Meta video length by placement: Feed 240 minutes, Stories 120 seconds

Short answer

Meta's video requirements chart gives different length windows for different placements: Facebook Feed and Marketplace allow up to 240 minutes, Facebook Stories and Instagram Feed, Stories and Explore list 1 to 120 seconds, Audience Network in-stream lists 5 to 30 seconds, and Messenger Stories lists 15 seconds. A single cut cannot satisfy all of them, so the practical plan is one master and several trims.

Sume Video Trim makes those trims cheaply. It takes a source up to 1,800 seconds, returns 0.2 to 900 seconds, and costs $0.02 per job.

The chart in one table

These are the length values the chart shows for the placements named. The chart also lists aspect ratios per placement and notes which placements support captions; it does not give file size, resolution or safe zones, so check those elsewhere.

Cutting one master into windows

Start with the longest version you will use. Render it as a single piece, then trim from it. With Video Trim you pass start and exactly one of end or duration, so a 30-second in-stream cut is start 12 and duration 30, for example. Leave audio on keep for any placement that requires sound.

Precision matters for ads. The default exact mode is a frame-accurate re-encode, so the cut lands where you asked. Keyframe mode is a stream copy and may begin a GOP early, which can add a fraction of a second to a 5-second minimum and push you out of range; use exact for ad cuts.

• Facebook Feed: use the long master or a 60 to 90 second edit.
• Stories and Instagram placements: trim to 120 seconds or less; most ads run far shorter.
• In-stream: trim to 5 to 30 seconds with audio kept.
• Messenger Stories: trim to 15 seconds.

What it costs

Rendering the master through Timeline costs $0.10 per rounded-up output minute; a 2-minute master is $0.20. Each trim is $0.02, so five placement cuts add $0.10. These are the public rates from the Sume docs, so confirm your plan's rate card before you budget at scale.

The unbilled plan endpoint, POST /v1/timeline-1.0/plan, returns billable_minutes and estimated_cost_usd_micros before you render, which is a quick check when you are deciding how long to make the master.

Related

For the Stories-specific specs, see Instagram and Facebook Stories ad specs. For one file across several Meta surfaces, see one MP4 for Reels, Stories and Threads.

A placement plan you can reuse

Write the plan as a small table in your campaign brief: placement, target length, aspect ratio, sound. Then attach one trim per row. When the master changes, every trim is re-cut from the new master and nothing drifts out of sync.

Avoid the temptation to stretch the longest cut to everything. A 120-second Story and a 15-second Messenger Story are different creative, not the same video at two lengths. Trimming tells you where each version starts and ends; it does not decide what belongs in a 15-second version. Write the short script first, then check whether it is a cut of the long one or a separate edit.

Because the chart is Meta's summary, it can change; recheck it at campaign start and again before a large spend.