How Much Text Fits on a Carousel Slide? Limits That Read
A carousel slide at 1080 pixels wide comfortably holds a title of up to about 90 characters at 64 pixels or larger, a body of up to about 400 characters at 36 pixels or larger, or a list of three to five items of a line each. Past those counts the text shrinks below what a phone can read, and the slide becomes a paragraph people skip. Here are the limits per slide type, why they are what they are, and what to do with text that does not fit.
Why is there a limit at all?
Because the slide is read at phone width, roughly 380 pixels across on screen. A 1080-pixel slide is shown at about a third of its size, so a 36-pixel body line becomes a 12-pixel line on the phone, the smallest size most people read without zooming. Every character you add forces either a smaller font or a longer slide, and the slide cannot get longer. The Instagram carousel size guide has the pixel dimensions and safe zones this math comes from.
How much fits on each slide type?
| Slide type | What it holds | Comfortable limit | Readable font size at 1080 px |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hook | One title, optional subtitle | Title 60 characters (max 140), subtitle 100 | Title 72 to 110 px |
| Text | Kicker, title, body | Title 60 to 90, body 250 to 400 | Title 56 to 72 px, body 36 to 44 px |
| List | Title, 3 to 5 items | Items of 40 to 80 characters each | Items 36 to 44 px |
| Quote | The quote, an author | Quote under 200 (max 240) | 44 to 56 px |
| Stat | A value, a label | Value 2 to 8 characters, label under 100 | Value 160 to 220 px, label 36 to 44 px |
| Close (cta) | Title, a line, a handle | Title under 60, line under 120 | Title 56 to 72 px |
These are the ranges Karou’s templates size text within; its create tool enforces the maximums (hook title 140, body 420, list items 2 to 5 of 110) and tells the AI which slide and field to cut when a draft runs over, so a carousel never ships with a line cut off. Most carousels that get saved stay well under the maximums.
What does “fits” look like?
A text slide that fits:
Kicker: Mistake 01
Title: Pricing for strangers
Body: I set the price for people who had never heard of me. The people who bought already trusted me and would have paid four times more.
Two sentences, 131 characters of body, read in four seconds.
A text slide that does not:
Title: The first pricing mistake I made and why it happened
Body: When I launched my first ebook I looked at what other people were charging and tried to come in under all of them, because I assumed nobody knew me and the only way to get a sale was to be the cheapest option on the page, which meant $7, and at $7 I had to sell four hundred copies to make what I made in a week of freelancing.
One sentence of 330 characters that is really three ideas. Split it: the assumption (slide), the price (stat slide: “$7”), the math (slide).
What do I do with text that does not fit?
- Split the slide. A body with two ideas is two slides. This is almost always the right move; see how many slides a carousel should have for the budget.
- Move detail to the caption. The slide carries the idea; the caption carries the example, the link and the nuance.
- Turn a sentence into a list. “Three things changed: the price, the bonus, the page” becomes a list slide with three items.
- Cut adjectives. “A really important, often overlooked mistake” is “a mistake”.
- Promote a number to a stat slide. “4.2x revenue” deserves its own slide at 200 pixels, not a clause in a sentence.
Does font choice change the limit?
Yes, by about 10 to 15 percent. A condensed display face (Bebas Neue, for example) fits more characters per line than a wide serif at the same height, and serifs look smaller at the same pixel size, so a template with a serif headline needs a slightly larger title size for the same legibility. Karou’s templates compensate for this per font so the character limits stay the same across bold, clean and editorial.
How do I check readability before posting?
Look at the slide at 33 percent zoom on your screen, or send it to your phone. If the body text reads without effort, it fits. If you find yourself leaning in, cut. The test for the hook is stricter: it should read in the feed, at scroll speed, with the caption competing for attention; carousel hook ideas explains why under ten words is the practical ceiling.
A note on LinkedIn
Document posts are read in the same phone-width frame, so the same limits apply to a LinkedIn carousel PDF. Slide decks exported from presentations fail here first: 16:9 pages with 24-point text become unreadable at document-post size.
FAQ
Can I use smaller text if the slide is “optional” reading?
No slide is optional; the reader does not know which to skip. If the text is secondary, it belongs in the caption.
Does Karou cut my text automatically?
It refuses the slide and names the field and how much to cut, so the AI can rewrite it, rather than silently truncating. A slide never renders with a line missing.
What about non-Latin scripts?
Character counts differ (CJK characters carry more meaning per glyph), but the pixel-size rule holds: body text at 36 pixels or more on a 1080-pixel slide.
Is there a minimum?
A slide with four words is fine if the four words are the idea. Empty slides that exist to “give breathing room” are slides the reader swipes through looking for content.