The Perfect Facebook Cover Photo Size & Best Practices (2024 Update)

facebook cover photo size

Facebook cover photos are a perfect example of how social media marketing is different than just regular social media usage. A great personal cover photo can be anything that we think looks great on profile; our business cover photos need to do much more.

A Page’s Facebook cover photo needs to be branded and represent our business. It also must be high-quality and perfectly optimized for display; this means knowing the perfect Facebook cover photo size.

This post is going to take a look at the perfect Facebook cover photo size and best cover photo practices to help your images represent your business exactly how you want.

Bonus: We’ve integrated Facebook’s cover photo dimensions and safe zones into our graphic design tool. It will look perfect on mobile and desktop! Create a Facebook cover photo for free!

Facebook Cover Photo Dimensions

According to Facebook, your cover photo displays at 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall on computers and 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall on smartphones.

This is a great starting point, but of course it’s never quite that simple. It’s tricky because your Facebook cover displays differently on mobile and desktop devices.

Therefore, we recommend using the dimensions 820px by 360px and to keep all text and graphics in the middle safe zone as per the specifications below:

Facebook cover photo dimensions and safe zones

Cover Photos on Desktop vs. Mobile

When designing your Facebook cover photo, you need to be careful because the cover image is displayed differently on mobile and desktop. Although, designing with safe zones in mind will get you a Facebook cover photo that will display properly on both devices.

Snappa facebook cover on mobile

Fortunately, Facebook doesn’t stretch and distort an image to fit a certain dimension; it crops it automatically instead. On a mobile device, your Facebook cover photo will crop out the sides, while showing more of the cover photo’s height.

facebook cover photo on desktop

Alternatively on a desktop device, Facebook displays more of your cover photo’s width while cropping the top and bottom.

With all that being said, we recommend using the Facebook cover photo size of 820 pixels by 360 pixels and designing within the safe zones. This will ensure that none of the critical components of your cover photo are getting cut off on mobile devices or on desktop.

How to Create a Facebook Cover Photo with Snappa

If you’re ready to create a Facebook cover photo, our powerful and easy-to-use graphics builder has made this process incredibly simple. Here’s a step-by-step video showing you how to create a Facebook cover photo with the right size using Snappa.

Here are some screenshots to help walk you through the whole process. You can choose the Facebook cover photo pre-set for an automatic perfect cover photo size.

Facebook cover image preset

Once you’ve selected this option, you can choose from one of our pre-made Facebook Cover templates (which is fully customizable) or create a cover photo from scratch.

Facebook cover photo templates

Even if you use a template, you can upload your own image or choose from our library of images. Add text, graphics, shapes, and effects to any part of the image. All of these add-ons can be dragged and dropped easily; you can define the opacity of each, and choose what layer you want them to show up in.

Facebook cover graphic

You’ll notice that we also include an overlay showing the mobile and desktop only zones of your Facebook cover so you’ll never have to worry about text and graphics getting cut off.

What Should My Facebook Cover Photo Be?

Aside from choosing something that is both high quality and relevant to our business, it can be difficult to know exactly what your cover photo should feature. That depends entirely on you, your business, and what you believe your target audience will be most receptive to.

Some great ideas for use cases of cover photos include:

  • Use your cover photo drive sales or lead generation. I believe very strongly that the “social” should come before “marketing” in social media marketing, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no room to promote your business. A cover photo designed to drive sales or leads, combined with a relevant CTA Page button, can get you more results without a lot of extra work on your part.
    Title Boxing Club Oviedo Facebook cover
  • Feature UGC. User generated content is one of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal; using this authentic type of content in your cover photo can go a long way in rapport and loyalty building.
  • Advertise upcoming events. If you have a free webinar, a conference, or even a social contest that’s coming up soon, don’t be afraid to feature it in your Facebook cover photo. It’s an effective way to let new users know about it right away
    Social Media Examiner Facebook cover
  • Demonstrate product features & benefits. This can tie into sales, but showcasing product benefits can also immediately set you apart from the competition.
    Snappa facebook cover photo
  • Show off your store. If you happen to have a storefront or an office space where you’re located, it can make a gorgeous photo and increase foot traffic.
  • Feature team members & employees. Employee generated content (EGC) can be just as valuable as UGC, and featuring real employees in your cover photo can humanize your business and show the real people behind it.

