Instagram Reel aspect range in pixels: 1080x566 to 1080x1920

Instagram's help page says you can upload a reel with an aspect ratio between 1.91:1 and 9:16. At 1080 pixels wide that runs from 1080x566 at the wide end to 1080x1920 at the tall end, and every common ratio in between fits. Sume's Timeline can render any of those sizes, and its plan endpoint checks one without billing.

The range is from Reel size & aspect ratios on Instagram (read 2026-10-03). Instagram's separate photo page, image resolution of photos you share (read 2026-10-03), uses the same wide end for photos and gives the same 1080-wide height of 566. Its tall end is 3:4, so photos stop at 1440 pixels high, while Reels go to 9:16.

Why the wide end is 566, not 565

1080 divided by 1.91 is 565.4, so the height has to round up to stay inside the limit. 566 works: 1080 / 566 is 1.908. 565 fails twice. It is odd, and 1080 / 565 is 1.9115, past 1.91. Sume's Timeline accepts only even output.width and output.height values from 256 to 2160, so 566 is valid and 565 would be refused before it ever got that far.

Sizes at 1080 wide

The table lists common ratios and whether they fall in Instagram's Reel range. Heights are the nearest even value.

Check a size without paying

POST /v1/timeline-1.0/plan runs the schema checks and the compiler, then returns the duration and billable_minutes without creating a job. Per the Timeline docs it does not download media. This request asks for the wide-end size on a 10-second silent timeline.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/timeline-1.0/plan \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "audio": { "mode": "silence", "duration_seconds": 10 },
    "video": [{
      "source_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/clip.mp4",
      "start": 0,
      "duration": 10
    }],
    "output": { "width": 1080, "height": 566 }
  }'

Reframing is a choice

A slot's fit defaults to cover, which fills the frame and crops what overflows. A 9:16 clip rendered at 1080x566 would keep only a thin horizontal band of each frame, so wide sizes suit footage shot wide. Use contain or blur when you need the whole frame to stay visible.