Colin & Samir are the thinking creator's creators: restrained, editorial, no MrBeast theatrics. We ran two of their thumbnails through Thumbly Score to see whether good taste actually wins, or just feels nice.
Instagram Reels covers are 1080 × 1920 (9:16) in the player, but your profile grid crops them to a 1:1 square. Here's how to design one cover that works in both.
YouTube is the #1 share of US TV viewing. Thumbnails uploaded today get rendered on 65-inch screens, not just phones. The 'design for the mobile thumbnail rail' advice every guide repeats is now actively costing you clicks.
MrBeast spends millions getting thumbnails right. We scored two of his biggest ones with Thumbly, applied the fixes it suggested, and re-scored. Here's what held up, what we'd change, and what you can steal.
One chart with the exact thumbnail and cover size for YouTube, Shorts, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook in 2026, plus a link to the full guide for each platform.
TikTok covers are 1080 × 1920 (9:16), but the username, caption, and buttons sit on top of them. Here's where to keep your text so it doesn't get buried.
Shorts get custom thumbnails now. The right size is 1080 × 1920 (9:16), not the 16:9 you use for long-form. Here's why that matters and how to add one.
Most thumbnail advice is surface-level: 'use bright colors' and 'add faces.' Here's what's actually happening in your viewer's brain during the 1.3 seconds they decide whether to click.
The YouTube thumbnail size is 1280 × 720 at 16:9, and in 2026 YouTube started recommending up to 4K. Here's the full spec, what changed, and the size that matters more than the resolution.