Clip Export Settings, Platform by Platform

Aspect ratio is the only setting that changes reach

Short-form feeds are 9:16. A clip exported at 16:9 gets letterboxed into a fraction of the screen, and a smaller clip is a weaker clip — less area for a face, less area for captions, less of the viewer's screen occupied while they decide whether to keep watching. That's the whole reason reframing exists.

Everything else on the export screen is hygiene. Get 9:16 right and you've made the decision that matters.

The exception is where you post outside the short-form feeds. LinkedIn video and in-feed Facebook do better at 1:1 or 4:5, which fills more of a scrolling desktop or timeline view than a tall crop does. Multi-aspect export covering 9:16, 1:1, 16:9, and 4:5 is on Pro and above, and it's the feature that makes cross-posting to those surfaces worth doing rather than an afterthought.

The reframe decision you should check

Converting a landscape source to vertical means throwing away most of the frame, and which part you keep matters.

For a single speaker, keeping them centred through the whole clip is the right default, including when they move. A static centre crop looks fine until someone leans out of frame and you're staring at an empty chair.

For two people in conversation, cutting between speakers as they talk reads far better than a wide shot with two small heads. It's the difference between a clip that feels edited and one that feels cropped.

For gaming, a split layout with the facecam above the gameplay preserves both the reaction and the thing being reacted to, which is the entire content. And on Scale, multi-region layouts handle the more awkward sources — three people, a screen share plus a talking head.

Whichever applies, watch the first two seconds before you export. That's where framing errors are most expensive and easiest to spot. The vertical converter page covers the mechanics.

Length: what each feed actually rewards

TikTok allows long uploads and rewards completion. For clip content that usually means 21-34 seconds — long enough to contain a real moment, short enough that a decent share of viewers finish it. Longer works when the payoff genuinely needs the runtime.

YouTube Shorts allows up to three minutes now, which has changed the calculus: a 60-90 second clip with a proper setup can outperform the same moment cut to 30. Shorts viewers arrive with more patience than TikTok viewers.

Instagram Reels sits in between, with 15-45 seconds performing most consistently for clip content and audio choice mattering more than it does elsewhere.

The common error is cutting to a target length rather than to the moment. A joke that lands at 19 seconds should be 19 seconds, not padded to 30. More detail in best clip length for each platform.

Resolution, and what isn't worth your time

1080p vertical is the practical standard and what every plan from Starter up exports. Every platform re-encodes what you upload, so the difference between a good 1080p file and a pristine one mostly disappears on the way in.

4K export exists on Scale and is genuinely useful in two cases: you're archiving masters you'll re-edit later, or your source is high-resolution and you want headroom for punch-ins and crops without softening. If neither applies, 4K costs you upload time and buys nothing a viewer will see.

Watermarks are a real setting though. The free plan watermarks output; every paid tier from Starter up exports clean. Some clippers add their own watermark deliberately as attribution when clips get re-uploaded, which is a different decision from being forced into one — brand kits let you set a custom watermark on Pro and above.

The last piece is where the file goes. Auto-posting to 9 short-form destinations on a spaced schedule means the export settings get applied per destination and you're not exporting, downloading, and uploading three times. Details on posting to multiple platforms.