The Ultimate Guide to Twitch Stream Overlay Size (2025)

Getting your Twitch stream overlay size right is one of the most crucial steps to creating a professional-looking broadcast. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending time or money on a beautiful design only to have it appear stretched, blurry, or misaligned on screen. The good news is that solving this problem is simple once you understand the core principle: your overlay dimensions must perfectly match your stream’s resolution settings.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know. We’ll cover the golden rule of overlay design, provide a complete cheatsheet with the exact pixel dimensions for every component—from webcam frames to alerts—and share essential best practices to ensure your stream looks pixel-perfect every time you go live.

The Golden Rule: Match Your Canvas Resolution

Before we talk about any specific component, you must understand one key concept: Canvas (Base) Resolution. In your streaming software, like OBS Studio or Streamlabs, the Canvas is your digital workspace. It’s the full-screen area where you arrange all your sources—your game capture, webcam, alerts, and overlay graphics.

For your overlay to fit correctly, its dimensions must be identical to your Canvas Resolution.

The undisputed industry standard for streaming is 1920×1080 pixels, which is a 16:9 aspect ratio, commonly known as 1080p or Full HD.

Why 1920×1080?

• Standard for Viewers: Most monitors, TVs, and mobile devices are designed to display 1080p content perfectly. Designing for this resolution ensures a crisp, high-quality look for the vast majority of your audience.
• Twitch Optimization: While Twitch allows for various resolutions, its platform is optimized for 16:9 aspect ratios. Using 1080p as your base prevents black bars and ensures your stream fills the entire video player.
• Future-Proofing: Even if you decide to stream at a lower resolution (like 720p) to save bandwidth, you should still design your overlay at 1920×1080. Your streaming software can then downscale the entire scene cleanly, preserving the quality and alignment of all your elements.

In your streaming software settings, ensure your “Base (Canvas) Resolution” is set to 1920×1080. This is the single most important setting for ensuring your overlays fit.

The Complete Twitch Stream Overlay Size Cheatsheet

While your main canvas is 1920×1080, your overlay is made up of many different pieces. Here are the standard dimensions and best practices for each component.

Full-Screen Overlays & Scenes

These are the graphics that take up your entire canvas. They should always be created at 1920×1080 pixels to ensure they fill the screen without needing to be stretched.

• Stream Starting Soon Scene: 1920 x 1080 px
• Be Right Back (BRB) Scene: 1920 x 1080 px
• Stream Ending Scene: 1920 x 1080 px
• Just Chatting / Intermission Scene: 1920 x 1080 px
• Gameplay Scene Background (Optional): 1920 x 1080 px

These full-screen assets are foundational and often set the visual tone for your entire stream.

Individual Overlay Components (The Building Blocks)

These are the transparent graphics that sit on top of your gameplay or other sources. They should be created as individual PNG files for maximum flexibility.

• Webcam Frames/Borders:
  • Aspect Ratio: The vast majority of webcams output in a 16:9 aspect ratio. Your frame must match this to avoid stretching.
  • Recommended Design Size: While you might scale your webcam down on screen, design your frame for a common 16:9 resolution like 640×360 pixels or 1280×720 pixels. It’s always better to create a larger, high-quality asset and scale it down in OBS than to create a small one and scale it up, which causes blurriness.
• Headers, Footers, and Banners:
  • Width: These elements should always be 1920 pixels wide to span the full width of the screen.
  • Height: The height is flexible depending on your design, but common sizes are between 50 and 150 pixels. For example, a top header displaying your social media might be 1920×75 px.
• Alert Boxes:
  • Size: There is no fixed size, as the alert box is an invisible container. However, you should design your alert graphics within a generous space to accommodate different text lengths and animations.
  • Recommended Design Space: A good practice is to work within a 800×600 pixel space. This ensures your follower alert has enough room for the username and any associated graphics without feeling cramped.
• Chat Boxes:
  • Size: Like alerts, the chat box is a container. The ideal size depends on your layout.
  • Common Dimensions: A popular size for a vertical chat box is around 400 pixels wide by 600-800 pixels tall. Design a simple frame or background to fit these dimensions, but ensure the design works even if the box is resized.
• Event Labels (Latest Follower, Top Donator, etc.):
  • Size: These are typically long, thin containers.
  • Common Dimensions: A good starting point is around 500-800 pixels wide by 80-100 pixels tall. This provides enough space for text and icons without dominating the screen.

Twitch Channel Branding Sizes (Beyond the Overlay)

A professional stream also has consistent branding on its Twitch channel page. These are separate from your OBS overlay but are just as important for creating a strong brand identity.

