Compress video to 16 MB
Roughly 1 min 24 sec of 720p video fits in 16 MB, or about 26 sec at 1080p. Set the target below and the bitrate is worked out for your clip's actual duration.
The WhatsApp Business API video limit. Worth a page mainly because so many tools present it as the consumer WhatsApp limit, which it is not.
- Uploaded to a server
- 0.00 KB
- Processing
- WebAssembly, this device
- Offline engine
- warming up
Don't take our word for it — check it yourself in DevTools.
What fits in 16 MB
File size is bitrate multiplied by duration, so the only real question is how much bitrate 16 MB buys you for the length of your clip. These are the numbers the encoder works from.
| Quality | Video bitrate | Fits about |
|---|---|---|
| 480p, low motion | 800 kbps | 2 min 30 sec |
| 720p, typical | 1,500 kbps | 1 min 24 sec |
| 720p, high motion | 2,500 kbps | 52 sec |
| 1080p, typical | 5,000 kbps | 26 sec |
| 1080p, high motion | 8,000 kbps | 17 sec |
If your clip is longer than the row you want, trimming beats compressing. Cutting thirty seconds off the front costs you thirty seconds; forcing the same footage into half the bitrate costs you every frame.
Who actually requires 16 MB
| Platform | Tier | Limit | Applies to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business API — video | 16 MB | API only |
Questions
How long a video fits in 16MB?
At 720p and a typical bitrate, about 1 min 24 sec. At 1080p, closer to 26 sec. High-motion footage compresses worse, so treat these as ceilings rather than promises.
Can any video be compressed to 16MB?
Almost any, but at some point the bitrate needed becomes low enough that the result looks poor. If your clip is long, trimming it costs far less quality than compressing it harder — a video twice as long needs half the bitrate to hit the same size.
Is my video uploaded?
No. The encoder runs in your browser through WebAssembly. Your file is read from disk and the result is written back to your downloads; neither is sent anywhere.