The rules WhatsApp actually enforces
WhatsApp's requirements are specific and unforgiving. A static sticker must be exactly 512 by 512 pixels, in WebP format, and no larger than 100 kilobytes. Animated stickers get 500 KB and must run no longer than 10 seconds. Each sticker also needs a small margin of transparent padding at the edges, and a pack needs a 96 by 96 pixel tray icon.
The 100 KB cap is the one that catches people. It is not a guideline — the file is rejected. It exists because stickers are sent constantly, cached aggressively on device, and often delivered over slow mobile connections in markets where WhatsApp is the primary messaging app. A 2 MB sticker sent to a group of fifty people is a real cost to someone.
Hitting 512x512 in WebP under 100 KB is comfortable for illustrations and flat art. It gets tight for photographs, which is why quality often has to be stepped down until the file fits.
- Static: exactly 512x512 px, WebP, under 100 KB.
- Animated: 512x512 px, WebP, under 500 KB, max 10 seconds.
- Tray icon: 96x96 px, PNG, under 50 KB.
- A pack needs at least 3 and at most 30 stickers.
- Leave roughly 8-16 px of transparent padding around the subject.
Telegram's rules are different
Telegram is looser but not identical, and assuming the two are the same is a common way to waste an afternoon. Telegram stickers must have one side exactly 512 pixels, with the other side 512 or smaller — so 512x384 is legal on Telegram and rejected by WhatsApp.
Telegram accepts PNG as well as WebP, which removes the 100 KB squeeze entirely for static stickers, and its file limits are far more generous. Packs are created by messaging @Stickers rather than through a third-party app.
The practical consequence: if you want one sticker to work on both platforms, build to WhatsApp's rules. A 512x512 WebP under 100 KB is legal on Telegram too. The reverse is not true.
Why transparency is the whole point
A sticker is pasted over a conversation, and chat backgrounds are not white — they are patterned, coloured, dark in dark mode, and set to a photo by a large minority of users. A sticker with a solid background renders as a rectangle sitting on top of the chat, which reads as a mistake even when the image inside it is good.
This is why WebP matters beyond file size. WebP supports lossy compression with an alpha channel, a combination PNG cannot offer — PNG transparency is always lossless and therefore large. A photographic cut-out with soft edges can be lossy WebP at 40 KB where the PNG equivalent is 400 KB.
The transparent padding around the edge exists for a related reason: both apps draw a subtle outline or shadow behind stickers, and a subject touching the edge of the canvas gets visibly clipped.
Getting a clean cut-out from a photo
The hard part of making a sticker from a photo is separating the subject from its background convincingly. Hard edges are easy; the problems are always hair, fur, motion blur and anything semi-transparent such as a glass or a wisp of smoke.
Two things improve results more than any amount of tool choice. First, contrast between subject and background — a dark jacket against a dark sofa has no edge to find, and no software will invent one. Second, focus: a subject that is slightly out of focus has no crisp boundary, so the cut-out inherits the mush.
For fur and flyaway hair, expect to touch up by hand. A refine brush that lets you paint background back in or restore detail is worth more than a marginally better automatic mask, because the automatic mask is right about 95% of the pixels and the remaining 5% are all in the same visually obvious place — around the head.
Our sticker maker runs the cut-out in your browser and exports straight to 512x512 WebP, stepping the quality down until it clears 100 KB.
Making it read at thumbnail size
Stickers are viewed small — often around 128 pixels on screen despite the 512 pixel file. Designs that look great at full size regularly turn to mush in the chat, and it is nearly always for one of three reasons.
Too much detail: a full-body photo becomes an unrecognisable smudge. Crop tight to the face or the single element that carries the joke. Text too small: caption text needs to be far larger than feels reasonable, typically 10-15% of the canvas height, in a heavy weight. And insufficient edge contrast: a dark subject on a dark chat background disappears, which is why a white or light outline around the cut-out is near-universal in sticker design. It is not decoration — it guarantees the silhouette reads against any background.
- Crop tight — one subject, filling most of the frame.
- Add a thick outline so the shape reads on dark and light backgrounds.
- Caption text at 10-15% of canvas height, heavy weight, short words.
- Check it at 128 px before committing; that is how it will be seen.
Where sticker tools tend to go wrong
Most sticker makers are phone apps that upload your photo, add a watermark, or require an account. The watermark is the most damaging of the three: a sticker is a thing you send to other people repeatedly, so a watermarked sticker is an advertisement you have agreed to distribute to your friends on the app's behalf, forever.
The upload question also deserves more weight here than usual. Stickers are usually made from photos of family, friends and pets — exactly the images people are most careless about handing over and would most object to losing.
The honest limitation of a browser-based approach: it can build the sticker file, but it cannot install a pack into WhatsApp, because pack installation goes through the app's own API from a native app. You export the image and add it through a pack app, or send it directly into a chat.