WhatsApp Sticker Maker: 512x512 WebP, Free

What WhatsApp's own pages say (read 15 October 2026)

The rules come from the README files of WhatsApp's sticker repository, one for Android and one for iOS. A sticker is exactly 512 x 512 pixels with a transparent background. A still sticker may be at most 100 KB and an animated one at most 500 KB, and an animation should last at most 10 seconds in total with each frame at least 8 ms long. The tray icon that stands for the pack is a still picture of 96 x 96 pixels and at most 50 KB. A pack holds 3 to 30 stickers and is either all still or all animated, never a mix. The Android README asks for WebP; the iOS README also lets a still sticker be a PNG, but animated stickers are WebP only, and this tool writes every sticker as WebP. The READMEs also advise a 8 px white stroke around each sticker, because stickers are shown on white, black, coloured and patterned backgrounds, and that the first frame of an animation should show the whole sticker, because WhatsApp ends the animation on the first frame after looping.

What the tool does with each file

Each picture is scaled into a 512 x 512 square, either whole with transparent space around it or filled and cropped, with the empty space around it as wide as you set. For a still sticker a video clip gives the frame at the start time you set and a GIF gives its first frame; for an animated sticker the tool uses a window of the clip or GIF. The result is written as WebP and then read back from its bytes, so the pass or fail list describes the real file: its format, its size in pixels, its size in bytes, whether it is animated, how long it runs, its shortest frame and whether the file carries transparency (an alpha channel). Optional extras are a white outline of the width you choose (still stickers only) and a colour cut-out that makes one colour transparent.

How it gets under the size limit

A still sticker is first written at a high quality. If the file is over the 100 KB limit it also tries the lowest quality, and if that fits it narrows the range between the two by halving it six times to find the best quality that fits, so at most eight tries. The tool counts a KB as 1,024 bytes; the READMEs write "100KB" without saying which they mean, so a file close to the limit is worth a second look. An animated sticker is encoded by the video engine and, if it is over the 500 KB limit, tried again at lower quality and then at fewer frames per second, up to 10 settings for the default frame rate. If nothing fits, the tool says so and shows the smallest file it made, marked as failed: it only ever lowers quality and frame rate, and never changes the 512 x 512 size or the window of the clip you chose (the clip is cut 0.05 seconds short of the length you set, to stay inside the 10-second limit). A short clip with flat colours is the easiest to fit; a long, busy clip may not fit, and a shorter window usually helps.

The pack, the tray icon and the ZIP

Add up to 30 files, make them, and pick which sticker becomes the tray icon. The tray icon is written as a 96 x 96 PNG from that sticker (for an animated one, a single still frame taken at the start time you set for a video, or the first frame of a GIF) and checked against the 50 KB limit. The ZIP holds a folder with sticker-01.webp, sticker-02.webp and so on, plus tray.png, and its button stays disabled until the pack has 3 to 30 stickers with no failed check (a missing transparent area is shown as a note and does not block it). Every sticker can also be downloaded on its own. The files are stored in the ZIP without further compression because WebP is already compressed.

Getting the pack into WhatsApp

This tool cannot add a pack to WhatsApp. According to the READMEs, a pack reaches WhatsApp through a sticker app that supplies the sticker files, a tray icon and details about the pack, and asks WhatsApp to add it, which the user then confirms. This tool prepares files and a pack folder; it does not write the pack name, publisher or emoji list that such an app asks for. A sticker-maker app may also apply rules of its own. For sending a clip as an ordinary video instead, the WhatsApp video compressor fits it to the video size limits, and the image resizer and image compressor cover plain pictures.

What it does not do

It does not remove a photo's background by itself: the colour cut-out only makes pixels close to one chosen colour transparent, wherever they are, so it suits a flat white or green background and not a busy one. A single still picture cannot become an animated sticker, and a pack cannot mix still and animated stickers. It does not draw text, stickers or frames onto the picture, does not add an outline to animated stickers, and cannot make a sticker out of a file your browser and the video engine cannot read. Large clips are processed on your own device, so they are as fast as your computer allows, and the video engine, about 31 MB, is downloaded the first time you make an animated sticker, when your browser cannot write WebP itself, or when it cannot open a file's format by itself.

Sources and checks

• WhatsApp/stickers, Android README: Sticker art and app requirements: 512 x 512 pixels, WebP, size limits, animation length and frame time, tray icon, pack size.
• WhatsApp/stickers, iOS README: The same requirements for iOS, which also accepts a PNG for a still sticker and sends the pack to WhatsApp through the pasteboard.
• WhatsApp/stickers repository: Says that sticker apps import stickers into WhatsApp and points to the Android and iOS READMEs for the requirements.