Toggle Meta's own Reels margins over a 9:16 frame and read the exact pixels each band takes, with every zone labelled documented or measured. Your frame loads without leaving your device.
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Tick a zone to draw it. The zones are drawn over your frame by this page's own code; the image is never sent anywhere.
Meta's 14 / 35 / 6 margins apply to Instagram Reels ads only (Meta Ads Guide, Instagram Reels ad specs, August 2026). The 4:5 and 3:4 crops are community measured, not Meta's. Free, no login.
What is a Reels safe zone, and who defines it?
A Reels safe zone is the part of a 9:16 frame that Instagram's interface leaves alone, so text and logos inside it are not covered by the profile row, the action rail or the caption. Meta publishes margins for it, and only for ads: leave 14 percent of the top, 35 percent of the bottom and 6 percent of each side clear (Meta Ads Guide, Instagram Reels ad specs, August 2026).
Nothing equivalent exists for organic Reels. Meta's own safe zone help article carries no general measurement at all, only a rule that ads with disclaimers keep the bottom 40 percent clear. Every other pixel band is somebody's reading of a screenshot, which is why each zone here is labelled.
How to check a frame
How the percentages become pixels
Meta's Reels ad safe zone, applied to your canvas
Example:
On a 1080 by 1920 frame, Meta's 14 percent top, 35 percent bottom and 6 percent sides come to 269 px, 672 px and 65 px, which leaves a safe area of 950 by 979 px.
Who stands behind each number:
Set the canvas before you read anything else: every pixel on screen scales from it. When two sources disagree, compare their percentages.
What this checker does differently
What 15 Reels safe zone sources actually publish
We read all fifteen sources in August 2026 and normalised their numbers to a 1080 by 1920 canvas. Meta's row sits first.
| Source | Type and date | Top band | Bottom band | Each side | Names Meta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta Ads Guide, Instagram Reels ad specs | Official ad spec, Aug 2026 | 269 px (14%) | 672 px (35%) | 65 px (6%) | It is Meta |
| Jon Loomer | Template, updated 1 Mar 2025 | Unstated | Unstated | Unstated | No |
| Minta | Guide and template, undated | 269 px | 672 px | 65 px | Yes |
| Outfy | Guide, updated 25 Jul 2026 | 108 px | 300 to 320 px | 60 to 120 px | No |
| House of Marketers | Guide, undated | 108 px | 320 px | 60 to 120 px | No |
| Orson Lord | Overlay pack, 2025 | 250 px | 320 px | 120 px | No |
| Full Stack Creative | Template, 23 Jun 2025 | Unstated | Unstated | Unstated | No |
| Rob Pinney Studio | Overlay, updated Apr 2026 | Unstated | Unstated | Unstated | No |
| SellerPic | Guide, 9 Feb 2026 | Unstated | 480 to 576 px | 120 px | No |
| Zeely | Guide, 16 Dec 2025 | 192 to 288 px | 192 to 288 px | Unstated | No |
| Poster.ly | Checker, 2026 | 173 px (9%) | 480 px (25%) | 140 px right only | No |
| AdKit | Checker, measured Mar 2026 | 250 px (13%) | 450 px (23.4%) | 35 px right only | Its own reading |
| AI Carousels | Checker, 2025 layout | 200 px | 250 px | 50 px | No |
| Kreatli | Checker, undated | 108 px | 320 px | 60 px | No |
| PostPlanify | Checker, 2026 | 210 px | 310 px | 84 px right only | No |
| Slice | Checker, undated | Unstated | 288 px (15%) | Unstated | No |
Nine sources commit to a single top value: 108 px to 269 px, a spread of 2.49 times. Bottom bands run 250 px to 672 px, 2.69 times. Right edge bands run 35 px to 140 px, four times. One of the fifteen reproduces Meta's own figures.
Bottom bands vary by 2.69 times across the sources we read, so a borrowed template is a guess with sharp edges.
The same frame is cropped to 4:5 in the feed and 3:4 on your profile, and covers lose their top and bottom first.
Meta's 14, 35 and 6 percent are for Reels ads. For an organic Reel there is no official number at all, so leave margin.
Put the hook just under Meta's 14 percent top band, high enough to read fast and low enough to survive the feed crop.
Keep the offer and any booking instruction out of the bottom 35 percent, where the caption and the button sit on top of it.
Centre the product, because the 3:4 grid crop takes 240 px off each end of a 1080 by 1920 cover before anyone taps it.
Fix one canvas and one zone set for every client, then send the pixel numbers with the brief so editors stop guessing.
