Your one cover has at least three shapes
Export at 1080 × 1920 and you have a 9:16 file. That file is what the Reels feed, the TikTok For You page and the Shorts player show at full bleed. Then your profile happens.
Instagram's profile grid left 1:1 squares behind and now shows a 3:4 tile, 1080 x 1440 px, filled with a centre crop of your cover, so about 240 px goes from each end of the artwork. The main feed takes a different bite, a 4:5 slice at 1080 x 1350 px. TikTok crops the same file again to a vertical tile shorter than 9:16, and publishes no ratio for it. Nobody warns you. You find out after posting, when the title you were proud of is half a word.
The interface is part of the composition
In the full-screen feed, roughly the bottom quarter on the left carries the handle, title and caption. A vertical rail of like, comment and share buttons runs up the right edge over about a fifth of the width. Thin bars sit at the very top and the very bottom. Those proportions shift a little with every app update, so treat them as a working guide rather than a spec sheet, but the conclusion never changes: your usable area is a band in the middle, and it is smaller than the canvas you designed on.
You can check this against your own file right now with the free cover size previewer, which draws every crop and every interface zone over your image without uploading it anywhere.
Why layers matter more on vertical than on 16:9
On a thumbnail, a bad composition is a bad composition and you see it immediately. On a cover, the composition is fine and the crop is what betrays you, which means the fix is almost always positional: nudge the subject up, pull the title into the safe band, shrink the type one step.
If your cover is a flat image, none of those are edits. They are re-crops that soften your art or re-generations that produce a different picture entirely. If your cover is a layer stack, all three are drags, and the type stays crisp because it is still real type being re-laid-out rather than pixels being pushed around.
The rule that saves the most reposts: anything that has to be readable on your profile belongs in the middle of the frame, well away from the top and bottom edges. The feed is generous. The grid is not.
One face, one style, every platform
Most creators post the same idea to Reels, TikTok and Shorts. Three uploads, three covers, and if each one is built from scratch, three slightly different visual identities. Recognition is the thing you are actually building: someone should know a post is yours before they read the handle.
The cover builder runs the same layer engine as the YouTube thumbnail builder, so a look you settle on for your channel carries down to vertical instead of being reinvented. Your cut-out subject stays your real photo, not an AI redraw of your face, and the title stays real type in the same font at the same weight. On the Studio plan a brand kit holds those fonts, colours and saved layer templates so the next cover starts where the last one ended.
Cover or carousel?
A cover has one job: earn the tap. A carousel has to hold attention across a swipe, and the two formats reward completely different ideas. If you are still deciding which one an idea deserves, carousels vs Reels has the numbers on reach and saves, and the Instagram carousel builder is the multi-slide side of the same product.
What you can use on this site today
The builder is prelaunch. These are free, need no signup, and never send your image anywhere:
- Cover size previewer — five surfaces, real crops, real interface overlays, on your file.
- Social media image resizer — take one composition out to every size you need.
- Colour palette extractor — pull six colours out of a frame so your cover matches the video.
- Font pairing previewer — vertical type has to work at grid size, so try the combination before you commit.
- Thumbnail tester — for the 16:9 companion asset, when the same video also goes to YouTube.
What it costs
The cover builder is included in both plans: Creator at $19 a month with 100 credits, Studio at $39 a month with 200 credits, 30% off annually. One credit equals one generation, editing is free forever, and a failed generation refunds automatically. Full details are on the pricing page, including why there is no free tier.
Questions people ask
What does the cover builder export?
Vertical 9:16 covers, the shape Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts play at full bleed, which is 1080 × 1920 pixels. That is the only place your cover is ever seen whole. Every grid and browse layout cuts a different shape out of the middle of it.
Why does a cover that looks right in the feed look wrong on my profile?
Because the grid tile is a different shape from the feed and the app takes a centre crop to fill it. Instagram's profile grid is a 3:4 tile, 1080 x 1440 px, and TikTok shows a vertical tile shorter than 9:16 without publishing a ratio for it. Whatever sat near the top or bottom edge of your 9:16 file is simply gone from the grid.
How do I keep my title out from under the caption and the button rail?
Put it in the middle band. In the full-screen feed the bottom left carries the handle, title and caption, a rail of like, comment and share buttons runs up the right edge, and thin bars sit at the very top and bottom. The usable area is a good deal smaller than the file you exported. Our free cover size previewer draws those zones on your own image.
Can one cover design work across Reels, TikTok and Shorts?
The design can, if it was built for the tightest crop rather than the widest one. All three play at 9:16 and all three cut a narrower shape for their grids, so a subject and a title placed inside the shared middle band survive everywhere. What changes per platform is where the interface sits, not the file shape.
Does the cover builder use the same layer engine as the thumbnail builder?
Yes. It is the same engine applied to a vertical canvas, so background, subject and text stay independent and the type stays real, editable type. That is what lets the same face and the same styling carry from a YouTube thumbnail to a Reel cover without rebuilding the look from scratch.
Can I make a cover in DesignerOP right now?
No. DesignerOP is in prelaunch as of August 2026 and the cover builder opens to waitlist members first. The free cover size previewer and image resizer on this site are usable today, run entirely in your browser, and need no account.
The reasoning behind building covers this way, rather than generating them, is in how DesignerOP is different, and the about page covers who is building it and what is actually shipped.