Platform requirements and limits

Every platform accepts different media and different amounts of text. Pluspoint enforces each platform’s rules as you build the post. Use this article to size your assets before you start, and to work out why a platform tab in the editor is showing a warning.

Before you start

• These rules apply in the post editor at Social → Posts. See Creating and scheduling posts for the flow itself.
• The editor shows you the strictest rules for the platforms you have currently selected, and names the platform that sets each ceiling.
• Sizes are in decimal megabytes, where 1 MB is 1,000,000 bytes.

At a glance

Text limits

The All platforms tab counts against the largest limit among the platforms you selected. Each platform tab counts against its own limit, so an over-length message usually shows up there first.

Dynamic variables count towards the limit, but at a discount. The counter charges each one as its bare token name, without the square brackets, as a rough stand-in for the value that will replace it. [location] therefore counts as eight characters, not ten.

Images

• Accepted formats: .jpg, .jpeg and .png.
• File size: at least 10 KB and at most 10 MB.
• Dimensions: at least 250 × 250 pixels, and no more than 50,000,000 pixels in total.

Images larger than about 4.5 MB are re-encoded as JPEG and compressed automatically: quality drops in stages, then the image is scaled down if that is not enough. Transparent PNGs are flattened onto a white background. A file that cannot come under the size ceiling without falling below 250 × 250 pixels fails to upload.

Instagram Stories convert images to JPEG when publishing.

Videos

Videos are accepted on every platform except Google.

• Accepted format: .mp4 only, and the file is inspected to confirm it really is MP4.
• Video codec: H.264 or HEVC.
• Audio, if present: AAC.
• Length: at least 3 seconds, and never more than 15 minutes.
• Size: never more than 1,000 MB.
• Resolution: never more than 4,096 pixels on the longest side.

Each platform then applies a tighter ceiling of its own.

Resolution is compared without regard to orientation, so a 1080 × 1920 portrait clip passes a 1920 × 1080 specification.

An Instagram video is judged by two different rules. On its own it publishes as a Reel and gets the larger allowance. Add a second media item and it becomes part of a carousel, dropping to 100 MB and 60 seconds.

Note TikTok only publishes videos that were uploaded through Pluspoint. Pointing a TikTok post at an external video URL is refused at save with TikTok can only publish videos uploaded through Pluspoint — upload the file or remove TikTok.

Media counts and mixing

The uploader on the All platforms tab accepts up to 10 items. Each platform then applies its own count and its own rule about mixing images with video.

Stories

Facebook Story and Instagram Story behave differently from every other platform:

• They publish media only. There is no message editor on a story tab.
• Exactly one image or video is required.
• Aim for a 9:16 aspect ratio. Media noticeably off 9:16 gets a warning that the platform will crop it to fit.
• A published story expires 24 hours after publishing, and its link may stop working from then on.
• A published Facebook Story cannot be deleted from Pluspoint. An Instagram Story can.

Platform notes

Google

Pluspoint publishes a standard “What’s new” local post. There are no offer, event or product post types. Google posts carry an optional call-to-action button: Book, Order online, Buy, Learn more, Sign up or Call now. Every option except None and Call now requires a valid Link.

The location must have a verified, connected Google profile at the moment of publishing, not just at the moment you scheduled. Google local posts have no individual permalink, so the link on a published Google post opens the location’s Google Business Profile.

Instagram

Instagram needs time to process uploads, and Pluspoint waits up to about five minutes before giving up on that post.

Instagram has no connection of its own in Pluspoint. Eligibility comes from the Instagram account linked to that location’s Facebook page on Meta’s side. Remove that link on Meta and Instagram silently disappears from the platform picker.

TikTok

• Posts are published as private, visible only to the TikTok account that publishes them. If a creator account does not offer that visibility setting at all, publishing to it fails.
• Videos must be uploaded through Pluspoint; TikTok pulls the file from Pluspoint rather than accepting a link you paste.
• Photo posts are published with music added automatically.
• An individual creator account can enforce a shorter maximum than the 10 minutes in the table above.
• TikTok processes uploads asynchronously, so a TikTok post can sit at Publishing for several minutes before it turns into Published or Not published.
• A published TikTok post cannot be deleted from Pluspoint.

Troubleshooting

Related articles

• Creating and scheduling posts
• Social analytics
• Social
• Profiles
• TikTok
• Photos and videos