Creative Facebook Cover Photo Ideas

If you’re looking for some inspiration, look no further than these 6 creative cover photo examples we’ve designed for small and online businesses.

Adding Hand-Drawn Illustrations

Keep your cover photo playful and fun by adding some hand-drawn illustrations to your banner. Illustrations are a great way to add some spice to your images without taking away from the core message. If you have a cover photo designed and you’re wondering what more you can do – try adding some illustrations in from our library.

Creative Facebook Cover Image

Using Shapes & Outlines

Make your Facebook visuals stand out by adding shapes to your designs. There are endless ways that you can incorporate shapes into your Facebook cover images and you can use different color variations and outlines to make your banner pop!

Shapes in Facebook Cover Photo Example

Using Lifestyle Image & Removing Text

Less is more when it comes to designing a strong Facebook banner image. A good way to showcase your business is to incorporate a simple lifestyle photo that is relevant to your brand and to remove text. Text isn’t needed in your cover photos and if it doesn’t add any value – removing it will keep the image minimal.

Lifestyle Facebook Cover Photo Example

Adding Contrast to Text & Photo

Having a busy Facebook background image can take away from your banner text. To help your text stand out, add some contrast by darkening the background and bolding your headings. Doing so allows for followers to easily read the text without distraction.

Fitness Cover Photo for Facebook

Adding Playful Icons

Catch visitor attention by using relevant icons in your Facebook cover photo. You can add icons around your text or if you go with the more minimal approach, you can solely use icons in your design. Be creative and a good tip is to match your Facebook background with your icon colors.

Facebook Cover Photo Example with Icons

Following a Color Palette

Create an aesthetic Facebook cover photo by following a cohesive color palette. Use our color palette inspiration guide as a way to find a color combo that suits your branding. Being consistent and sticking with a few colors will significantly improve your design and help your banner image look professional!

Colorful Fashion Facebook Cover Photo

Facebook Cover Photo Mistakes to Avoid

While you can choose any number of images for your Page’s cover photo, there are a few practices you should stay away from. Certain mistakes will detract from your Page, and may even detract from how new users perceive your business.

Some big Facebook cover photo mistakes businesses should avoid include:

  • Using the same cover photo. Facebook header images differ in sizing across Facebook events and Facebook groups. Use the proper dimensions to optimize your pages.
  • Having too much text. Some text is great, especially if it’s being used for branding. Some photos, though, only have text overlay against a solid backdrop. This is typically not a good move, even if you’re focusing on an insanely motivational quote; instead, your cover photo should actually be an image that’s able to speak (mostly) for itself.
  • Too much clutter. We’ve all seen pictures on social media that have so much going on that looking at them too long might give us a headache. There’s lots of colors and focal points and things to look at. While this might sound appealing at first (it will definitely draw the eye, at least), it’s just difficult to focus on and can even look sloppy.
  • Not taking the current Page format into consideration. Remember when profile pictures showed up in the bottom corner of the cover photo, and sometimes important parts of the image were cut out? Facebook changes it’s formatting fairly often; every time they do, check your photo on mobile and desktop to make sure nothing is getting cut off. To stay up-to-date with changes, check out our post on new Facebook page layout updates!
  • Choosing something generic. You want your cover photo to jump out at users; that’s partially what it’s there for. Choosing a generic image that could be about your business somehow won’t have the impact that you’re looking for.
  • Not adding branding. When possible, adding subtle branding like your logo to the image can make a big difference with brand recognition.

