Threads Ads in 2026: Every Spec, Every Format, and the 4:5 Crop Rule (Verified July 2026)

Threads ads max out at 4:5 since October 28, 2025: the recommendation is 1080 x 1350, and anything taller, including the 9:16 Stories export you already have, gets silently center-cropped down to 4:5. Most pages ranking for Threads specs still print the 1:1 and 1440 x 1440 numbers that died that day; every spec below is checked against Meta's changelog and help pages, July 2026.

The 2026 Threads Ads Spec Table: Every Format in One Place

Verified July 2026 against Meta's Threads ads help page and the Ads Guide feed image block, cross-checked against PPC Land's Meta changelog coverage. Where aggregators disagree with Meta's changelog, the changelog wins.

Numbers you will find elsewhere that do NOT belong in this table: the 100 MB image cap and 500-character text limit are organic Threads post specs, the 20-card carousel is organic too, and the 60-second, 4 GB, H.264 video figures circulating in guides are generic Meta feed specs that Meta has never confirmed for Threads ads.

The Ratio Rule Everyone Still Gets Wrong

From launch in January 2025 through October 27, 2025, Threads center-cropped every ad to 1:1, and Meta's technical docs listed 1440 x 1440 as the recommended resolution. On October 28, 2025 the crop target moved to 4:5. Today uploads from 1.91:1 to 9:16 are accepted, but accepted is not rendered: anything taller than 4:5 is cropped and vertically centered to 4:5. Here is what that does to a real 1080 x 1920 ad, rendered for real at each stage.

Jan-Oct 2025: 1:1 eraEverything squared; 1440 x 1440 was the documented rec

lost to the crop

lost to the crop

Your 9:16 upload todayThreads keeps the central 70%; headline and CTA sit in the amputation zone

What Threads renders: 4:51080 x 1350; the product survives, the words do not

One real file, three real renders. The 1:1 and 4:5 panels are actual center crops of the 9:16 original, at geometrically true ratios. A creative designed at 4:5 from the start keeps its headline and CTA inside the frame; the three example ads further down do exactly that.

The comparison that matters for your asset library: Threads and Instagram feed both cap practically at 4:5 today, but Threads got there twelve months late, its crop is a hard center-crop of accepted-but-taller uploads, and the stale 1:1 documentation trail is Threads-specific. Threads reads like Instagram feed but renders like Instagram feed from a different year, so the safe move is one 4:5 master that serves both.

1:1

4:5

One upload, the right shape for each surface.

The free Meta Ad Resizer outputs the 4:5 and 1:1 Threads renders natively (this pair is its real output), plus 9:16 for Stories. Its 4:5 export exists precisely so you never feed Threads a 9:16 it will mutilate.

Resize an ad free

Threads Image Ad Specs

One image, JPG or PNG, 30 MB cap, minimum width 600 pixels. Export at 1080 x 1350 for the full 4:5 slot or 1080 x 1080 if you are reusing a square master; both render without modification. Wider ratios down to 1.91:1 also render as uploaded, they just buy less screen. The only shape that gets rewritten is anything taller than 4:5.

Primary text truncates around 125 to 150 characters in the feed. Meta's recommended range conflicts across its own surfaces (roughly 50-150 in the feed image block) and PPC Land prints 80-160; the truncation point is the operative number, so front-load the claim. Headline support on the placement is present but limited, with the same conflict: 27 characters by Meta's conservative feed guidance, 40 by secondary sources. Write to 27 and both camps are satisfied.

Threads Video Ad Specs

Video joined the placement on August 15, 2025 and the ratio rule is the explicit part: 1.91:1 through 4:5 renders unaltered, taller than 4:5 is center-cropped to 4:5. A Reels vertical dropped into a Threads-enabled campaign loses its top and bottom bands exactly like the image demo above.

Duration, codec, and file-size caps: Meta publishes none for Threads. Every 60-second or 4 GB figure you find is borrowed from organic posts or generic feed specs. Practical call: encode what you already run on Instagram feed (MP4, H.264) at 4:5 and you are inside every limit Meta has hinted at without betting on an unpublished one.

Threads Carousel Ad Specs

Carousels arrived October 6, 2025: 2 to 10 cards, image only, no video cards, no dynamic media, and the same ratio on every card. 1:1 at 1080 x 1080 per card is the working standard. Placement customization is not supported, so the same cards run everywhere the campaign delivers; if your Facebook carousel leans on video cards, Threads will not take it.

Advantage+ catalog ads followed on October 28, 2025, limited to static images and image carousels. No video catalog formats exist on Threads, which makes product-feed retailers the one group that can port their Meta setup with zero creative work: the catalog images they already run are the entire spec.

