Formats
Instagram Video Ad Specs and Formats
Short answer: Pluto's standard deliverables include vertical (9:16), square (1:1), and paid-ready cuts, all formatted for Instagram feed, Stories, and Reels with full sound design and captions baked in. Every project arrives with two rounds of changes and full usage rights in writing, so you can upload and run immediately without format surprises.
Why specs matter more than you think
Most founders and smaller brands don't realize that a video that looks great on your phone doesn't automatically work as an Instagram ad. The platform crops, the aspect ratio shifts, sound gets muted by default in feeds, and captions either show up or they don't depending on the cut. Many in-house teams or cheap freelancers deliver one format and hope it scales. It doesn't. You end up re-editing, delaying launch, or worse—running an ad that looks broken or gets ignored because the copy was cut off.
Pluto builds ads that work. Every project comes finished in vertical (9:16 for Stories and Reels), square (1:1 for feed), and a paid-ready cut optimized for Instagram's ad delivery specs. Captions and text are positioned so they survive any crop. Sound design is mixed to work with or without audio on. You get three formats ready to test on day one, not three revision requests.
What you're actually getting
Vertical cut (9:16): Full-screen Stories and Reels format. Essential for the feeds where most of your audience scrolls.
Square cut (1:1): Feed-native format. Works on desktop, mobile, and carousel placements without letterboxing.
Paid-ready cut: Meta's technical specs built in—resolution, bitrate, file format, safe zones for text and logos. Upload and run, no encoding guesswork.
Full sound design: Music, voiceover, SFX, and captions mixed into each cut so the ad works even when viewers have sound off (the default in feed).
How this saves you time and money
You don't need to learn Instagram's technical specs. You don't need to hire an editor to reformat or a sound engineer to remix. You don't need to wait five days for changes to propagate through three different tools. The small senior team at Pluto handles all of it. You review one set of three finished cuts, ask for changes (two rounds included), and when you approve, you own the work—full usage rights in writing on day one. No extra fees to run it on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or your website.
Most brands waste two weeks and hundreds of dollars retrofitting ads because the first version looked good in preview but failed in the real feed. This doesn't happen at Pluto because the work is built for the format from frame one.
Timeline and cost
A first cut is ready in days. The full project, including revisions and all three formats, is usually done in about a week. Pricing is a fixed quote up front, approved before work begins. Projects start around a few hundred dollars and scale with the complexity and scope of the work—Spark for simple spots, Brand and Studio packages for larger productions.
If you're ready to move faster and own ads built for Instagram from the start, the team is ready to talk scope and lock in a fixed price.
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