribe overlay sat on the product name, and the LinkedIn feed crop cut the top third entirely. One export, three broken deliveries — all avoidable with a safe-zone template that takes ten minutes to set up once.

This is that reference. Every number below is the working spec as of August 2026: what to export, what each platform's UI will cover, and the limits that actually reject uploads. Bookmark it; I'll keep the practical notes short and the numbers exact.

The master export that works everywhere

If you produce one file, make it this:

• Resolution: 1080 × 1920 (9:16)
• Frame rate: 30fps (60fps accepted everywhere but adds nothing for talking content)
• Codec: H.264, high profile, MP4 container
• Bitrate: 10–12 Mbps (platforms re-encode everything; feeding them more just slows uploads)
• Audio: AAC, 128–192 kbps, stereo, loudness around -14 LUFS

Generating instead of filming? Versely's AI video generator outputs native 9:16 from any of 60+ models, so you skip the crop-from-landscape step that ruins most AI footage repurposed for vertical.

Full spec table (August 2026)

Platform	Aspect	Recommended res	Max length (vertical feed)	Max file size	Notes
TikTok	9:16	1080×1920	60 min (10 min sweet spot for feed)	~4 GB app / larger via web	Photo-mode carousels also 9:16
Instagram Reels	9:16	1080×1920	3 min (90s for some accounts still)	4 GB	Cover image 1080×1920, grid crop 1:1 center
YouTube Shorts	9:16	1080×1920	3 min	256 GB (practical: irrelevant)	Must be ≤3 min AND square/vertical to count as a Short
Facebook Reels	9:16	1080×1920	90 s	4 GB	Sourced from IG if accounts linked
Snapchat Spotlight	9:16	1080×1920	5 min	5 min cap matters more than size	Heavy top-UI; keep top 15% clear
Pinterest Idea/video pins	9:16 or 2:3	1080×1920	5 min	2 GB	2:3 (1000×1500) still wins for static-plus-motion
LinkedIn feed video	9:16 supported, 4:5 safest	1080×1350 (4:5)	15 min	5 GB	Feed crops aggressively; 4:5 shows most content uncropped
X (Twitter)	9:16 supported	1080×1920	140 s free / longer paid	512 MB	Vertical plays inline; sound off by default
Threads	9:16	1080×1920	5 min	1 GB	Inherits IG processing

Two cross-platform gotchas hiding in that table. First, Shorts eligibility is a format rule, not a upload destination — a 3:10 vertical video uploaded to YouTube becomes a regular video with terrible vertical presentation, not a Short. Second, LinkedIn is the odd one out: true 9:16 works in the focused player but gets cropped in-feed, so 4:5 is the pragmatic export for B2B distribution.

Safe zones: the part everyone skips

Every platform overlays UI on your video. Design inside these margins and nothing important ever gets covered:

• Top: keep the top 12–15% free (TikTok search bar, Snapchat camera UI, Reels' "Reels" header).
• Bottom: keep the bottom 20–25% free. This is the big one — caption text, username, audio attribution, and CTA buttons all live here on TikTok and Reels.
• Right edge: keep the right 12% free. The like/comment/share rail on TikTok, Reels, and Shorts covers roughly a 130px column at 1080 width.
• Left edge: effectively safe everywhere; a 5% margin is enough.

Practical translation for a 1080×1920 canvas: your title text, product, captions, and faces should live inside roughly 950 wide × 1150 tall, centered slightly above the vertical midpoint. Burn this into a PNG overlay template for your editor — or let a captioning tool that understands placement handle it. Versely's auto-captions default inside the cross-platform safe area, which is one of those small defaults that saves a re-export per video.

Caption and text sizing

Vertical video is watched at arm's length on a 6-inch screen, often with sound off.

• Minimum on-screen text size: ~48px at 1080 width (roughly 4.5% of frame width). Smaller than that is unreadable in feed.
• Caption blocks: max two lines on screen at once; three starts colliding with platform UI.
• Contrast: text needs a stroke, shadow, or scrim — feeds are full of white backgrounds that eat white text.
• Sound-off rate is still 50–70% on Reels and LinkedIn; captions aren't optional. Auto-generated, styled captions (the VEED-powered presets in Versely do this in one pass) are the baseline, not a nice-to-have.

Length: what the caps allow vs what performs

Caps and optimums are different numbers. TikTok allows an hour; brand content over 60 seconds needs to earn every second. The working ranges we see across brand accounts in 2026:

• 7–15 s: trend formats, product reveals, meme-adjacent content
• 20–35 s: demos, before/afters, UGC-style testimonials
• 45–90 s: tutorials, founder storytelling, mini-explainers
• 2–3 min: only when the content is genuinely serialized or search-driven (Shorts and TikTok search reward it; Reels rarely does)

If a concept needs more than 3 minutes, it's probably a long-form video plus a vertical cut, not one asset — see how to repurpose long-form into shorts for that split.

Building once, delivering everywhere

The efficient pipeline in 2026 looks like this:

1. Generate or shoot at 1080×1920, composing inside the universal safe zone.
2. Keep text as a separate layer (or add it per-platform) so LinkedIn's 4:5 crop and Pinterest's 2:3 variant don't orphan your captions.
3. Export one master, then per-platform variants only where the table demands it — a 4:5 for LinkedIn, a ≤3:00 cut for Shorts eligibility, watermark-free files for everything.
4. Publish natively per platform. Cross-posted files with foreign watermarks still get suppressed; the details are in platform-native vs repurposed content.

Versely connects Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Bluesky, and Threads, so the master-plus-variants set can be published or scheduled from one place instead of nine upload screens. For image-led verticals — carousels, quote cards, listing photos set to music — the AI slideshow maker exports the same 1080×1920 spec with transitions and audio baked in.

FAQ

Is 4K vertical video worth uploading in 2026?

Generally no. Every major short-form feed re-encodes to ~1080p delivery, so 4K masters mostly buy you slower uploads. The exception is footage you'll also crop or punch into — generate or shoot at higher resolution, then deliver 1080×1920. Versely's video upscaling can lift finished 1080p to 4K when you need a hero cut for YouTube proper.

What's the difference between 9:16 and "full screen" on each platform?

9:16 is the file shape; full screen is whether the platform letterboxes it. All the short-form feeds display true 9:16 edge-to-edge on modern phones. Taller-than-9:16 files get center-cropped, and shorter (like 4:5) get matted — which is why 9:16 masters plus a deliberate 4:5 LinkedIn variant beats one compromise ratio.

Do I need different exports for TikTok and Reels?

Same resolution and length range, so the video file can be identical — but strip watermarks and rebuild any platform-styled text before crossing over. The safe zones differ by a few percent (Reels' bottom UI is slightly taller); designing to the combined safe zone covers both.

How do vertical specs affect AI-generated video?

Pick a model that generates native 9:16 rather than cropping a 16:9 output — cropping throws away composition and usually beheads subjects. Most current models on Versely (VEO 3.1, Kling, Seedance 2.0, Hailuo, PixVerse) generate true vertical; check the aspect options on the model picker before you spend credits.

What bitrate should I export for the best quality after platform compression?

10–12 Mbps H.264 at 1080×1920/30fps is the practical ceiling of benefit. Platforms crush everything to roughly 2–6 Mbps on delivery; what survives compression best is high-contrast composition and limited fine-grain motion (confetti, rain, and dense texture turn to mush regardless of your export).

Specs are the boring 10% that protect the interesting 90%. Set up the safe-zone template once, export the master once, and let the tooling handle the variants — then go make the actual content. Generate your next vertical batch with the AI video generator — a $1 credit pack covers your first test.