TikTok catalog add-ons: 130px card, 546px tile, keep the bottom clear

Keep the bottom of the frame empty. TikTok's page on interactive add-ons for Catalog Ads says product cards use a 130 px field along the bottom, product tiles use a 546 px space along the bottom, and display cards are 750 px wide and 421 px tall at the bottom (read 2026-10-03). Anything you burn into that band, such as a price, a caption line or a logo, can end up under the add-on. A single check on a still from your rendered clip finds the problem before the ad runs.

This post turns those three numbers into a layout rule and shows how to test it with Sume.

What the five add-ons are

TikTok lists five types: an info card that carries a call to action such as free shipping, a product card that people can scroll and click through, a product tile that shows several products with thumbnails (each leads to its own landing page from the catalog links), a showcase tile with a larger product image and an extra tile, and interactive elements such as a gift box or flip card. The add-ons can display up to 20 products across the bottom of the video. You can pick one manually or let the automated system choose for a Smart+ campaign (read 2026-10-03).

Turn pixels into a ratio

The page does not say which video size those pixels are measured against, so do not assume a 1080 x 1920 file. If you work with a 720 x 1280 vertical clip, 546 px is about 43 percent of the height, which leaves roughly the top 57 percent clear for text. On a 1080 x 1920 clip the same pixel count would be 28 percent. Run the numbers for the size you actually ship, and confirm against TikTok's preview.

Sume's video captions endpoint has design.placement.anchor_ratio, the caption line's centre as a fraction of frame height, and it works with the slam style. For a 546 px tile on a 1280 px tall clip, a ratio around 0.3 keeps the line well above the band. That number is a starting guess you check, not a documented default. Then video frames returns a still so you can look at where the line landed.

import os, time, requests
BASE = "https://api.sume.com"
H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['SUME_API_KEY']}"}

def run(path, body, key):
    r = requests.post(BASE + path, headers={**H, "Idempotency-Key": key}, json=body)
    r.raise_for_status()
    job = r.json()["request_id"]
    while True:
        s = requests.get(f"{BASE}/v1/jobs/{job}/status", headers=H).json()["status"]
        if s in ("completed", "failed", "canceled"):
            break
        time.sleep(3)
    return s, (requests.get(f"{BASE}/v1/jobs/{job}/result", headers=H).json() if s == "completed" else None)

clip = "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/ad-720x1280.mp4"
status, cap = run("/v1/video-captions", {
    "video_url": clip, "style": "slam",
    "design": {"placement": {"anchor_ratio": 0.30}}}, "addon-cap-001")
print(status, cap and cap.get("video_url"))
if cap:
    print(run("/v1/video-frames", {"video_url": cap["video_url"], "at": [2]}, "addon-frame-001"))

Why the bottom matters more than the top

On a vertical feed ad the platform already uses the lower part of the frame for the account name, the caption and the call to action. An add-on adds one more layer there, so the free area for your own text shrinks from both sides. That is why TikTok's own ads help says elsewhere that the safe zone changes with the add-on, and why a clip that looked fine as a plain in-feed ad can need a second render when you attach a product tile.

If you run the same creative with and without add-ons, keep two caption placements instead of one compromise. The lower placement works for the plain ad; the higher placement works for the tile. Each is a separate caption job at $0.20 per clip up to 60 seconds under the current fixed estimate (confirm in GET /v1/catalog), so decide which versions you actually need before you render both for every product.

A pre-flight check for add-on ads

Pull a still, open it, and draw the bottom band on it: 130 px for a product card, 546 px for a tile, and a 750 x 421 box for a display card. Look for text, faces and the product itself inside the band. A product that sits low in the frame is the most common clash, because the add-on can cover it. If the product has to be low, shoot or generate the clip with more headroom.

Sume does not draw TikTok's add-ons over a clip, so the still shows only your video. Check the result in TikTok's own preview too, and re-run the check when you change the add-on type, because a 130 px card and a 546 px tile need different layouts.