Where to Find Great Cover Photos

Some amazing cover photos will just be made from graphics, like Buffer’s and Drip’s. Others will utilize actual photographs. Whichever you choose, there are plenty of resources you can pull images from if you don’t have a high-quality image that you’ve taken yourself.

These include:

  • Free stock photo sites like StockSnap, Pexels and Unsplash, which offer free stock photos available for commercial use.
  • User generated content, which is free and often available in abundance. Some UGC is extremely high quality, and many users would be honored if you used it as part of your cover photo.

Final Thoughts

The perfect Facebook cover photo size goes a long way in helping you make a great first impression with new users. Your image look good when displayed on both mobile and desktop, without bizarre cropping or the image showing up off-center. Combining the perfect cover photo size with Facebook cover photo best practices can help you build the social presence and reputation that you want to create for your business.

What do you think? What does your perfect Facebook cover photo look like? How do you use your cover photo to represent your business? Let us know in the comments below!

  • Josh Calderon February 4, 2017, 11:36 am

    Thank you so much for this amazing post, It gave me some awesome ideas on how to improve my facebook cover photo and for that I am grateful. 🙂

  • LA Thompson February 8, 2017, 11:43 am

    Thank you for the information and visual examples! Very informative and useful!

  • Ana February 9, 2017, 4:04 pm

    Fantastic!

  • Emmerey Rose February 19, 2017, 10:06 pm

    Cover photos and other visuals definitely helps a lot in drawing somebody’s attention. And certainly, Facebook should be optimized. I was wondering, is snappa a free tool to use? or do I need to pay for an upgrade? would love to check it out!

  • Christopher Gimmer February 20, 2017, 9:26 am

    Hi Emmerey. We have both free and paid plans. You can check out the pricing here:
    https://snappa.com/pricing

    Hope that helps 🙂

  • Emmerey Rose February 22, 2017, 10:41 pm

    Thanks Christopher! Glad to hear you have free version of it. Would love to try it out some time before deciding to purchase 🙂

  • Ana February 23, 2017, 7:55 pm

    I’m so glad!

  • kikisoso - nick elliott March 27, 2017, 4:13 am

    Nice post. One of the things I find a little bit tricky with Facebook pages is the size of your logo/avatar. The problem is that if you have say, a rather long company name which means your logo does not fit into the avatar without it becoming illegible, then you need to use your header area which is in a way, a shame as it is essentially your shop window. This is not the end of the world but it does require a bit of clever thinking. I find the best solution in these cases is to create a FB Header template in Photoshop where the logo is placed as a top layer and will always appear in the same place whenever you want to upload new product images or latest news imagery etc. Just make sure you put the logo in a good position 😉

  • Oleksa Shved November 2, 2017, 1:34 pm

    Hi, @agotter:disqus you have updated date of publication of your article and this made me think that the examples of cover photo crop (wider on desktop and narrower on mobile) that you provided are up to date… But they are not!
    As of today (2017-11-02) Facebook Cover photo has the same width on desktop and on mobile (just the height is different).
    You should definitely update your article, as misleading info could lead to time wasting for people who use provided guidelines…

  • PastureMuffins November 9, 2017, 3:55 pm

    What are the file size limitations?

  • Wallups P Junklehead November 28, 2017, 6:21 pm

    Looks like Facebook changed things up… banner sizes are all messed up now.

  • technikola December 15, 2017, 4:42 am

    Very useful post visuals are helpful . I got very impressed.
    Nice work keep it up…..

  • David Prian December 13, 2018, 11:11 am

    Quick question, and I’m not being pretentious, but when I checked out your (Snappa) Facebook on both desktop and mobile to get a better idea on how you guys did yours, and it doesn’t come up correctly on mobile…? C’mon guys! You literally wrote the blog article on it. All the text goes off to the side.

    What is a good solutions where you only have to create one image that displays well on both desktop and mobile?