Buying Threads: A Placement, Not a Campaign

There is no Threads campaign type. Threads is a placement inside regular Meta campaigns: Advantage+ placements include it automatically, and in manual placements the Threads feed toggle has been ON by default for new campaigns since April 2025. You must deselect it to stay off Threads, which means many accounts have been buying Threads inventory for a year without choosing it; the placement breakdown report is where to check what it delivered.

Threads-only isolation is the same move in reverse: manual placements with everything else off. Worth doing once for reporting, because blended Advantage+ numbers will not tell you what the placement does on its own. One caveat to plan around: secondary sources consistently report that native lead forms are not supported on Threads, with leads routing to your website instead; Meta has not published a definitive objective matrix, so verify in Ads Manager before building a lead-gen flight around the placement.

The Specs Meta Doesn't Publish

Three fields every trafficking sheet wants and no Meta page provides. Knowing they are unpublished is itself the spec; anyone printing a hard number for these is guessing.

• No safe-zone template. The top-14% and bottom-20% margins circulating for Threads are Meta's 9:16 Stories and Reels safe zone, and they do not apply to the Threads feed. The next section shows what actually threatens your creative.
• No video duration or file-size cap. Meta's Threads documentation gives no duration ceiling; every number in the wild is borrowed from organic or generic feed specs.
• No enumerated CTA list. Meta states that not all CTA buttons are available on Threads placements and never says which ones. The standard Meta set (Shop Now, Learn More, Sign Up, Download, Book Now) applies minus an unpublished subset, gated by objective, so preview the actual unit before promising a button in the trafficking doc.

Safe Zones: The Crop Is the Whole Problem

Threads feed chrome does not overlay the creative. Username, avatar, and the Sponsored label sit above the image; the action row and CTA button sit below it. That makes Threads the rare placement where UI overlap is a non-issue, and it moves the entire safe-zone question to the 4:5 center crop. What follows is practitioner guidance, not a Meta template, because Meta publishes none.

The working rules: design at 4:5 and nothing gets covered or cropped. If a taller master is all you have, keep headline, CTA, and logo inside the central 4:5 band of the canvas, which on a 9:16 file means the middle 70% of its height. The same exercise for placements where UI does sit on the creative is in our Instagram story safe zones guide.

Threads by Meta's Own Numbers

Meta's June 16, 2026 Newsroom post put Threads at 500 million monthly active users. The trajectory behind that number, from Meta's own disclosures: 300 million monthly and 100 million daily in December 2024, past 320 million by April 2025, past 400 million by January 2026, 500 million in June 2026. Meta also said in April 2025 that three out of four Threads users follow at least one business.

What Meta has not published: any Threads-specific CTR, CPM, or revenue figure. The daily-active estimates and ad-revenue forecasts you see quoted come from Similarweb and sell-side analysts, not Meta, so treat them as modeling inputs at best. The honest performance read in July 2026 is that Threads is a 500-million-user surface priced inside the regular Meta auction, with no public benchmark data yet; your own placement breakdown is the only CTR source that exists.

Three Threads-Ready Example Ads

Threads is a text-first feed with a near-monochrome UI, so ads that read like a confident plain statement beat loud gradients. All three examples are built at 4:5, shown inside the feed unit they would occupy, chrome and all.

Kkova.bottlesSponsored

We made one bottle, made it right, and stopped there. 24 hours cold, zero condensation, no second version coming.

Shop now

4123821

Muted palette, lowercase headline, one product. Loud gradients read as intruders in Threads' black-and-white feed.

NnovabillSponsored

Median time from job done to invoice sent, measured across our customers last quarter: 40 seconds.

Get started

4123821

The primary text carries a specific number and no URL; on Threads the CTA button is the only road to your site anyway.

Ppaylane.hqSponsored

Payroll takes our average customer 11 minutes a month. If yours takes a weekend, that is a choice now.

Book a demo

4123821

Candid over glossy: a question headline and a desk that looks worked at, built at 4:5 so nothing gets cropped.

Text Fields and the Boring Rules

The rest of the field sheet: primary text truncates around 125 to 150 characters in the feed, so lead with the claim. Headline support is limited; write to 27 characters. Files are JPG or PNG at 30 MB with a 600-pixel minimum width. Carousels take 2 to 10 image-only cards on a single shared ratio. CTA labels come from the standard Meta set minus the unpublished Threads subset, gated by objective, so confirm the button in preview rather than in the spec doc.

What Changed, Dated

The rollout took exactly one year from first test to full inventory, and two of the dates are conflated in almost every writeup: global to advertisers was April 23, 2025; global to users was January 2026.

Those dates double as a freshness test for any Threads guide you are cross-checking. A page saying "US and Japan only" predates April 2025. "Select markets" predates January 2026. "1:1 only" or "1440 x 1440" predates October 28, 2025. The top-ranking spec guide for this query is titled 2025 and fails all three, and Meta's own Threads ads marketing page contains zero numbers and omits carousel and catalog formats entirely, which is why every figure on this page is dated and sourced instead.

Threads Ads FAQ

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