Meta publishes safe zone margins for Reels ads only, as percentages: 14 percent top, 35 percent bottom, 6 percent each side. For organic Reels it publishes nothing, so treat every pixel template as an estimate and keep your words nearer the middle.
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Frequently asked questions
A Reels safe zone is the region of a vertical 9:16 frame that Instagram's own interface does not sit on top of. The top of the screen carries the profile row and the sound label, the right edge carries the like, comment, share and menu buttons, and the bottom carries the caption, the audio ticker and, on ads, the call to action button. Anything you place under those elements is still in the video file, it is simply unreadable while somebody watches. A safe zone is a design habit rather than a rule Instagram enforces, so keep your words, your logo and any instruction inside the middle band and nothing important gets covered.
One set of numbers, and it is written for advertisers. Meta's ad specs for Instagram Reels say to leave 14 percent of the top, 35 percent of the bottom and 6 percent of each side free of text, logos and other important creative elements (Meta Ads Guide, Instagram Reels ad specs, August 2026). Meta expresses that as percentages, not pixels, and the recommended Reels resolution on the same page is 1440 by 2560. On a 1080 by 1920 canvas those percentages come to 269 px, 672 px and 65 px, which is what this checker draws by default. One wording difference is worth knowing: the video spec says at least, the image spec says roughly.
No. Meta's help article on safe zones is written for Stories and Reels ads, and it defines the idea without giving a single general measurement. It says to keep the edges free of key creative elements and points advertisers at a safe zone guardrail toggle inside Ads Manager (August 2026). Nothing on Instagram's own help pages or in the Instagram publishing API documentation states a safe zone or a recommended resolution for an organic Reel. So every organic safe zone figure in circulation is either a conversion of the advertising percentages or a measurement somebody took off a screenshot. Treat them as estimates, label them that way, and leave yourself margin.
Vertical, 9:16. Meta's Reels ad spec pages give the ratio as 9:16 and a recommended resolution of 1440 by 2560 pixels, with a minimum width of 500 pixels for ads of 30 seconds or longer (August 2026). The wider creator convention is 1080 by 1920, which is the same 9:16 shape at a lower resolution, and it is the default canvas here because almost every template and editor preset uses it. Either one works for the shape of your frame. What changes between them is the pixel value of every safe zone band, which is why this checker recalculates the moment you switch canvas.
Because almost none of them start from a published number. We read fifteen Reels safe zone templates, guides and checkers in August 2026. Nine publish a single top value, ranging from 108 px to 269 px, a spread of 2.49 times. Nine publish a single bottom value, ranging from 250 px to 672 px, 2.69 times. Nine publish a right edge band, ranging from 35 px to 140 px, four times. Three publish no numbers at all and ship only a PNG overlay. One of the fifteen reproduces the percentages Meta publishes and one discloses how it measured. The rest present pixel bands with no source and no date, on a canvas Meta does not recommend.
Your profile grid shows a taller preview than it used to. Adam Mosseri announced the change on Threads on 20 January 2025, writing that the tall grid had shipped that week because most uploads are vertical and rectangles show them better. He did not state a ratio. The creator community measured it as 3:4, which is the figure this checker uses and labels as community measured rather than documented. On a 1080 by 1920 cover a centred 3:4 crop removes 240 px from the top and 240 px from the bottom and leaves 1080 by 1440. A cover with its headline near the top edge therefore reads perfectly full screen and loses that headline on your profile.
It is the only measurement inside Meta's safe zone help article, and most guides miss it. The article says that if you include disclaimers on your Reels ads you should leave the bottom 40 percent of the ad free from text, logos and other key creative elements (August 2026). That is five percentage points deeper than the ordinary 35 percent bottom band, or 768 px instead of 672 px on a 1080 by 1920 canvas. Toggle it on in the checker whenever your ad carries regulated wording, financial small print or a legal line. It does not apply to an organic Reel, though it makes a sensible upper bound.
No. When you load a frame the file is read by your own browser through the FileReader interface and drawn straight into the preview. It is never sent to a server, never stored and never shared, and the tool makes no network requests at all while you use it. Closing the tab removes it. That matters if you are checking unreleased campaign creative or client work under embargo, which is the situation most people are in when they test a cover frame before publishing it. You can also use the checker with no image at all and simply read the pixel numbers.
Yes. It is free, there is no login, no email step and no watermark on anything you take away. Everything runs in your browser. The numbers it draws come from Meta's published Reels ad specs plus two crops the creator community measured, and every band on screen tells you which of the two it is. The copy button hands you the exact pixel values for the canvas you picked, ready to paste into an editing brief, a Figma frame or a CapCut project. Inrō builds these tools free because the people who use them are the people who automate their Instagram DMs.
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