  • Christopher Gimmer December 13, 2018, 11:44 am

    Hi David,

    Mobile covers display at 640px by 360px mobile. So if you want it to display well on both mobile and desktop, your best bet is to design at 812px by 360px to cover the max width of desktop and the max heigh on mobile. Then you’ll want to ensure that any key text / imagery that you want visible only takes up 640px worth of width (78% or less).

    We’re actually considering modifying our Facebook cover photo within Snappa to accomodate for this more easily.

  • David Prian December 13, 2018, 12:51 pm

    Hi Chris,

    Thanks for the response. I completely understand. I am going through the same process right now for many of my clients. As a matter of fact, my graphic designer and I are going over a coupe design ideas right now to come up with that perfect format that displays equally aesthetically pleasing on both mobile and desktop.

    Great blog, keep up the great work!

  • Christopher Gimmer December 20, 2018, 8:31 am

    Hi David. Just wanted to let you know that we’ve updated our Facebook cover photo size within Snappa and we’ve included a handy safe zone toggle feature so you can easily see which portions of your photo will be cut off on mobile and desktop devices. We’ve also included updated instructions and recommendations within this post.

    Hope that helps!

  • Christopher Gimmer December 20, 2018, 10:09 am

    Hi David. Just wanted to let you know that we’ve updated our Facebook cover photo size within Snappa and we’ve included a handy safe zone toggle feature so you can easily see which portions of your photo will be cut off on mobile and desktop devices. We’ve also included updated instructions and recommendations within this post.

    Hope that helps!

  • frankvelazquez December 22, 2018, 4:35 am

    davidprian yes

  • David Prian December 22, 2018, 9:13 am

    That’s awesome! Way to keep improving!

  • Nick Le January 7, 2019, 12:23 pm

    Hey there, we just went ahead and updated the post to optimize for the changes! The banner sizes should be optimized for mobile and desktop now!

  • gumby43 January 7, 2019, 4:03 pm

    I just tried it and my mobile is still getting cropped on the ends.

  • Nick Le January 7, 2019, 5:07 pm

    Hi there, so the cover still crops on mobile and desktop, but we’ve added safe zones to help you design around this. The safe zones will make sure that the elements of your design will not be cropped by Facebook.

  • Jain January 20, 2019, 8:01 am

    NOT Working! (for laptop use) There are also 2 other dimension that i dont understand (Y scale) and no one seems to say what they should be. Anyone knows on here>

  • Mind Taser January 20, 2019, 8:21 am

    I used the Snappa fb “cover” template to create my fb Group page HEADER, but when I view it on my desktop computer it does not fit and information is cut off? What am I doing wrong?

  • Mind Taser January 20, 2019, 8:23 am

    Not true! My design is cropped when I use my desktop to view it! This is crazy!

  • Mind Taser January 20, 2019, 8:27 am

    Who is “we?” Is “we” Snappa? I assume so.
    And when you write “we’ve included updated instructions, why not add the DATE you included updated instructions…such as (1/6/19)? Without a “date” the readers have no reference for “updated instructions.”
    Please add a “date” when you update something and refer to it!
    Thanks!

  • Mind Taser January 20, 2019, 8:35 am

    The fact that you are “modifying” is no comfort to us! This means you are in the process of….
    The Snappa cover template fails! When will it actually work?

  • Nick Le January 21, 2019, 12:28 pm

    Hi Jain, have you tried designing with the dimensions 812 px by 360 px within the safe zones? Also are you trying to create a Facebook cover for your business / personal profile or are you trying to create one for a group? These may all be factors that are contributing to your cropped cover photo.

  • Nick Le January 21, 2019, 12:31 pm

    Hi there, the Facebook cover photo dimensions that we provided are for personal profiles and for business pages. A group Facebook cover photo is different and has a different set of dimensions. Hope that helps!

