What Size Image to Use on WordPress In 2025

​Images play a crucial role in website design, enhancing readability, engagement, and performance. However, using the wrong image sizes can slow down your site, affect responsiveness, and impact SEO. This guide covers everything you need to know about choosing the right image sizes for WordPress, optimizing them, and using the best tools for image management.

Default WordPress Image Sizes

By default, WordPress automatically resizes uploaded images into preset dimensions. These include:

• Thumbnail: 150×150 pixels (cropped to exact dimensions)

• Medium: 300×300 pixels (resized while maintaining aspect ratio)

• Large: 1024×1024 pixels (resized while maintaining aspect ratio)

• Full Size: Original image size with no resizing

These defaults work well for many sites, but you may need to adjust them based on your theme and layout.

How to Change Default WordPress Image Sizes

If you want to set custom image sizes, follow these steps:

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard.

2. Navigate to Settings > Media.

1. Adjust the following image size settings:

• Thumbnail size: Enter width and height (e.g., 200×200 pixels).

• Medium size: Adjust max width and height (e.g., 600×600 pixels).

• Large size: Define max dimensions (e.g., 1200×800 pixels)

1. Save changes.

For more precise control, developers can use the add_image_size() function in the theme’s functions.php file.

What Is the Best Image Size for WordPress?

The best image size depends on your website's layout and design. However, here are some general recommendations:

• Featured Image / Blog Post Thumbnails: 1200×628 pixels

• Hero Images / Full-Width Banners: 1920×1080 pixels (16:9 aspect ratio)

• Content / Blog Post Images: 800×600 pixels or 1024×768 pixels

• Thumbnails: 150×150 pixels

• Medium Images: 300×300 pixels to 800×800 pixels

• Product Images (WooCommerce):

• Catalog Images: 300×300 pixels

• Single Product Images: 600×600 pixels

• Gallery Thumbnails: 100×100 pixels

• Logos: 250×100 pixels (adjust based on theme requirements)

• Social Media Share Images: 1200×630 pixels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)

Optimizing WordPress Image Size

Choose the Right Image Dimensions

Use images that fit your site's design and avoid unnecessarily large files. Here are recommended dimensions:

• Header images: 1920×1080 pixels

• Blog post featured images: 1200×630 pixels

• Thumbnails: 150×150 pixels

Compress Images

Large images slow down your site. Use compression tools to reduce file sizes without compromising quality:

• Smush

• Imagify

• ShortPixel

• TinyPNG

• Squoosh

Use the Right Image Format

Selecting the right format is essential:

• JPEG: Best for colorful images.

• PNG: Ideal for images with transparency.

• WebP: Modern format with high quality and smaller file sizes (recommended for 2025).

Enable Lazy Loading

Lazy loading ensures that images load only when they are visible on the screen, reducing initial page load times. WordPress has built-in lazy loading (since version 5.5). Check by inspecting <img> tags for loading="lazy".

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN speeds up image delivery by loading them from servers closer to users. Popular options include:

• Cloudflare

• StackPath

• Jetpack’s Site Accelerator

WordPress Image Resolution (DPI)

For web images, 72 DPI is the standard, ensuring clarity without excessive file sizes. Higher resolutions (e.g., 300 DPI) are necessary for print but not for websites.

What Size Image to Use on WordPress? – Plug-In Edition

These plugins simplify image resizing, compression, and optimization:

1. Smush

Category: Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load
Key Features:

• Resize images automatically

• Lossless compression

• Lazy load support

• Bulk optimization

2. Regenerate Thumbnails

Category: Resize Images, Free
Key Features:

• Regenerate all thumbnails

• Selective regeneration

• Batch processing

3. ShortPixel

Category: Powerful Image Compression, Resizing
Key Features:

• Advanced compression options

• Resize on upload

• WebP conversion

• Bulk optimization

4. Imagify

Category: Optimize and Resize Images
Key Features:

• Resize images

• Different compression levels

• WebP support

• Bulk optimization

5. EWWW Image Optimizer

Category: Image Optimization
Key Features:

• Unlimited image optimization

• Resize large images

• WebP conversion

• Local compression

Conclusion – What Size Image to Use on WordPress?

The best image size depends on your website’s needs, but optimizing them is key to improving speed, performance, and SEO. Use the recommended image sizes, compress images without quality loss, enable lazy loading, and consider using WebP format. With the right approach, your WordPress site will look sharp and load quickly!