Social media image sizes for travel marketing, checked November 2026

Checked against the platforms' own help pages in November 2026: an Instagram feed photo keeps up to 1,080 pixels of width at any shape from 1.91:1 to 3:4; tools that publish through Instagram's API accept 4:5 at the tallest; stories are 9:16; and a Facebook Page cover is cropped to different shapes on computers and phones, so keep its edges empty. Printed flyers are measured in millimetres at 300 dpi.

The sizes, from the platforms' own pages

Every row comes from a page the platform itself publishes, read in November 2026. Platforms change these without notice, so the date matters.

Sources: Instagram Help Centre, image resolution of photos you share; Meta for Developers, IG User Media reference; Facebook Help Centre, Page profile picture and cover photo dimensions.

What is not here, and why: we found no pixel size for WhatsApp status on WhatsApp's own help pages, so it has no row. For any other channel, check the platform's own help page before relying on a number from anyone else, this article included.

4:5 or 3:4 for an Instagram post?

Instagram's help page and Meta's publishing reference disagree, and the difference decides which file you make.

• Posting by hand from the phone: Instagram keeps anything from 1.91:1 up to 3:4, so a 1,080 × 1,440 post gives you 90 more pixels of height than 4:5.
• Scheduling through a tool: publishing through Instagram's API accepts 4:5 at the tallest. A 3:4 file cannot go out that way.
• One file that works both ways: 4:5, 1,080 × 1,350.

If anyone on the team schedules, settle on 4:5 for everything. Studio offers both shapes as separate sizes ("Instagram post 4:5" and "Instagram post 3:4"), and the posts its calendar prepares for festivals and holidays are drawn in 4:5. For what to put in those posts, see travel agency Instagram post ideas.

Stories and WhatsApp status: the full-screen page and its bars

A story is a full phone screen, 9:16. Studio uses one 1,080 × 1,920 page for an Instagram story, a reel and WhatsApp status, a size it calls "Story, reel or status".

The top and bottom of that screen are not yours. The app draws its own name, buttons and reply bar over them, so a price or a phone number placed there is covered. Studio's story templates keep the top 250 pixels and the bottom 340 pixels of a 1,080 × 1,920 file clear of words, and the check that runs before every download flags any text, QR code or graphic that sits under those bars. On Studio's posters the contact line on a story becomes a small card just above the reply bar, with the photograph running on behind it.

The working rule: let the photograph run edge to edge behind the bars, and keep the headline, the price and the call to action in the middle band. A status is seen in passing, so one offer and one number beat a full itinerary. WhatsApp status ideas for travel agents has what to post there.

Covers: one image, several crops

Facebook's page gives three shapes for one Page cover: 16:9 on computers, 2.4:1 on mobile devices, and a recommended file of 851 × 315, which is about 2.7:1 and matches neither. So expect any cover to be cut on some screen.

Design for the crop rather than against it:

• Keep the logo, the words and the face in the photo inside the centre of the image, away from all four edges.
• Use a photograph that still reads when its sides or its top and bottom are lost: a horizon, a coastline, a skyline.
• Leave the offer out. A cover stays up for months; put offers in posts.
• After uploading, look at the cover on a phone and on a computer before you walk away.

Studio's Facebook cover size is 1,640 × 624 pixels, which is not exactly any of the shapes above, so the same rule applies: what matters sits in the middle. The same thinking suits Studio's email header (1,200 × 400) and website banner (1,920 × 600), which are shown at many widths.

What Studio exports, size by size

These are the files Studio makes, read from its size list. The pixel sizes are Studio's, not a platform's promise. Social and web sizes are laid out at half size and exported at twice that; print sizes are exported at 300 dpi (150 dpi for the A1 poster and the roll-up), and a PNG of the largest posters is made smaller to stay under 25 million pixels.

Print: millimetres, bleed and dpi

Print sizes are millimetres first. At 300 dpi an A4 page is 2,480 × 3,508 pixels and an A5 page is 1,748 × 2,480.

Three habits keep a printed flyer clean:

• Bleed. A print shop trims after printing, and the blade wanders slightly. Studio's "PDF for a print shop" adds 3 mm on every side, so an A5 file is 154 × 216 mm, and carries any photo or colour band that touches an edge out into that margin. Crop marks are optional, in a white margin outside the bleed.
• A safe margin. Words closer than 3 mm to the trim may be cut; Studio's check flags them.
• Photos at the printed size. The check tells you the dpi a photo will print at: 300 is sharp, under 200 looks soft. Studio's PDFs keep text as vectors with the fonts included, so small print stays crisp at any size.

One trap is worth naming: never print the post. A 1,080-pixel-wide PNG made for Instagram, stretched across an A5 page, prints at about 185 dpi. Make the A5 from the design, not from the post's file. Studio does not make a CMYK press file yet; if your printer asks for one, ask whether they convert from a standard PDF. The rest of a flyer's anatomy is in what makes a travel flyer sell.

PNG, JPEG or PDF

Meta's publishing reference converts images in other colour spaces to sRGB, and Facebook's cover advice asks for an sRGB JPG. Sending sRGB in the first place means what you designed is what people see.

One design in every size, without starting again

Say you are promoting a four-night Maldives package for March (an illustrative example). You need an Instagram post, a story that also goes on WhatsApp status, a Facebook link image, and an A5 flyer for the counter.

1. Make the 4:5 post first. It works by hand and through a scheduler.
2. Resize to the other three. In iTravel Studio, "Resize" makes up to ten sizes at once, each a new design, while the original stays as it is. A design started from a Studio template is laid out again by that template in every shape the template has, carrying your words in every language, your photos with their focal points and your colours, and leaving out anything you deleted. A shape the template does not have, and any blank design, is scaled in proportion instead, so look harder at those.
3. Look at each one. On the story: is the price out of the bars? On the wide 1,200 × 630 link image: do the price and the call to action still read at a glance? On the A5: does the villa photo print at 300 dpi, and is it the print PDF?
4. Download them together. Several designs can be downloaded as one ZIP from the designs list.

The words are fitted again in each new size, and the check before download flags any that still do not fit their box. The brand comes from the kit, so all four carry the same logo, colours and contact line; a brand kit for a travel agency covers what goes into it. When the four go out on different days, a travel social media calendar keeps track of them.

The checklist before you post or print

• The date on your size list. If it is older than a few months, check the platform's own help page again.
• Feed post at 4:5, 1,080 × 1,350, unless you only ever post by hand and want 3:4.
• Stories and status at 9:16, 1,080 × 1,920, with the top 250 and bottom 340 pixels free of words.
• Covers and banners with everything that matters in the centre, checked on a phone and a computer.
• JPEG in sRGB for anything published through a scheduling tool.
• PNG for the sharpest posts and status.
• Print from the design, never from the post: 300 dpi at size, 3 mm bleed, words 3 mm inside the trim.
• One design, resized, then each size looked at once before it goes out.