Four steps, and one decision you have to get right before you build anything. The whole process with real screenshots, including why a vertical tour is not a crop of your horizontal one.
Tap 9:16 on the orientation screen so it is the format your tour opens on, and frame your scenes for it: 9:16 is the tightest crop of the four, keeping roughly a third of the width. If you also want a version for the MLS, tap 16:9 alongside it, or add it later from the finished tour. Every format comes from the same render, so one tour covers both.
The most common mistake with vertical listing video is leaving it until after the horizontal one is built. Adding the format later is free and takes one tap. What you cannot add later is the framing, and that is the part that decides whether the vertical cut is worth posting.
All four formats are crops of one render, which is why a second format costs no extra credits. They are not equal crops. 16:9 is the full width, 4:5 and 3:4 trim the sides, and 9:16 keeps roughly a third of it. A shot composed for the wide frame can lose most of the room in the vertical one, and no setting recovers it after the render.
The practical consequence is about framing, not about building twice. If the listing needs an MLS tour and a Reel, tap both formats and build once. What to decide up front is how you frame each scene, because 9:16 keeps roughly a third of the width and a shot composed for the wide frame can lose most of the room in it.
Here is the process end to end.
Screenshots are from the current Video Studio interface, captured August 2026.
- Cut it shorter than the horizontal version. A twenty-second tour that holds attention on a listing page is long for a feed. Fewer scenes at a faster pace is almost always the better vertical edit.
- Lead with the strongest exterior or the view. Vertical gives you one shot at stopping a scroll, and it happens in the first second. Whatever your best frame is, it should not be third.
- Mind the safe area. Reels and Stories overlay captions, usernames, and buttons across the top and bottom of the frame. Anything essential near the very top or bottom edge can end up behind interface furniture.
- Take both formats when the listing warrants it. If a property is going on the MLS and on Reels, tap 9:16 and 16:9 at the orientation step, or add the second one later from the finished tour. One render covers every surface, so the cost is the framing attention, not the credits.
- Fix the photos first. A flat sky or a cluttered room is more obvious held on a full phone screen than glanced at in a grid. Correct the stills before you animate them.
When it fits: You already have a horizontal tour, the deadline is now, and the composition happens to survive a centre crop.
Trade-off: Free and instant, but a 9:16 crop of a 16:9 frame discards roughly two thirds of the width, so rooms read tighter and anything at the edges is gone. It is a salvage, not an equivalent, and it looks like one next to a natively vertical tour.
When it fits: You are at the property, the light is good, and an unpolished but genuine walk-through suits your audience.
Trade-off: Free, native to the format, and often outperforms produced content on Reels. But handheld footage is hard to stabilise and indoor light is unforgiving on a phone, so a bad walk-through is worse than none.
When it fits: Vertical listing content is the main thing you produce and you want voice cloning, an avatar presenter, or bilingual narration.
Trade-off: Another subscription for one job. Several genuinely beat a bundled platform on reels-specific features, and our roundup of reels tools compares them directly.
When it fits: A flagship listing where the Reel is the campaign rather than one post in it.
Trade-off: Costs real money and takes days, and for most listings the return does not justify it. Worth it where the property is the marketing.
Yes, and from one tour. Every format is a crop of the same render, so tap both at the orientation step, or add the second one later from the finished tour. It costs no extra credits. What to watch is the framing: 9:16 keeps roughly a third of the width, so a scene composed for the wide frame can lose most of the room in the vertical one. Frame each scene for the tightest format you plan to publish.
All four. 16:9, 4:5, 3:4 and 9:16 are each a crop of the same master, so any format you add costs no extra credits and no extra render time. 9:16 is the tightest of the four crops, which is a framing consideration rather than a cost one.
1080 by 1920, which is the native size for Instagram Reels, TikTok, and Stories. The horizontal format renders at 1920 by 1080, and the two Instagram feed formats at 1080 by 1440 and 1080 by 1350.
Shorter than the horizontal version. A feed viewer decides in the first second, so four scenes at a faster pace generally outperforms eight scenes at a cinematic one. The same property can justify a longer cut on a listing page where somebody has already chosen to watch.
The same photos, yes. The same file, no. The two surfaces want different shapes and different pacing, and a horizontal tour posted to Reels either sits letterboxed in the middle of the screen or gets cropped by the platform. Rendering both is the reason the format choice comes before the build.
Adding the vertical format is one tap and costs nothing. Framing each scene so it survives the crop is the work.
Screenshots on this page were captured from the live Video Studio interface in August 2026. If the interface has moved since and this page has not caught up, tell us and we will re-shoot it.