  • Mind Taser January 23, 2019, 3:59 pm

    I see. So Snappa offers a template for the “facebook cover photo.”
    Does Snappa offer a template for a ” facebook Group Cover Photo?”
    I don’t see it in your list?

  • Nick Le February 10, 2019, 12:26 pm

    Hi there, we actually just added this into the application! You can find it when you create a graphic in Snappa now. Hope that helps!

  • Nicolae Casîr March 16, 2019, 10:00 am

    This article sux! I spent a lot of time making image 820×360 and it’s not perfect size!!!

  • PRADEEP SINGH RAGHUVANSHI March 17, 2019, 1:03 am

    My Facebook business page cover not showing and not upload any video becose I uploaded any time same video. Now what I can do for…. Give me solution please.

  • PRADEEP SINGH RAGHUVANSHI March 17, 2019, 1:09 am

    How will do now

  • PRADEEP SINGH RAGHUVANSHI March 17, 2019, 1:15 am

    Please tell me what i can do now

  • Linda O'Brien March 25, 2019, 6:30 pm

    FYI: Data is no longer accurate as of 3/25/2019 based on your 1/1/2019 update. I just used your updated dimensions as a test and it is clearly not valid data. The Desktop view chops the top and bottom and the mobile view chops the sides of what you call the “safe zone” within the recommended size. I suggest you update again.

  • Nick Le March 26, 2019, 9:19 am

    Hi Linda, our dimensions and templates are made with these limitations in mind. These safe zones are meant to show you where you should or shouldn’t design. Our overlay shows that the sides are chopped off on mobile and only shown on desktop. While the top and bottom are shown on mobile, but chopped on desktop. The best way to design would be to avoid the greyed out areas. Hope that helps, cheers.

  • Buckeye Slim April 8, 2019, 11:33 am

    For those interested in what the actual dimensions are for a Facebook cover photo displayed in a web browser on a desktop, rather than mobile, device, the size is 851 x 314.

    This can easily be confirmed by doing a screen capture of the area around the a FB cover page, loading it into your favorite picture editing software, doing a free-form crop down to the very edges of the cover photo, and then checking the resulting image dimensions.

    If you’re going to title a webpage “The Perfect Facebook Cover Photo Size”, you might want to get the actual dimensions correct.

  • Christopher Gimmer April 8, 2019, 11:48 am

    We outline the desktop only dimensions in the article as well 🙂

    Most people want to ensure that their Facebook cover looks great on both mobile and desktop devices hence why we provide the recommendations above.

    Cheers

  • Buckeye Slim April 8, 2019, 5:50 pm

    Except it’s not what your article says it is. It’s actually 851 x 314. For those of us who only care about what the cover photo looks like in a desktop web browser, and want to ensure that what people see is *exactly* what we’ve cropped and sized, 851 x 314 is the size they need to use.

  • Wesley R. Williams April 24, 2019, 11:00 am

    Great Information for Facebook ads banner. This idea help me a lot for promoting my business. Thanks for sharing you experience and Visual examples.Have a good day, Cheers!!

  • Nick Le April 24, 2019, 12:48 pm

    Hi Wesley, glad you found the article useful! Thanks for stopping by and checking out the blog post.

  • BerkeleyBecca April 25, 2019, 5:25 pm

    Interstitial ads are the worst invention on the web. When I come to a page to learn something, don’t shove “sign up for our newsletter!” in my face the second I pause scrolling.

  • Nick Le May 6, 2019, 2:24 pm

    Hi Nicolae, can you explain what is wrong with your graphic and what is the issue after uploading your Facebook cover photo? Also it’s important to make sure you are creating a Facebook cover photo for either your personal page or your business page since a cover photo for your event or Facebook group has different sizing.

  • kkanedaa May 10, 2019, 7:11 pm

    Hello,

    Thanks for the information and examples provided, but shouldn’t we multiply the dimension (both width and height) by 2 to account for Retina displays? I’m wondering why no one has asked this yet, or why it is not mentioned in the article.

