Instagram carousel size: 4:5 or 3:4 (1080x1350 vs 1080x1440)

What sizes does Instagram support for carousel photos?

As of November 2026, Instagram's image resolution page (opens in a new tab) says photos upload at up to 1,080 px wide. Photos between 320 and 1,080 px wide keep their original resolution if the ratio sits between 1.91:1 and 3:4. At 1,080 px wide, that range runs from 566 to 1,440 px tall. Ratios outside it are cropped to a supported one.

So the question is not "which size is allowed". Both common choices are. The question is which one costs you less.

Pixel widths in the last column are our own calculation, and they hold only if the grid tile really is 3:4. More on that next.

What does the profile grid do to your first slide?

Instagram's Help Center (opens in a new tab) says the profile grid shows the first item of a carousel, marked with a carousel icon. Around January 2025, Instagram replaced its square grid tiles with taller ones, which PetaPixel (opens in a new tab) and Social Media Today (opens in a new tab) reported as 3:4. Instagram published no pixel size for the tile, and third-party sizes conflict: 1012x1350, 1015x1350 and 1080x1440 all circulate. Treat any exact grid size as an estimate.

If the tile is 3:4, the arithmetic is simple. A tile is narrower than a 4:5 slide, so the sides get trimmed. At 1350 px tall, a 3:4 tile is 1012.5 px wide, which removes about 34 px from each side of a 1080x1350 slide. That is small. A square loses 135 px per side, and a landscape slide loses most of its width.

Two practical consequences follow:

• A 3:4 first slide has nothing trimmed on the grid, so the full cover shows.
• A 4:5 first slide loses a thin strip at each edge. Keep text and faces at least 60 px from the left and right edges of slide one and the loss will not matter. That margin is our rule of thumb, not an Instagram figure.

Which ratio should you pick for your case?

This page covers what Instagram's Help Center says about the app. Third-party schedulers, the Graph API and Meta's ad tools can have their own rules. We did not verify them here, so confirm that your tool accepts 3:4 before you rely on it.

Can you mix ratios in one carousel?

Officially, no. The Help Center says the orientation you choose applies to every item in the post. PetaPixel reported in October 2025 (opens in a new tab) that almost everyone can now mix horizontal and vertical photos, with borders adjusted automatically, but Instagram gave no official update. Treat that as "appears possible, unofficial". For a text slideshow, mixing looks accidental anyway, so keep one ratio.

How do you set the size in practice?

1. Set the canvas size before writing any text. Resizing a finished slide moves every element.
2. Use 1,080 px as the width. Exporting wider mostly adds file size, since photos upload at up to that width.
3. Put the cover's text inside a margin as described above.
4. Check one slide on a phone at actual size. Fonts that look fine on a monitor often shrink to unreadable.
5. Export all slides in the same format and at the same size. Fyslide, for instance, exports PNG or JPG into a folder and you upload from there, since Instagram posting is marked "Coming soon". The export guide lists the steps.

For wording, hooks and structure inside the slides, use the Instagram carousel guide. The TikTok side of the same question is in the TikTok slideshow size guide.