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Organic posts use most of the same ratios as paid, so the dimensions in image and video specs carry over. This page covers what that page does not, because it is written for ads.
Use image and video specs for ratios and file sizes. Use this page for the organic-only constraints below. Current as of 10 August 2026.

What carries over from paid

The profile grid re-crop

This is the constraint with no paid equivalent, and the one most often discovered after publishing. An ad is seen once, in the placement it was made for. An organic post is seen twice: in the feed at its native ratio, and again in your profile grid at whatever ratio the platform crops the grid to. The grid crop is centered and automatic, and you do not get to choose it. Design so the post works in both. A portrait post or Reel whose subject sits low in the frame reads correctly in the feed and gets its head cut off in the grid.
Platforms have changed the grid ratio before and will again: Instagram moved its profile grid off square in 2025. Don’t design to a fixed pixel figure from a page like this one. Compose so the important content survives a centre crop in either direction, and confirm the current grid shape in the app before a launch depends on it.

Covers and thumbnails

A grid is read as a set, which paid never is.

No preview, no rollback

A paid ad has a placement preview before it runs and can be paused in seconds. An organic post has neither in the same way.
  • Preview in the tool you publish from, and on a phone rather than a desktop browser, since that is where it will be seen.
  • A published post cannot be edited into a different image. Correcting a visual error means deleting and reposting, which loses whatever engagement it had gathered.
  • Deleting and reposting resets everything: the URL in the content calendar row, the engagement, and any link somebody already shared.
That asymmetry is the argument for running the pre-publish checklist on organic even though it feels heavier than the post deserves.

Accessibility

Last modified on August 11, 2026