    Thanks in advance.

  • Kehre Erhek May 14, 2019, 4:20 am

    I followed the suggestions given in the article and until a few days ago the cover images of my pages were correctly displayed on desktop and mobile devices; but now, on mobile devices only, I see my covers squashed horizontally and stretched vertically.

  • Nick Le May 16, 2019, 4:18 pm

    Hi there, in Snappa, we’ve actually provided an option when you download to download the graphic as either Retina JPG or Retina PNG. Hopefully that helps!

  • Jennie Brantley May 18, 2019, 10:08 pm

    There’s a part that says Facebook doesn’t stretch or distort images for covers, it crops them. I’m not sure if it’s due to their recent updates or if it’s a Facebook mobile app vs mobile browser issue that has always existed, but for some images, even at the recommended dimensions, in the mobile browser (iOS safari for example) Facebook stretches and distorts the images, and also many of them are blurry. This is true whether you use their recommended photo slide show for your cover, size your cover perfectly, or just use a random background.

    I haven’t figured out yet what causes some to look ok and some not too, but many look downright awful.

    You might want to do more research to cover the mobile browsing experience since not everyone uses the app, and maybe you can find out why.

    Facebook pages like Twitter, TDL, and the Microsoft Store suffer from this (see pics attached). So is this Facebook allowing optimization with the browser and failing with the new larger screens on phones? Whatever it is, your article definitely needs a fact check because they aren’t cropping the photos, they are being optimized. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b3682cacfbf3505f28b3eeadf8f12ec2f64557
    e58c81580fa8128c7ee13dcf6.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/414b3fa5a3fab0a068af99b24724a0ef19079facbbadebf76f32aaad1444bbca.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e523a8f1320499499dd383edc6a9b7dc299a585b059509b9dceef2344e322d81.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/
    8b3682cacfbf3505f28b3eeadf8f12ec2f64557e58c81580fa8128c7ee13dcf6.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/78ccd27a915f5cb08128e5b52711603e45355efabe0be7da4830058d9f476ad9.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b3682cacfbf3505f28b3eeadf8f12ec2f64557e58c81580fa8128c7ee13dcf6.png

  • Jennie Brantley May 18, 2019, 10:11 pm

    Yep I’ve noticed this too, so the article says Facebook doesn’t skew photos, so to speak, but only crops them, maybe it’s due to the recent changes in Facebook, but that statement is no longer true. Covers that were recently perfect on mobile and desktop alike are now skewed.

    I think Facebook is allowing for mobile optimization instead of cropping, but it’s not optimizing correctly. My recommendation is to wait it out since this is occurring on regular photos used in their native cover photo slideshow too.

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  • Müller Weber July 2, 2019, 6:53 am

    I actually like the previous size 815 x 351. The new size also good but now I have to focus on the mobile viewable part. Anyway thanks for sharing this.

  • Jerry Silver July 22, 2019, 3:07 am

    Don’t know if things have changed in the past few days or if there’s something I’m not understanding. I followed the instructions in this post, keeping my safe zone 640 px wide. But at that size the edges were cropped on my Samsung S7 Edge. After experimenting I found that around 550 px was the maximum width for that device. So now I’m wondering – do different mobile devices have different display requirements?

  • danfancy July 27, 2019, 10:54 pm

    Useful tips and inspiration. I’m still a bit confused about the difference between cover photo and event cover photo.

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    This will help new users—both new and returning—know which hashtag to use when sharing UGC, which can help drive engagement.
    6.

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    The logo and business name shows up on the door of the truck, so it feels natural in the image, but it’s still there.

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    6.

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    This can drive major conversions, especially with a “Book Now” CTA immediately below it.
    4.

  • A Web Revolution March 29, 2021, 11:32 pm

    To help your text stand out, add some contrast by darkening the background and bolding your headings.

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