Instacart video thumbnail 1067x600 to 1600x900 from a clip

Instacart's shoppable video ads need a separate thumbnail: a 16:9 JPG or PNG between 1067x600 and 1600x900, at most 10 MB. If your clip is 16:9, call POST /v1/video-frames with an at time and max_edge: 1600 and you get a still whose long edge is 1600.

Instacart facts are from its Ads Manager page (updated August 12, 2026, read 2026-10-01). Sume facts are from Video frames.

What does Instacart ask for?

How do I pull the still?

Video frames takes one media.sume.com clip and either at[] (1 to 24 times) or fps. It is unbilled and the submit is always 202, so poll GET /v1/video-frames/{id} until resource_status is ready. format is jpeg by default or png, and max_edge clamps the long edge between 16 and 2160. The source must be 300 seconds or shorter.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-frames \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: thumb-001" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/ad.mp4",
    "at": [1.5, 3, 4.5],
    "format": "jpeg",
    "max_edge": 1600
  }'

What can go wrong?

Each frame comes back as frames[{t,url,width,height}], so read width and height and confirm they fall in the range above. An instant that fails returns a null url without failing the job, and a time at or beyond the clip's duration fails with frame_time_out_of_range. If the clip is not 16:9, the still will not be either, so fix the video first with the Instacart video post. Confirm current rules on Instacart's page.