Instagram Reels safe zone, measured in pixels.

The Instagram Reels safe zone is the part of a 1080×1920 Reel that the interface leaves clear. Meta's ads guide says to keep the top 14%, the bottom 35% and 6% on each side free of text and logos — about 269 px, 672 px and 65 px on this frame.

Reels and TikTok share the 1080×1920 canvas and little else. Reels keeps 330 px at the bottom for the profile and caption, puts its buttons in a narrow rail from x 996 and its sponsored tag at y 154–250; TikTok Spark Ads keep 484 px at the bottom.

Reuse TikTok margins on Reels and you give up about 154 px at the bottom of every frame. Reuse Reels margins on TikTok and it is worse: a line placed just above the Reels rail lands on TikTok's Shop Now button.

Measured on a 1080×1920 frame, Reels ads draw four things over the video: a 210 px status and top bar, a sponsored tag at x 43–389, action buttons from x 996 between y 614 and y 1460, and a 330 px profile and caption rail along the bottom.

Treat the bottom rail as a minimum: the caption preview grows when a viewer taps "more". On a paid Reel, Meta Ads Manager's placement preview has the final word.

For paid Reels, keep prices, codes and captions above y 1248 — Meta's 35% line — and between x 65 and x 1015. For organic Reels the interface itself is the limit: above y 1590 and left of x 996. CapQA's caption slot ends at y 1244, inside both.

CapQA's 900×1400 safe zone (x 90–990, y 260–1660) loses only its bottom 70 px to the Reels rail. Meta's line cuts higher, so on a paid Reel keep codes and prices above y 1248.

Organic Reels drop the sponsored tag and the call to action; the profile rail and the action buttons stay where they are. CapQA's Reels preset uses the ad layout, because a covered price costs money there, and boosting a Reel later doesn't re-edit the video.

One layout clears all three if it respects each platform's worst edge: TikTok's 484 px Spark Ads stack at the bottom, the Shorts ads rail from x 936 on the right and, for paid Reels, Meta's 35% line at y 1248. CapQA's caption slot, y 916–1244, sits above all three bottom limits.

Four placements put text under the Reels interface: a price sticker in the bottom rail, a logo under the sponsored tag, a line that runs under the action buttons, and a 4:5 export that shifts every line. Each one shows up in the free check on a still from your own video.

• Price stickers in the bottom rail

  Anything below y 1590 sits under the profile, caption and audio row, and on ads Meta asks for the whole bottom 35% — below y 1248 — to stay free of text.

• A logo under the sponsored tag

  On ads, a top-left logo between y 154 and y 250 competes with the account name.

• Lines that run to the right edge

  Long captions slide under the action buttons from x 996.

• A 4:5 export

  Reels plays 9:16. A 4:5 master plays with bars above and below it, which shifts every line of text against the interface.

Drop the video into the free check and pick Reels Ads. It draws the rail, the buttons and the sponsored tag over your own video, in your browser; nothing is uploaded. Then flip to the TikTok and Shorts tabs.