9:16 export sizes
The three big vertical platforms — TikTok, Instagram (Reels and Stories) and YouTube Shorts — all recommend the same upload size: 1080×1920. That convergence makes the rest of the ladder simple; every useful 9:16 size is a clean multiple or fraction of it:
| Resolution | Name | Megapixels | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 540×960 | qHD vertical | 0.52 | Low-bandwidth previews; half of 1080×1920 per side |
| 720×1280 | 720p vertical | 0.92 | Acceptable minimum for most vertical feeds |
| 1080×1920 | Full HD vertical | 2.07 | The standard export for TikTok, Reels and Shorts |
| 1440×2560 | QHD vertical | 3.69 | ×1.33 of standard; platforms typically re-encode down |
| 2160×3840 | 4K vertical | 8.29 | Future-proof master copies; ×2 of standard per side |
Worked example: what cropping 16:9 to 9:16 really costs
Say you shot 1920×1080 landscape and want a vertical cut. A center crop keeps the full 1080 height, and the width becomes 1080 × 9 ÷ 16 = 607.5 → 608 px. You keep a 608×1080 sliver — just 31.6% of the original width; the remaining 68.4% is discarded. Set the calculator's section 1 to 1920×1080 with the 9:16 preset and switch the preview to "Crop" to see this drawn to scale: the dimmed area is what your viewers never see.
The alternative, letterboxing, has the mirror-image price: the full 16:9 frame fits in the vertical canvas, but it occupies only 31.6% of the frame height — the other 68.4% is bars (which some creators fill with captions or a blurred copy of the footage). Neither option is free; 9:16 simply punishes landscape sources harder than any common conversion because the two ratios are so far apart.
Worked example: upscaling 720p vertical
Old vertical footage at 720×1280 converts to the standard 1080×1920 with a clean ×1.5 factor on both sides. That is a real upscale — the encoder invents pixels — but the ratio is identical, so there is no cropping or distortion involved. Lock 9:16 in the calculator and type 1080 as the width; the height lands on exactly 1920 with the "exact fit" note, confirming both sides are whole pixels.
Related pages
Going the other direction — vertical source to a horizontal player — is the same math with the roles swapped; run it on the main aspect ratio calculator. Instagram's feed also accepts a gentler portrait format that keeps far more of a landscape photo: see the 4:5 Instagram portrait page. And if you are checking what ratio a source file actually is before deciding, the pixels-to-ratio lookup does the reverse calculation. The horizontal standard itself is covered on the 16:9 resolution chart.