Meta Text Guidelines (2025 Guide)

Do you work with Facebook ads and struggle with too much text in your ad? You’re in the right place. In this article, I’ll explain two key aspects to consider when advertising on Facebook and Meta’s recommendations for text volume.

Table of contents

• What is Meta’s 20% text rule?
• How to avoid violating Facebook’s text guidelines
• How to set the 20% grid in Photoshop
• Example: Same text – different effects

IMPORTANT: Whether you promote posts or create ads in Ad Manager, the following recommendations still apply.

Learn more about advertising on Facebook in Ads Manager »

What is Meta’s 20% text rule?

Before 2020, Facebook had the so-called 20% Rule – it’s no longer required, but Meta still recommends keeping text on graphics below 20%. Previously, ads with more than 20% text were automatically rejected. This rule wasn’t just to annoy advertisers – it was mainly to improve user experience for those who see ads. Therefore, it’s still smart to stick to the 20% recommendation.

Changes to the 20% text rule

At the end of 2020, this policy was dropped and ads with more than 20% text are no longer rejected. However, Meta states that ads with concise text (under 20%) perform better. If you ignore this, your ad results may suffer. So keep ad text short, clear, and precise for the best effect.

Avoid too much text on ad images

It’s hard to keep your message short, but here are three tips to limit text:

• If you must add text to your graphic, use fewer words or reduce font size. But don’t make the text too small to read.
• Put most information in the ad description instead of on the image.
• Avoid spreading text across the entire image area.

How to set up Photoshop for Meta’s text recommendations

• Open Photoshop
• Click “Edit” at the top menu
• Select Preferences (bottom of Edit menu)
• Open “Guides, Grid & Slices”
• Set as shown below. IMPORTANT: choose “percent” as the unit and enter 20 and 1.

When the grid is on, every graphic will be divided into percentages so you can check which part of the image is covered by text – just like Facebook does. An unusual but effective tool.

To turn on grids:

• Go to the “View” menu
• Click “Show”
• Activate “Grid”

You can optionally set a keyboard shortcut for quick toggling.

How to check guidelines compliance in software (example in Photoshop)

Logically, text shouldn’t exceed 20% of the graphic. Facebook counts this differently, though. Two identical words placed differently may mean acceptance or rejection. The grid you’ve set up helps here.

Below, I show how Facebook counts text in ads.

(Find standard Facebook image sizes here)

The Photoshop grid works for any format without recalculating dimensions. I’m not sure about other programs.

Each grid cell is 4%, so keep fewer than 5 covered (<20%). See in the images below how two almost identical layouts are evaluated very differently by Facebook. Both are screenshots of my Photoshop grid setup.

20% recommendation met:

Green fields mean text is present. 5 cells at 4% – this is what Facebook accepts.

20% recommendation NOT met

Note: font size hasn’t changed – it’s just moved down 50-80px. For Facebook, text now covers 40% even though nothing is physically different. Such an ad can get downgraded by Meta and cost you 2-5x more per impression. A quick way to save money 😉

Interested in Facebook ad costs? Read about it here: How much does Facebook advertising cost? You’ll also find tips on spending less!

If you don’t use Photoshop, try Facebook’s tool here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay