How We Measure Airbnb: Photo Crops, Card Text, Title Cuts and Show More (October 2026 Data)

Several of my Airbnb guides quote numbers we measured ourselves: how big your cover photo is in search, what a search card says, where a title gets cut and how much of your description shows before Show more. This page shows how we got each one, with the date, the screen size and the sample, so you can check our work or repeat it.

The short answer (re-measured October 23, 2026): On Airbnb's website, 41 of 46 sessions showed search card photos at 4:3 and 5 showed them nearly square. US cards showed an AI-written line instead of the host's title in 23 of 26 sessions. On a listing page, a phone opens on a nearly square 390 x 371 photo, a desktop shows a 1120 x 476 grid filled column by column, and descriptions get 8 lines before Show more.

All of it is Airbnb's website, logged out. We didn't measure the iOS or Android apps.

Every measurement at a glance

All on October 23, 2026, logged out, in headless Chrome. A session is one fresh visitor loading one page.

Every value is in the raw data (JSON).

Search card photo sizes by screen, October 23, 2026. Drawn from the measured boxes; not a real listing.

How we measure

• Browser: Google Chrome 155, headless, driven by Playwright. Every page load gets a fresh browser profile, so each session is a new, logged-out visitor with no cookies.
• Screens: desktop windows of 1,440 x 900 and 1,280 x 800, and phone screens of 390 x 844 (iPhone size), 430 x 932 (large iPhone) and 360 x 800 (small Android), each with a matching phone user agent.
• Searches: on airbnb.com, Gatlinburg, Tennessee; Destin, Florida; Joshua Tree, California; Chicago; Asheville, North Carolina; and Bath, England. On airbnb.co.uk, airbnb.ca, airbnb.com.au and airbnb.ie, Destin plus a local search (Bath, Tofino, Byron Bay and Galway). No dates, guests or filters.
• Listings: 10 homes picked from those airbnb.com searches at set positions in the results, not just the top result: 5 homes, 2 cabins, 2 condos and 1 apartment. All 10 were opened at 1,440 and 390 px, 5 at 1,280, 4 at 430 and 2 at 360.
• What we read: sizes come from the page itself (each element's box and its CSS), not from screenshots. For text, we find the position of every character and count those inside the visible box, minus any hidden behind the "..." Airbnb adds.
• Pacing: one page at a time, 8 to 14 seconds apart. Near the end, Airbnb answered one request with a rate-limit error (HTTP 429), so we stopped, waited more than half an hour and finished with 10 loads about a minute apart. In all: 86 measurement loads with saved results (the 429 among them) and 15 setup tests. No CAPTCHA appeared, and nothing was solved or bypassed. We closed Airbnb's own pop-ups (a price notice and a translation notice) and left cookie banners unanswered.
• What we keep: each run's time, screen, browser user agent and values. The public file has no listing IDs, links, photos or hosts' words; listings are numbered L01 to L10.

Search results

Cover photo size and shape

Airbnb fills a fixed box with your cover (in web terms, object-fit cover, centered), so the box decides what survives. In 41 of 46 sessions, across all five screen sizes, that box was 4:3. In the other 5 it was nearly square (20:19), at both desktop and phone sizes, on the US, UK and Australian sites.

On airbnb.com, the two shapes came with two different cards. All 3 US sessions with nearly square photos also showed hosts' titles and no AI note, and all 23 sessions with 4:3 photos showed Airbnb's AI line. That looks like Airbnb keeping some visitors on its older card, but Airbnb hasn't said so.

For a 3:2 cover, a 4:3 box keeps 89% of the width and a nearly square one keeps 70%. The first photo on a phone listing page was nearly square in every session we checked, so the middle 70% of the width is still the part that survives everywhere (how to pick an Airbnb cover photo).

Photos per card

Each card had a counter ("Photo 1 of 6") and dots for swiping. 823 of 828 cards held six photos and the rest five or three, so six looks like the cap.

For 7 of our 10 listings, the six were the listing's photos 1 to 6 in order, in every session. For the other 3, the card led with a later photo (photo 8, 21 or 22) in some or all sessions, followed by photos 1 to 5, with no filters or dates set. Your cover usually leads, but not always (which five to put first).

