X Ads Video Specs: Two Official Pages, Two Answers

There is no single official "X Ads video specs" page. business.x.com currently serves two different pages that are both titled "Creative ad specs," both reachable, and they do not say the same thing. If you have ever been handed one set of numbers by a colleague and found different numbers when you looked them up yourself, this is usually why.

This guide shows you which two pages exist, exactly where they diverge, what they agree on, and how to export a file that satisfies both.

The two pages, and how you land on each

Both live under business.x.com/en/help/campaign-setup/:

• creative-ad-specifications — the current page.
• creative-ad-specifications-old — still online and still serving content.

There is a third URL worth knowing about: advertiser-card-specifications issues a 301 redirect to the -old page. That matters because the redirect is silent. If someone bookmarked the card-specs URL a while ago, or if an old brief or media kit links to it, they land on the -old page and read its numbers without ever seeing the word "old" in the link they clicked.

So there is no need to assume anyone mis-read a spec sheet. Two people can both be quoting X's own documentation, and still disagree.

Where the two pages disagree

Three differences, all verifiable by opening both pages.

1. Vertical Video Ads recommended length — the inequality flips

This is the most consequential one, because it inverts the advice entirely.

The current page says:

Length: <15s recommended (up to 2:20 supported)

The -old page says:

Length: >15s recommended (up to 2:20 supported)

Same field, same supported ceiling of 2:20, opposite recommendation. One page points you at ads under 15 seconds, the other at ads over 15 seconds.

2. Spotlight Takeover size limits

The current page states the limit as image and GIF only:

Maximum File size: 5MB for image, 15MB for GIF

The -old page's entry for the same placement reads:

Recommend < 1 min, up to 3 mins is supported .mp4 files are supported 16:9 aspect ratio 5MB for image, 15MB for GIF/Video

The 5MB and 15MB figures survive, but the -old page adds a duration recommendation, an aspect ratio, an MP4 mention, and folds video into the 15MB bucket. The current page's line says nothing about video for that placement.

3. The same product has two names

The current page calls it "Amplify Pre-roll." The -old page calls it "Amplify Marketplace." If you are searching a spec page for a placement your account manager named, searching the wrong page's vocabulary returns nothing.

What both pages do agree on

The disagreements are narrow. Plenty of the sheet is stable, and both pages give the same set of recommended X Live stream specifications.

The current page gives these creative requirements:

• File types: "MP4 or MOV"
• Video codec recommendation: "H264, Baseline, Main, or High Profile with a 4:2:0 color space."
• Audio codec: "AAC LC (low complexity)"
• Looping: "Videos will loop if the video length is under 60 seconds."

For image creative, the same page is blunt about what it will not take: "File types: PNG and JPEG are recommended. We do not accept BMP or TIFF files." And a detail that catches people out: "Note: GIFs uploaded will render as a static image." Image file size there is "Max 5MB".

Note the codec line is a recommendation and it is wider than what X's developer documentation recommends for media uploads generally (H264 High Profile). The ads page accepts Baseline, Main or High. These are different pages with different scopes — do not merge them into one rule.

How to export something both pages accept

The practical move is to target the overlap rather than pick a winner.

1. Export MP4, H.264, AAC LC audio. Both the container and the codecs are stated on the current specs page, and MP4 is the format the -old page names for Spotlight Takeover too.
2. Keep vertical video under 2:20. That ceiling is identical on both pages, so it is the one number you can rely on without deciding which page is authoritative.
3. Decide length by campaign, not by spec sheet. Since the two pages recommend opposite sides of 15 seconds, the recommendation is not usable as a constraint. Treat 2:20 as the limit and let your creative brief decide the rest.
4. Get the file size down before you upload. X's own X Ads upload page recommends this directly, and it is the one lever that helps regardless of which spec page you are reading.

This runs in your browser tab — the file is re-encoded locally and never uploaded to a server, which is worth something when the creative is unreleased. If your source is a QuickTime file straight off a Mac, MOV to MP4 converts the container without a round trip through an editor. For bitrate targets specifically, see X video bitrate settings, which walks through the several different bitrate figures X publishes.

When the upload fails anyway

X's "Uploading videos to X Ads" help page is unusually candid here, and its advice is worth quoting rather than paraphrasing:

"Even if your file is under our maximum size, we may still have issues ingesting the file. Reducing the size of the file reduces the time of the upload, maximizing your chances for success."

That is X telling you, in its own documentation, that passing the size check is not the same as a successful ingest. The same page's checklist starts with: "Confirm your video is within our required specifications. Does your video file have the correct video and audio codecs? the right frame rate? is your file too large?" — and its other suggestion is network-side: "Try uploading your video on a different wifi network. The faster the wifi speed, the greater chance the video will upload."

One more failure mode from that page, because it looks like a spec problem and is not: if a posted ad shows "The media could not be played", X says "it means that the original video has been deleted from your Media Studio," and that "there is no way to un-delete a video from your Media Studio. You will need to upload a replacement video and create the Post again."

FAQ

What are the official X Ads video specs? There is no single answer at the moment. Two pages under business.x.com are both titled "Creative ad specs" and both live, and they differ on Vertical Video Ads recommended length, Spotlight Takeover sizing and product naming. Open both before committing to a number, and check the official documentation for the current values.

Which page should I follow, the current one or the -old one? X has not published a page that arbitrates between them, so neither can be called wrong here. The safest approach is to build to what they agree on: MP4 or MOV, H.264, AAC LC, and vertical video within the 2:20 both pages support.

How long can a Vertical Video Ad be? Both pages state "up to 2:20 supported". They disagree on the recommendation: the current page recommends under 15 seconds, the -old page recommends over 15 seconds.

Why does an old link show me different specs? Because advertiser-card-specifications redirects with a 301 to the -old specs page. The redirect is invisible in normal browsing, so a stale bookmark or an old brief quietly serves you the older sheet.

Do X Ads videos loop? The ads specs page says "Videos will loop if the video length is under 60 seconds." X's help centre states the rule slightly differently for videos generally — "All videos posted to X that are 60 seconds or shorter will automatically loop" — so the exact boundary at 60 seconds is not stated identically across pages.

My file is under the limit and the upload still fails. Now what? Re-export at a lower bitrate. X's upload help page says outright that a file under the maximum size can still fail to ingest, and recommends reducing file size to improve the odds.

Specs cited from X's Creative ad specs pages and its "Uploading videos to X Ads" help page, checked 16 September 2026. Because two versions of the specs page are live simultaneously, verify against both before signing off creative. More platform guides are in the guides hub, and the browser-side toolkit is at all Clapr tools.