Avatar video ratio: five options for LinkedIn, Shorts and feeds
Sume Avatar 1.0 renders 1:1, 3:4, 9:16, 4:3 and 16:9 at 720p. Which ratio to pick for LinkedIn, Shorts, a feed post or a landing page, and what changes in cost.
Sume Avatar 1.0 renders in five ratios: 1:1, 3:4, 9:16, 4:3 and 16:9, at 720p (read 2026-10-06). Pick 9:16 for Shorts and Stories, 16:9 for a landing page or YouTube, 1:1 or 3:4 for a feed post. The ratio does not change the per-second price.
Choose before the preview, because a different ratio changes the framing of the first frame.
Which ratio goes where
Match the ratio to the surface, not to habit.
| Ratio | Typical use |
|---|---|
| 9:16 | Shorts, Reels, Stories |
| 16:9 | Landing page, YouTube, slides |
| 1:1 | Square feed post |
| 3:4 | Portrait feed post |
| 4:3 | Older slide decks and embeds |
Cost and resolution
Price is per second by tier, with or without a product image, and is the same across ratios. Resolution is 720p for all, so a 16:9 clip is 1280 by 720. If you need 1080 by 1920, place the render in a Timeline 1.0 output, which defaults to that size, and check the result for softness.
A short decision rule
Start from where the video will be watched. A phone in portrait is 9:16. A laptop or TV is 16:9. A square post is 1:1, and a portrait feed post is 3:4. If one video must serve two places, render two ratios rather than cropping, and pay for both.
Two renders of the same 20-second script on plus without a product image cost $4.90 each, so $9.80 for both ratios. That is the price of avoiding an off-center crop.
Preview before you pay
Whichever ratio you choose, create the preview first. The preview returns the first-frame still in that ratio, so you can see how much headroom the avatar has and where a caption would sit. If you change the ratio afterwards, create a new preview, because the framing is different.
For a campaign that needs several ratios, approve one still per ratio and render each on the cheapest tier that looks good, then upgrade only the one that carries the spend.
Tradeoffs
Cropping a 16:9 render to vertical throws away most of the frame, and the avatar may sit off center. Render the ratio you need rather than recutting.
Keep a note of the ratio next to each approved still. When a campaign has five edits in flight, the most common mistake is rendering the right script in the wrong shape, and that costs a full render to fix.
Sources
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Written by Sume