Animated WhatsApp stickers
Animated stickers follow the same 512 × 512 canvas as static ones, with extra limits on timing and file size.
The rules
| Rule | Limit |
|---|---|
| Format | Animated WebP |
| Dimensions | Exactly 512 × 512 px |
| File size | ≤ 500 KB |
| Total duration | ≤ 10 seconds |
| Minimum frame duration | 8 ms |
| Tray icon | Static, 96 × 96 px, ≤ 50 KB |
| Pack contents | All animated — a pack cannot mix static and animated stickers |
| Pack flag | "animated_sticker_pack": true in the pack metadata |
| Accessibility text | ≤ 255 characters |
The first frame matters most
WhatsApp ends the loop by returning to the first frame, and that frame is also what people see in places where the sticker is not animating. Design the first frame to be the complete sticker:
- If the sticker spells out "Hi!", show the whole word on frame one — don't build it letter by letter from a blank frame.
- Make the last frame lead smoothly back into the first, or the loop will visibly jump.
Staying under 500 KB
For animated stickers, the file-size budget is almost always the constraint you hit first — far more often than the 10-second duration. Size is driven by frame count multiplied by how much each frame changes, so:
| Technique | Typical effect |
|---|---|
| Drop to 12–15 fps | Halves the frame count of a 30 fps source with little visible loss for illustrated motion |
| Trim still frames at the start and end | Removes bytes that add nothing |
| Lower lossy quality (50–75) | Large savings; animation hides compression artefacts |
| Keep the background fully transparent | Unchanged transparent pixels compress to almost nothing |
| Shorten the loop | Least effective — try the above first |
Frames at 12–15 fps last 66–83 ms each, comfortably above the 8 ms minimum. The minimum only becomes a problem with very high frame-rate sources or tools that emit zero-delay frames; those must be re-timed before import.
Converting GIFs and videos
GIF and MP4 are not valid sticker formats, but both convert cleanly to animated WebP. See GIF to animated WebP and Video to animated WebP for commands.
Further reading
- Tray icon rules — still static for animated packs
- Troubleshooting
- Sticko's explainer on how animated WhatsApp stickers work