What US cards say

In 23 of 26 airbnb.com sessions, each home card showed its type and town ("Cabin in Gatlinburg"), the rating, a line written by Airbnb's AI, the rooms, dates and total price. A note above the results read "Descriptions are based on details hosts provide." None of those cards showed the host's title. A search for Bath, England on airbnb.com looked the same: the guest's site decides, not the listing's location.

The AI line came in two lengths. In 12 sessions it was one line of 27 to 50 characters (median 39). In 11 it was a longer summary of 52 to 87 characters (median 77) with room for two lines. Both lengths showed up at every screen size.

In the other 3 US sessions, cards showed the host's own title on one line, as on the non-US sites. So if you host in the US, your title still appears on some cards, and always on your listing page (what to write).

What UK, Canadian, Australian and Irish cards say

Every session on airbnb.co.uk, airbnb.ca, airbnb.com.au and airbnb.ie showed the host's title as the line under the home type, cut to one line, with no AI note. That held for the same Destin, Florida search on all four sites.

Where a one-line title gets cut

The title line wraps at spaces and shows only its first line, ending in "..." when it's cut. We counted the characters on that line for every title that was cut, on the four non-US sites plus the US sessions that showed titles:

• Every 50-character title was cut at these four widths (65 of 65). No title of 32 characters or fewer was (0 of 77).
• All 191 normally spaced titles that were cut kept at least their first 30 characters.
• Titles that glue words together with slashes, bullets or dashes and no spaces got cut sooner, after as few as 15 characters, because the card breaks lines only at spaces (26 titles, left out of the table).
• Our own 50-character test title, placed in a UK card, was cut after 41 characters at all four widths. It ended at "9 min to" each time, because the next word, "downtown", never fit on the line. Our 40- and 30-character test titles showed in full.

Our test title, not a real listing, in Airbnb's own card with the photo hidden and the rating replaced. airbnb.co.uk, October 23, 2026.

Listing pages

The first photo on a phone

On a 390-pixel phone, all 10 listings opened on photo 1 alone at 390 x 370.5 pixels (we round to 390 x 371), nearly square, with a counter such as "1 / 47". It scales with the screen: 430 x 408.5 on a 430-pixel phone and 360 x 342 on a 360-pixel one.

The desktop photo grid

In a 1,440 x 900 window, all 10 listings showed the same 1120 x 476 grid:

• Photo 1 fills the left half at 560 x 476.
• Photos 2 to 5 share the right half: 2 top left (272 x 238), 3 below it (272 x 230), 4 top right (272 x 238) and 5 below it (272 x 230). The top tiles are taller because the 8-pixel gap between rows comes out of the bottom ones.
• We matched every tile to the listing's own photo order, and the block fills column by column, not row by row.
• The grid follows the window's height: in a 1,280 x 800 window it was 1120 x 416, with the cover tile at 560 x 416.

Airbnb's own layout with the host's photos and words removed. October 23, 2026.

The description before Show more

Airbnb limits the description box to 8 lines (a CSS line clamp) of 16-pixel text on 22-pixel lines, then shows a Show more link. The box was 176 pixels tall at every screen size we checked; only its width changed.

• Line breaks cost the most. One listing that put one feature on each line showed 144 characters in its 8 lines, at every screen size we checked.
• Desktop usually shows the whole main field. The main description field ran 154 to 500 characters, and on desktop all of it fit in 8 of 10 listings, sometimes with the next heading ("The space") below it.
• Our test paragraph is a 962-character description we wrote, placed in the box on real listing pages so every screen is compared on the same words.

Our test paragraph in Airbnb's own description box. October 23, 2026.

To put it to work, write your first 300 or so characters as if they're all a phone guest reads (12 description openings that fit).

How the numbers change with screen size

Three things held at every size: the search photo was 4:3 or nearly square, the phone listing photo was nearly square, and the description got 8 lines.

