Social Image Sizes for Bloggers
One 1200x630 file covers nearly every share, with Pinterest and Instagram the only exceptions.
The image that shows up when your post gets shared is a single file, and it is 1200×630 - a 1.91:1 card that Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Slack, and Discord all read off one og:image tag. Pinterest and Instagram are the only two that want something else. That is the whole answer; the rest is the per-platform map, so you know exactly which sizes you actually need and which ones are the same file wearing a different name.
The reason “social image sizes” feels like a long list is that most charts treat every platform as a separate spec. For a blogger sharing links, it is the opposite. Five of the big ones pull the same image off the same tag, so making five files is wasted work. The two that genuinely differ are Pinterest and Instagram, and they differ because they are not reading a link preview at all.
The one file that covers almost everything
When someone pastes your post URL into Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Slack, or Discord, the platform does not visit your page and pick an image. It reads the og:image you declared in the page head and renders that into a card. Every one of them optimizes for the same shape: 1200×630, the 1.91:1 card every platform settled on. The Open Graph protocol defines the og:image tag itself; the dimensions are the convention that grew up around it. One file, one tag, five feeds.
X is the platform people second-guess here, so it is worth stating plainly: X reads your og:image and center-crops it to its own large card. A centered 1200×630 is safe. You do not need a separate 2:1 image for X, and chasing one is how you end up maintaining files you never needed.
The OG image size post covers the practical floor and file-size ceiling, and what size a blog cover should be walks the same ground for the cover itself. This post is the per-platform reference: where the file goes and where it stops.
The per-platform reference
Here is the whole map in one place. Read the first five rows as “the same 1200×630 file,” and the last two as the genuine exceptions:
| Platform | Image it uses | Size / ratio | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
your og:image | 1200×630, 1.91:1 | the recommended floor is 200×200 | |
your og:image | 1200×630, 1.91:1 | same card as Facebook | |
| X | your og:image | 1200×630, 1.91:1 | center-crops to its own card; keep it centered |
| Slack | your og:image | 1200×630, 1.91:1 | renders the unfurled link card |
| Discord | your og:image | 1200×630, 1.91:1 | same unfurl as Slack |
| a pin image you upload | 1000×1500, 2:3 | tall; the feed favors vertical | |
| an image post you publish | 1080×1080 or 1080×1350 | no link preview in feed; square or portrait |
The top five are not five decisions. They are one file you make once and declare once. Spend your attention on getting that 1200×630 right, because it is doing five jobs.
Pinterest wants a tall pin
Pinterest is a visual search feed that builds its own pins, so it does not show your 1200×630 card the way Slack does. A pin is a picture you upload, and the feed rewards vertical images - a 2:3 ratio reads largest in the column. Make your pin at 1000×1500 and it fills the slot without getting squeezed.
That means a Pinterest-active blog wants a second, purpose-built image per post rather than a reused og:image. The good news is it is the same design problem turned on its side: one subject, a short readable title, real contrast. A wide social card cropped to portrait usually loses the type or the focal point, so build the tall one fresh rather than cropping the wide one.
Instagram does not show a link preview at all
Instagram is the one that breaks the mental model hardest, because it has no link card in a feed post. You cannot paste a URL into a caption and get a clickable preview image. What you share is an actual image post, and the post itself is the content.
So the size you care about is the post format itself: 1080×1080 for a square, or 1080×1350 for a portrait, which takes up more vertical room in the feed. Your blog cover can absolutely become an Instagram post, but treat it as its own square or portrait composition. A 1200×630 card dropped into a square frame leaves dead bands top and bottom and wastes the most valuable feed real estate you have.
Make the 1200×630 card once and stop thinking about it. Pinterest and Instagram are separate posts, not separate crops.
When one file genuinely is enough
If you do not actively post to Pinterest or Instagram, you are done at one image. A single, centered 1200×630 WebP, pointed at by your og:image, covers every link you or anyone else shares. There is no Facebook size, no LinkedIn size, no X size to chase - they resolved to the same shape years ago.
Keep that file well under the platform ceilings and it travels fast: a WebP card at quality 80 to 86 lands sharp and comfortably under 150 KB, with around 96% browser support now. If you are weighing the format on its own, WebP vs JPG vs PNG for blog images lays out the savings against JPEG and PNG and when each one earns its place.
One more naming snag worth clearing: the file your platform shares is your og:image, which is usually the same picture as your featured image, just playing a different role. If those words still blur together, featured image vs cover image vs OG image untangles them.
A quick checklist
- Make one 1200×630 card at 1.91:1 and point
og:imageat it - that covers Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Slack, and Discord. - Keep the title and any faces centered, since X crops the card to its own shape.
- Stay above the ~600×315 floor and under the 5MB ceiling; aim for a WebP under 150 KB.
- Add a tall 1000×1500 (2:3) pin only if you post to Pinterest.
- Add a 1080×1080 or 1080×1350 image post only if you publish to Instagram - it shows no link preview in feed.
- Skip every other “platform size” chart; the link feeds already agreed on one shape.
The honest version of a social-sizes guide is short: one file for the feeds that unfurl links, plus two extras only if you actually use Pinterest or Instagram. And when you do run all of them, building the set from one design keeps it a single cover, not six separate files. Everything else is the same 1200×630 under a different logo.
I made the cover for this post in Lede at 1200×630, the size that does the five-feed job in one file. When you want to make yours, open the editor - it has a preset for the social card and the tall pin both, a gallery of templates to start from, and a one-click 2x WebP export. Build the one card, point your og:image at it, and ship.