• Profile Banner (Header Image):
  • Recommended Size: 1200 x 480 px
  • Tip: Keep important information away from the edges, as the banner will be cropped differently on various devices and screen sizes.
• Profile Picture:
  • Recommended Size: 800 x 800 px
  • Tip: Twitch will crop your profile picture into a circle, so ensure your logo or face is centered with plenty of space around it.
• Video Player Banner (Offline Banner):
  • Required Size: 1920 x 1080 px
  • Tip: This is the image viewers see when you are not live. Use it to display your schedule, social media links, and a call to action to follow.
• Custom Emotes:
  • Required Sizes: You must upload three sizes for each emote: 28×28 px, 56×56 px, and 112×112 px.
  • Tip: Design your emote at a larger size (like 500×500 px) and then resize it down to the required dimensions to maintain quality. Ensure the design is simple and clear enough to be recognizable at the tiny 28×28 size.
• Subscriber Badges:
  • Required Sizes: You must upload three sizes for each badge: 18×18 px, 36×36 px, and 72×72 px.
  • Tip: Like emotes, design at a larger scale first. Badges need to be extremely clear and simple to be understood next to a username in chat.

Best Practices for Designing and Using Your Overlay

Getting the dimensions right is half the battle. Following these professional best practices will ensure your stream runs smoothly and looks fantastic.

Use a Transparent Background (PNG Format)

This is a non-negotiable rule for individual overlay components. Your webcam frame, alerts, and other graphics must be saved as .PNG files with transparency enabled. If you save them as a .JPEG, they will have a solid white or black background that will cover your gameplay. Full-screen scenes like “Stream Starting Soon” can be JPEGs or MP4s (for animation), but all on-screen elements must be transparent PNGs.

Keep File Sizes Low

High-resolution, unoptimized graphics can consume valuable CPU resources, potentially causing your stream to lag. While you want your overlay to look crisp, you also need it to be efficient. Use a free online tool like TinyPNG to compress your overlay files without sacrificing much visual quality.

Design with “Safe Zones”

Don’t clutter your screen. The primary focus should be your content (gameplay, art, etc.). Keep your overlay elements contained to the borders of the screen. Leave a “safe zone” or padding around the edges. Most importantly, ensure your overlay doesn’t cover crucial in-game information like the mini-map, ammo count, or character health bars.

Separate Your Components for Flexibility

Avoid using a single, monolithic overlay file that includes the webcam frame, event labels, and other elements all in one image. Instead, export each component as a separate PNG file. This allows you to easily move, resize, or hide individual parts of your overlay within OBS. This modular approach is the hallmark of a professional setup. Understanding what is included in a stream overlay will help you plan your separate components effectively.

Setting It Up Correctly in Your Software

Once you have your properly sized graphics, setting them up is straightforward. In OBS or Streamlabs, you’ll add each PNG file as a separate “Image Source” within your scene. You can then position and resize them as needed. For a complete walkthrough on this process, follow a detailed guide on how to set up a stream pack on OBS.

Frequently Asked Questions

What size should my overlay be if I stream at 720p? You should still design all your overlays at 1920x1080p. Set your “Base (Canvas) Resolution” in OBS to 1920×1080, and set your “Output (Scaled) Resolution” to 1280×720. The software will downscale the entire high-quality scene perfectly, ensuring nothing looks blurry or pixelated.

Why does my overlay look blurry or pixelated on stream? This usually happens for two reasons. First, you might have created the graphic at a small size and then stretched it to be larger in OBS. Always design at the size you need or larger. Second, your stream’s bitrate might be too low for the resolution you’re sending, causing the entire image, including your overlay, to look compressed.

What is the best aspect ratio for a Twitch overlay? The best and only aspect ratio you should use is 16:9. This is the standard for modern widescreen displays and is what Twitch’s video player is designed for. Using any other aspect ratio (like 4:3 or 21:9) will result in black bars on the sides or top of your stream.

Can my overlay be an animated video file? Yes! Animated overlays are very popular. They are typically saved as .WEBM or .MP4 files. .WEBM is often preferred as it supports transparency. You would add this file as a “Media Source” in OBS, not an “Image Source,” and make sure to check the “Loop” option.

Do I need a different overlay size for mobile viewers? No. You should design for the standard 1920×1080 desktop view. Twitch’s mobile app will automatically scale your stream to fit the viewer’s phone screen. However, this is a good reason to keep your overlay elements and text large and clear, as they will be much smaller on a mobile device.

What DPI should I use for my overlay design? DPI (Dots Per Inch) is a metric for print and is irrelevant for digital screen design. The only thing that matters is the pixel dimensions (e.g., 1920×1080). When creating your file in a program like Photoshop, you can leave the DPI at the default of 72.

Conclusion

Mastering your Twitch stream overlay size is a fundamental step toward creating a broadcast that looks polished, credible, and professional. The core principle is simple: set your canvas to the 1920×1080 standard and ensure all your full-screen graphics match. From there, understanding the individual component sizes and following best practices will give you the control to build a flexible and beautiful stream layout.

A well-designed and properly sized overlay is a silent testament to your dedication as a creator. It builds viewer trust and makes your content instantly more appealing.

Your next steps are to:

1. Check your OBS or Streamlabs settings and confirm your Base (Canvas) Resolution is 1920×1080.
2. Review your current overlay assets to ensure they meet the size and format recommendations in this guide.
3. If you’re ready to design your own, learn the step-by-step process in our guide on how to make a Twitch stream overlay, or browse our collection of professional, ready-to-use designs from the best Twitch overlays.