Instagram story size
Your profile row sits over the top, the reply bar over the bottom.
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1080 × 1920, a 9:16 vertical. The dimensions are the easy part. Instagram’s own interface covers roughly the top 14 percent and the bottom 20, so the band left to compose in is about 1080 × 1270 — a shape nearer 4:5 than 9:16.
How to use the instagram story size
A story is never shown clean. The profile picture and name sit across the top, the reply bar across the bottom, and between them they take about a third of the frame. Do the arithmetic on a 1920-pixel canvas and the usable band is roughly 1080 × 1270, which is much closer to 4:5 than to the vertical shape the canvas suggests. That mismatch is what catches people: type laid out to balance on the full canvas ends up either crowded into the middle or sitting under the interface. The centre of the usable band is also about 60 pixels above the centre of the canvas, because the bottom takes more than the top does.
Stories and Reels share the canvas and not the safe area. A Reel gives up more at the bottom to the caption and a strip down the right to the like, comment, share and audio buttons, leaving roughly 1080 × 1190 with the right-hand fifth spoken for. Reposting a story as a Reel without relaying it out is the standard way a caption ends up underneath the buttons.
Stickers move the boundary again, and downward. A link, a poll or a question sticker occupies part of the same middle band, so place it while the artwork is still open rather than discovering afterwards that it covers the only line that mattered.
What people use it for
- Laying out story type inside the band the interface leaves
- Re-cutting a story so it still works when posted as a Reel
- Placing a call to action clear of the reply bar
- Finding room for a link or poll sticker before the artwork is finished
- Checking a 4:5 photograph before putting it on a 9:16 canvas
Questions
1080 × 1920 pixels, 9:16.
About 1080 × 1270. The profile row takes roughly the top 14 percent and the reply bar the bottom 20, which is a third of the height between them.
Same canvas, smaller safe area: roughly 1080 × 1190, with the right-hand fifth taken by the button rail. A story reposted as a Reel usually puts its caption under the buttons.
In the middle band, centred about 60 pixels above the middle of the canvas — the bottom takes more than the top, so the optical centre is not the geometric one.
Yes, and downwards. A link or poll sticker sits inside the same middle band, so place it before the artwork is finished rather than after.