Best Video Format and Size for YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok

Getting the format right is the easiest win in short video. A clip in the wrong shape gets black bars or cropped faces, and captions placed in the wrong spot get hidden behind buttons. Here is what to use.

The short answer

• Aspect ratio: 9:16 (vertical).
• Resolution: 1080 × 1920 pixels.
• File: MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio.
• Frame rate: keep the original — usually 25, 30 or 60 fps.

BeClipper exports vertical clips at exactly 1080 × 1920 as MP4, ready for every major platform.

Length limits

Limits change from time to time, so always check each platform's help pages, but at the time of writing:

• YouTube Shorts: vertical or square videos up to 3 minutes.
• Instagram Reels: up to 3 minutes when recorded or uploaded in the app.
• TikTok: longer uploads are allowed, but most successful TikToks are still under a minute. (TikTok is not available in India.)

Most clips perform best between 20 and 60 seconds, so length limits rarely matter.

Safe zones: where to put captions and text

Every platform covers parts of the video with buttons, the caption text and your profile name. As a rule of thumb, keep important content out of:

• the bottom 20% of the frame (captions, music and account name),
• the right edge (like, comment and share buttons),
• the top 10% (status bar and menus).

That is why caption position matters. BeClipper lets you place captions at the top, middle or bottom. The middle is the safest choice when the bottom of your frame is busy.

Square and landscape

Square 1:1 is useful for feeds on Facebook and LinkedIn, where vertical videos may be cropped. Landscape 16:9 is useful for posting a clip back to a regular YouTube video or a website. BeClipper can export the same clip in all three formats.

Turning landscape into vertical without losing the speaker

Most long videos are recorded in landscape. A simple centre crop often cuts off the speaker when they move or when they are sitting to one side. BeClipper reframes vertical clips by detecting faces and following the main speaker smoothly, and falls back to a centred crop when no face is visible.

Audio

Phones are often played at low volume or through small speakers. Normalising loudness — making every clip about equally loud — prevents viewers from swiping past quiet clips. BeClipper normalises the audio of every export by default, and you can adjust the volume if needed.

Export the right format automatically

Choose 9:16, 1:1 or 16:9 when you export a clip in BeClipper, and the size, framing, captions and audio are handled for you. See also how to turn a long video into Shorts step by step.