Getly
A buyer rarely meets your cover at full size. They meet it in a grid, next to a dozen other covers, on a screen that is often a phone. On Getly the product grid shows two cards side by side on a phone, so each cover is drawn at about half the width of the screen. Whatever is on the image has to work at that size or it does not work at all.
This tutorial walks through making a cover that survives the thumbnail, from the canvas size to the upload. The numbers come from the Getly catalogue, measured 26 September 2026.
What the catalogue looks like today
Most listings rely on a single picture. Across active listings:
| Images on the listing | Share of active listings |
|---|---|
| Exactly one | 54.06% |
| Two to four | 33.20% |
| Five or more | 12.60% |
Only 7.00% of active listings carry a video, and 13.67% a separate preview asset. So for more than half the catalogue, the cover is the only thing a buyer sees before deciding whether to click.
We also opened the first image of a random sample of 400 active listings and read its real dimensions. 83.0% were close to 16:10 (a width-to-height ratio between 1.5 and 1.7), because the upload cropper frames images that way. 9.5% were square and 1.5% portrait, older uploads that went in before the cropper. The median width was 1280 pixels, 31.3% were 1600 pixels wide or more, and 13.5% were narrower than 800 pixels. The median file weighed about 168 KB.
The shape problem is mostly solved. What is left is the content: whether the image says anything once it shrinks.
Step 1: start on a 1920x1200 canvas
The product card on Getly is 16:10, and the cropper in the product form frames every image at that ratio and saves it at up to 1600 pixels wide. Design at 1920x1200. It is exactly 16:10, so the cropper has nothing to cut, and it is larger than 1600, so the cropper scales it down instead of up. Scaling down keeps edges sharp; scaling a small image up makes text soft.
The upload limits to keep in mind: JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF, up to 5 MB for a direct upload. The cropper accepts a larger source file (up to 25 MB) and re-encodes it smaller. HEIC photos from an iPhone are not accepted; export them as JPEG first, or pick them through the Photos sheet, which converts them.
Step 2: pick one subject and make it big
A cover that tries to show everything shows nothing at thumbnail size. Choose one thing a buyer should recognise:
- For a template or planner: one page, straight on, filling most of the frame.
- For a bundle: three or four items fanned out, not twenty in a grid.
- For an ebook: the book cover, large, on a plain background.
- For a font: two or three words set in the font, nothing else.
Keep the subject inside the middle of the frame with a margin of roughly 8% on each side. The card has rounded corners and a border, and a badge can sit on top of it, so the edges are the least safe place for anything important.
Step 3: limit the text to what fits a glance
Text on a cover is optional. If you use it, keep it to four or five words and make the letters tall: a line of text should be at least one eighth of the image height to stay legible on a phone. The product name is already printed under the card, so the cover does not need to repeat it. Use the cover text for the one thing the name cannot show, such as "Editable in Canva", "A4 and US Letter" or "120 pages".
Use a heavy weight. Thin and script fonts disappear first when an image shrinks.
Step 4: check contrast in greyscale
Colours that look distinct at full size can merge at thumbnail size. Before exporting, switch the design to greyscale for a moment. If the text and the subject still stand out from the background, the contrast is enough. If they blend into one grey, darken the background or lighten the subject until they separate.
Step 5: test at the real size
This is the step most people skip, and it is the one that matters. Zoom your design out until it is about 180 pixels wide on screen, roughly the size of a card in a two-column phone grid. Or export it, send it to your phone and look at it next to other covers. Ask three questions:
- Can you tell what the product is without reading the title?
- Can you read every word on it?
- Does it look different from the covers around it?
If any answer is no, remove something. Covers almost always improve by losing elements, not by gaining them.
Step 6: export and upload
- JPEG for photographs and textured images, quality around 85.
- PNG for flat graphics, screenshots and anything with sharp text.
- Keep the file under 5 MB.
In the product form, drop the image onto the media step. The cropper opens with a 16:10 frame; because your canvas already has that shape, the frame covers the whole image and you can apply it as is. If the cropper cannot produce an image in your browser (some privacy extensions block it), a button appears to upload the original without cropping.
Step 7: add the images that answer the next questions
The cover earns the click. The images after it earn the purchase. The dashboard form takes up to five images, and the useful ones after the cover are usually:
- A look inside: one or two real pages or screens, readable.
- A close-up of a detail that shows quality.
- A simple list image: what files are included, in which formats and sizes.
We looked at what one-image listings miss in an earlier piece, half of all listings have exactly one image. The short version: a second and third image cost little and answer questions a buyer would otherwise have to ask.
A one-minute checklist
| Check | Target |
|---|---|
| Canvas | 1920x1200, 16:10 |
| Subject | One, filling most of the frame, 8% margin |
| Text | Four or five words, at least 1/8 of the height |
| Contrast | Still clear in greyscale |
| Real-size test | Readable at about 180 px wide |
| File | JPEG or PNG, under 5 MB |
| Extra images | Inside view, detail, file list |
None of this guarantees a sale. It makes sure that the one image most buyers see actually tells them what you are selling. If you are setting up a new listing, start from the seller page; listing is free and you keep 80% of each sale by default, as set out on the pricing page.
