Etsy printable sizes: the complete size guide for digital downloads

Published October 3, 2026

When you sell a printable on Etsy, the buyer prints the file at home or at a print shop, so you never choose the paper. What you choose is which sizes the download covers. This guide covers the sizes worth offering, how many pixels each one needs, and the limits Etsy states for digital files.

What Etsy limits, and what it leaves to you

Etsy's help page for digital listings sets the rules for the files themselves. On the day we read it, it said:

You can upload up to five digital files. The maximum size for each file is 20MB.

It also said:

File names are limited to 70 alphanumeric characters, periods, underscores, or hyphens.

The page lists the file types Etsy accepts, including .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .pdf and .zip. It does not say which print sizes to offer, so that part is your decision. It also says you can't offer variations for digital items, which means a buyer can't pick a size at checkout: one listing has to carry every size you want to sell. Etsy can change its rules, so read the page under Sources before you rely on any of this.

Two things follow. With five files to a listing, you can't give every print size its own file. And a large artwork saved at full resolution can pass 20MB by itself. That is why printable sets are usually built as one file per proportion.

Sizes that share a shape share a file

A print's proportion is its width divided by its height. A 4×6 in print and a 12×18 in print are both 2:3, so one 2:3 file serves both and the buyer, or the print shop, just scales it. An 8×10 in print is 4:5, a different shape. Putting a 2:3 file on 8×10 paper means either cutting part of the picture off or leaving borders, and the file has no way of knowing which you would prefer.

These are the six proportion groups the Osmanth Image printable tool builds, with the pixels the largest size in each group needs at 300 pixels per inch (PPI):

The A-series are the ISO paper sizes; A4 is 210 × 297 mm.

How many pixels does a size need?

Pixels needed = size in inches × pixels per inch. A 16×24 in print at 300 PPI needs 4,800 × 7,200 pixels. In Osmanth Image's own guideline for printables, 300 PPI is the target for a sharp print and 150 PPI is the floor, and the tool flags any size that lands under it. Those two numbers are our guideline. They are not an Etsy rule and not a printer's rule.

The "DPI" number saved inside an image file doesn't change this. It is a label, it adds no pixels, and it doesn't make a print sharper. The pixel count is what counts.

A worked example, run through the tool

We ran two test images through the printable planner in Osmanth Image. The first is 4,800 × 7,200 pixels, a 2:3 picture. For each group, the table shows how much of the picture the crop removes and the pixels per inch the file delivers at each size.

Every size in every group stays above 150 PPI with this file. The 24×36 in size lands at 200 PPI, under the 300 target but well above the floor. The 4:5 group costs the most picture, 16.7%, because 4:5 is much squarer than 2:3.

The second test image is 3,000 × 4,000 pixels, a 3:4 picture. It is smaller, so some sizes fall under the 150 PPI floor. The tool shows them instead of hiding them:

These numbers are what the tool reported for these two test images. Your artwork will give different ones, which is why it helps to run it before you list.

A plan that fits Etsy's limits

1. Pick your largest size first. Build the artwork at that size's pixels. For 24×36 in that is 7,200 × 10,800.
2. Choose which proportions to offer. Each proportion is its own file. Six groups are six files, one more than the five Etsy allows per listing. Etsy lists .zip among the file types it accepts, so the files can go into ZIP archives, as long as each upload stays under 20MB. The Osmanth Image planner packs the files that way and tells you when they don't fit.
3. Name files plainly. Etsy says the names buyers see are the names you uploaded, and that it can't edit a name after upload. Keep names under 70 characters, using only letters, numbers, periods, underscores and hyphens. The planner adds the proportion to the end of the name, for example _3x4 or _ISO-A.
4. Look at the crops. A file that removes a lot of the picture needs your decision, not a default. The planner shows what each crop removes before it makes anything.

If you also sell prints rather than downloads, the pixel maths for posters is in poster size in pixels. The planner works on your device, and your artwork is not uploaded; the privacy page says exactly what that means.