Reddit Ad Formats and Specs 2026: Every Ad Type, Size and Limit, Plus What Affiliates Can Run

Reddit sold $847 million of ads in the third quarter of 2026, 54% more than a year earlier, and averaged 130.3 million daily active users. Advertisers keep arriving, and the first thing they search for is the same: what types of Reddit ads are there, and what sizes do the creatives need?

This page puts the answer in one place, from Reddit's own Ads Help Center as of November 2026: every ad type, the specs for each, the text limits and buttons, how Reddit bills you, and which offers have to go through a Reddit sales rep before they can run at all.

Reddit ad types at a glance

Reddit has 4 self-serve ad types, catalog ads for stores and premium takeovers sold by its sales team. All self-serve types can run in both placements, the feed and the conversation page.

Comments can be switched on for every self-serve type. That's the Reddit difference: users reply to your ad like any other post, so the thread under it becomes part of the creative.

Placements: the feed and the conversation page

Feed ads appear in Home, Popular and community feeds. They look different in card view and compact view, which is why Reddit asks for a thumbnail on top of the main image.

Conversation ads sit on the comments page. They reach people reading a thread, whether they came from their feed or from a web search. Reddit recommends running both placements together "to maximize performance", and its help center confirms all ad types work in both. If your thumbnail is weak, your conversation placement is weak, because that's where the thumbnail shows.

Reddit image ad specs

Any aspect ratio uploads, but non-standard ones get letterboxed. These are the sizes Reddit recommends:

• File: JPG, PNG or GIF, up to 3 MB.
• Thumbnail: shown only in the conversation placement and compact view; generated from your image, or upload your own. Recommended 4:3 at 400 x 300 px; 1:1 at 300 x 300 and 16:9 at 400 x 225 are acceptable. JPG, PNG or GIF (GIFs become stills), up to 3 MB.

Reddit video ad specs

How the video plays depends on where it shows. In the feed it autoplays (users can turn autoplay off), in the conversation placement and on mobile web it plays on click, in compact view a click opens your landing page, and in the app a click opens a page where the video plays next to your landing page.

Reddit carousel ad specs

• 2-6 images, and Reddit strongly recommends the same ratio for all of them.
• File: JPG, PNG or GIF; GIFs up to 3 MB, other files up to 20 MB; GIF length 3-10 seconds recommended.
• Per image: its own destination URL (268 characters), caption (50 characters) and display URL (100 characters).
• Recommended ratios: 4:5 at 1200 x 1500, 4:3 at 1440 x 1080 or 16:9 at 1920 x 1080 for all devices; 1:1 at 1200 x 1200 and 3:4 at 900 x 1200 are acceptable.
• Thumbnail: taken from the first image, used in compact view only.

Reddit free-form ad specs

A free-form ad reads like a regular Reddit post, and a click opens the post, not your site. It's the format for long explanations, comparisons and step-by-step stories.

Product ads and takeovers

Dynamic product ads build themselves from your catalog. You need a product catalog, the Reddit Pixel or Conversions API, and AddToCart, ViewContent and Purchase events whose product IDs match the catalog. The campaign is a Standard campaign with the Sales objective and "Use a catalog" switched on, and Reddit picks the products for each user, either for prospecting or for retargeting people who viewed or added to cart.

Premium Takeovers are bought through Reddit's sales team, on CPM. The Reddit Takeover, Category Takeover and First View Takeover mostly follow the image and video specs, click-through URLs must use HTTPS, and animated GIFs and ProRes video aren't supported.

Text limits and call-to-action buttons

Headlines can run to 300 characters, but Reddit recommends 100 or fewer, and 80 if truncation is a concern. The other limits are the same for image, video and carousel ads:

The button comes from a fixed list of 23: Apply Now, Book Now, Buy Tickets, Contact Us, Donate Now, Download, Get Directions, Get Quote, Get Showtimes, Install, Learn More, Listen Now, Order Now, Play Now, Pre-order Now, Read More, See Menu, Shop Now, Sign Up, Subscribe, Visit Store, View More and Watch Now.

How Reddit bills you

The objective and bidding strategy decide what you pay for. In a Traffic campaign, for example, you're billed for impressions (oCPM) with the default lowest-cost strategy, or for clicks (CPC) with a cost cap. Awareness campaigns are capped on CPM or CPV, and sales, app and lead campaigns on CPC.

• Budgets can be daily or lifetime, set per campaign or per ad group, and an ad group may overspend its budget by up to 20%.
• Target cost (beta) needs at least 200 events in the last 28 days for sales and lead generation, and 120 for app promotion.
• Cost cap goes away for lower-funnel objectives (sales, app promotion, lead generation) on February 10, 2027.
• Billing window: actions within 2 hours of the ad being shown are billed.
• Max campaigns, Reddit's automated type for traffic, app promotion, sales and leads, pick the best mix of your headlines, media and buttons for each impression.

What affiliates can and can't advertise on Reddit

Reddit's rules matter more than its specs for affiliate offers. Several of the verticals affiliates run most can't use self-serve at all:

The landing page has to match the ad. Reddit requires the display URL to match the landing page, the advertised product to be available there, no spammy behavior that stops users leaving, and the same language as the ad. Even when the page is consistent with the ad, prohibited products must not be easily available or linked from it. Ads that "purposely withhold information" to get clicks, the classic curiosity headline, are treated as clickbait.

Organic Reddit is a separate game with separate rules. If you want to work communities without ads, our guide to Reddit traffic for OnlyFans offers covers how subreddits treat promotion.