How to make a sticker or emote
- Upload an image. A PNG with a transparent background gives a die-cut sticker that follows the outline; a photo works with the circle, rounded or square shape.
- Set the border (8 px white at 512 px is WhatsApp’s recommendation), zoom and drag the image into place, and add a short caption if you want one.
- Check the previews on light, dark and colored backgrounds and at the 28-pixel chat size, where detail disappears first.
- Download the WhatsApp sticker (WebP plus tray icon), the 112/56/28 emote set, a 128 px emoji or a 1024 px PNG for print.
How the border and sizes are made
The border is drawn from the art’s own transparency: the tool makes a solid silhouette of the image (and caption) in the border color and stamps it around the original in several rings, so the edge follows every curve and stays solid even when it is thick. Every size is rendered at 512 px first and then halved step by step down to the target, which keeps 56 and 28 px emotes crisper than a single big downscale.
What we tested
On October 14, 2026 we drove the tool in Chromium with a cut-out cartoon (transparent PNG), a detailed photo and a worst-case square of random noise, downloaded every export and checked it with Pillow: size, file type from the file’s own signature, bytes, and transparency.
| Export | File | Size | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| WhatsApp sticker (cut-out) | WebP 512x512 | 10.4 KB | quality 90, under 100 KB, transparent corners |
| Tray icon | PNG 96x96 | 4.0 KB | under 50 KB |
| WhatsApp sticker (photo, circle) | WebP 512x512 | 41.7 KB | quality 90, under 100 KB |
| WhatsApp sticker (random noise, square) | WebP 512x512 | 97.6 KB | stepped down to quality 60, under 100 KB |
| Emote set | PNG 112, 56, 28 in a ZIP | 4.9 KB, 2.3 KB, 1.1 KB | exact sizes, transparent |
| Emoji | PNG 128x128 | 4.9 KB | transparent |
| Large | PNG 1024x1024 | 100.0 KB | transparent |
The border followed the outline: on the cut-out test image every pixel just outside the art’s edge was opaque white (the last 6 px before the transparent edge at row 256 are white (RGB > 225)), and the corners of every sticker stayed fully transparent. The page fitted a 390 px phone screen with no errors.
Sources
Checked on .
Frequently Asked Questions
Built by Derek Giordano · Part of Ultimate Design Tools