What we didn't measure

• Airbnb's iOS and Android apps. Most nights are booked there (63% in the first quarter of 2026, per Airbnb's shareholder letter), and the app can lay pages out differently. Our phone numbers come from the website at phone sizes.
• Safari on a real iPhone. We used Chrome with an iPhone-sized screen and user agent. Airbnb's own font loads in both, but a line can break a word earlier or later.
• Logged-in guests, dates, filters and categories. A March 2026 reply in Airbnb's Community Center, from a member rather than Airbnb staff, said a cover can change with the category a listing appears in and what a guest searches for.
• Tablets, other countries and other languages.
• How often each version appears overall. Our split (5 of 46 sessions with nearly square photos, 3 of 26 US sessions with hosts' titles) comes from one day and one connection.

Check your own listing

1. Open a private browser window, so you're logged out.
2. Search your town with no dates and find your card. Note the photo shape and what the line under the home type says.
3. Open your listing on your phone and read only what sits above Show more.
4. On a laptop, check which photos sit in the 2x2 block: 2 and 3 in the left column, 4 and 5 in the right.

You may see a different version from ours, because Airbnb doesn't show everyone the same page. That's why every number here carries a date and a sample.

Download the data

The JSON file has every run: time, site, search, screen, browser user agent and the measured values for each card and listing. It leaves out listing IDs, links, hosts' words and photos. You're welcome to reuse it with a link to this page.

Change log

• October 22 and 23, 2026: First measurements on October 22: search card photo frames, the desktop grid, the phone listing photo, title cuts on airbnb.co.uk, US card text and the Show more cutoff. Some raw output from that day, including the Show more run, wasn't saved, so on October 23 we re-measured everything and kept the raw data (86 page loads). What changed: phone search cards were 4:3 in most sessions (342 x 256.5), and the 342 x 325 we first recorded showed up only in the nearly square group; 3 of 26 US sessions still showed hosts' titles; Airbnb's AI line ran to two lines in 11 of 23 sessions; the desktop grid's small tiles are 272 x 238 and 272 x 230, not four of 272 x 234; and unbroken sentences filled 317 to 345 characters on a phone, below the 327 to 370 we reported on October 22. We updated our cover photo, photo order, description, title, views-but-no-bookings, not-getting-bookings, AI prompts, tools roundup, message templates, PriceLabs and Hospitable guides to match.

Next re-check: January 2027. If you spot a change before then, tell me and I'll re-run the checks.

FAQ

What size is the cover photo in Airbnb search results?

It depends on the screen and on which version of the card Airbnb shows. In our October 23, 2026 checks of Airbnb's website, 41 of 46 sessions showed a 4:3 photo: 307 x 230 pixels on a 1,440-pixel-wide desktop and 342 x 256.5 on a 390-pixel-wide phone. The other 5 showed a nearly square photo instead, such as 342 x 325 on that phone.

Does Airbnb show my title in US search results?

Usually not. In 23 of 26 logged-out sessions on airbnb.com on October 23, 2026, cards showed the home type and town plus a summary written by Airbnb's AI. The other 3 sessions showed hosts' own titles, with nearly square photos and no AI note. On Airbnb's UK, Canadian, Australian and Irish sites, every session showed hosts' titles, cut to one line.

How much of my Airbnb description shows before Show more?

Eight lines. Airbnb's page limits the description box to 8 lines of 16-pixel text, so the number of characters depends on the screen width and your line breaks. On a 390-pixel phone, unbroken sentences filled 317 to 345 characters; on a 1,440-pixel desktop, the whole main description field usually showed. A list with one item per line showed only 144 characters.

Why do Airbnb layout numbers differ between websites and guides?

Sizes change with screen width and window height, Airbnb shows different versions of its pages to different visitors, and the app can differ from the website. A number without a date, a screen size and a sample is hard to check. We publish ours with all three and plan to re-measure every quarter.

Did you measure the Airbnb app?

No. Everything here is Airbnb's website, logged out, in Chrome at phone and desktop sizes. Airbnb's app accounted for 63% of nights booked in the first quarter of 2026, so treat our phone numbers as a close guide to the app, not a measurement of it.