February 7, 2026

The Complete Visual Asset Checklist for SaaS Startups

Every SaaS startup needs the same visual assets, but most teams create them inconsistently. Here's the complete checklist organized by where each image goes.

By Sharon Onyinye

The Complete Visual Asset Checklist for SaaS Startups

Every SaaS startup ends up needing the same set of visual assets. Hero images, product screenshots, social cards, pitch deck mockups, email graphics.

The problem is that most teams create these reactively. You need a Product Hunt image, so you make one. Then you need an OG image, so you make another one with completely different styling. Then your pitch deck needs product shots, so you paste in raw screenshots.

The result is a patchwork of inconsistent visuals that undermines your brand at every touchpoint.

This checklist gives you every visual asset you need, organized by where it goes, with recommended dimensions and practical notes. Create them all in one focused session and your brand will look polished everywhere.

Website Assets

Your website is your home base. These are the visual assets every SaaS landing page needs.

Hero Image

The first thing visitors see. This should be your product's best angle, professionally framed.

Dimensions: 1920 x 1080px minimum, export at 2x (3840 x 2160)
Format: WebP with PNG fallback
File size: Under 500KB after compression
What to show: Your core product screen in a device frame with a branded background

This is the single most important visual asset on your site. Spend the most time here. A hero image generator can help you create polished hero images with consistent framing.

Feature Section Screenshots

Typically 4-8 images, one per feature you highlight on your landing page.

Dimensions: 1200 x 800px at 2x (2400 x 1600)
Format: WebP with PNG fallback
File size: Under 300KB each after compression
What to show: Tightly cropped views of each individual feature in consistent device frames

Every feature screenshot should use the same device frame style and background family. Inconsistency here is immediately noticeable.

Open Graph (OG) Image

This is what appears when someone shares your website link on Twitter, LinkedIn, Slack, or any platform with link previews.

Dimensions: 1200 x 630px (the universal standard)
Format: PNG or JPEG
File size: Under 300KB
What to show: Your product name, a tagline, and optionally a small product screenshot. Keep it simple and readable at thumbnail sizes.

Favicon and App Icon

Favicon: 32 x 32px and 16 x 16px (ICO), plus 180 x 180px (Apple touch icon)
App icon: 512 x 512px (PNG, square)
What to show: A simplified logo mark recognizable at tiny sizes.

Blog Post Header Images

Dimensions: 1200 x 630px (matches OG image specs for easy reuse)
Format: PNG or JPEG
File size: Under 200KB

App Store Assets

If your product has a mobile app or desktop app, you need a specific set of store assets.

App Store Screenshots (iOS)

Apple requires specific dimensions and allows up to 10 screenshots per device type.

iPhone 6.7 inch: 1290 x 2796px (required)
iPhone 6.5 inch: 1242 x 2688px (required)
iPad 12.9 inch: 2048 x 2732px (if you have an iPad app)
Number needed: 6-8 screenshots minimum for a competitive listing
What to show: Key features, one per screenshot. Add captions and branded backgrounds. Do not use raw screenshots.

Play Store Screenshots (Android)

Dimensions: Common: 1080 x 1920px
Number needed: 4-8 screenshots (minimum 4 required)
Feature graphic: 1024 x 500px (required, shown at the top of your listing)
What to show: Same approach as App Store. Branded backgrounds, feature captions.

Social Media Assets

Every social platform where you have a presence needs visual assets.

Profile Images

Dimensions: 400 x 400px (works across all platforms)
What to show: Your logo mark, not the full wordmark. It displays at 48px or smaller in most contexts.

Platform Headers

Twitter/X: 1500 x 500px
LinkedIn: 1128 x 191px
What to show: Your product in a device frame, your tagline, or a clean branded graphic.

Post Templates

Create 2-3 reusable templates so you do not design from scratch every time.

Square posts: 1080 x 1080px (works on all platforms)
Landscape posts: 1200 x 630px (optimized for Twitter/LinkedIn)
Story format: 1080 x 1920px (Instagram stories)

Marketing Assets

These visual assets support your marketing efforts beyond the website and social media.

Pitch Deck Mockups

When you are fundraising or presenting to partners, you need polished product visuals in your slides.

Dimensions: 1920 x 1080px (standard 16:9 slide format)
Number needed: 3-5 product screenshots styled for dark slide backgrounds
What to show: Your best product screens in device frames. Consistent styling across all deck slides.

Use a startup screenshot tool to create pitch-deck-ready product mockups that look professional without hiring a designer.

Email Campaign Images

Product screenshots for your marketing emails, newsletters, and onboarding sequences.

Dimensions: 600px wide (standard email width), export at 2x (1200px)
Format: PNG for UI screenshots, JPEG for photos
File size: Under 200KB per image, under 1MB total per email
What to show: Feature highlights, product updates, onboarding steps. Consistent framing across all emails.

Press Kit Images

When journalists or partners write about you, they need high-quality assets.

Logo: SVG (vector) plus PNG at multiple sizes (200px, 500px, 1000px wide)
Product screenshots: 3-5 high-resolution product screenshots in device frames
Founder photos: Professional headshots at 800 x 800px minimum

Brand Foundation

Before creating any of these assets, establish these foundational elements so everything looks consistent.

Device Frame Selection

Pick one device frame style and use it everywhere:

Web apps: Browser frame (Chrome style) or MacBook frame
Mobile apps: iPhone (latest model) and/or Android device
Cross-platform: MacBook plus iPhone as your standard pairing

Color Palette

Define 2-3 background colors or gradients. Use these consistently across all visual assets. A primary gradient for hero images, a secondary for feature screenshots, and a neutral option for situations where gradients are too much.

Consistent Spacing

Define your padding and margin standards. How much space between the screenshot and the device frame edge, between the frame and the background edge, and in final exports. Document these so anyone on the team can maintain consistency.

The One-Day Sprint

You can create all of these assets in a focused day. Here is how.

Morning: Spend 1-2 hours choosing your device frames, colors, and spacing. Create one template that looks great. Midday: Hero image, feature screenshots, OG image. These are the highest-impact items. Afternoon: Pitch deck screenshots, email images, social templates, press kit. The template is dialed in, so these go faster. End of day: Export everything in the right formats. Organize into folders by category. Document your settings so anyone on the team can maintain consistency.

The Five-Asset Minimum Every Pre-Revenue Startup Needs

If you have no traction, no users, no funding, and three weeks of runway-anxiety before your next customer call, you don't need the full checklist above. You need five assets, and you need them today.

Asset one: the hero shot. A single product screenshot that shows what you do, framed in a device, on a background that doesn't look like a stock template. This goes on your landing page, your Twitter bio link card, your LinkedIn profile, and the top of every cold email. One asset, four contexts. If you only build one thing this week, build this. Asset two: the OG image. A 1200x630 image with your product name, a one-sentence value prop, and a tiny product preview. This is what shows up every time anyone shares your link in Slack, Twitter, LinkedIn, or text. Without it, your link is a blank gray rectangle with a URL, and links without preview cards get 30-40% fewer clicks. Use a hero image generator preset to avoid burning a half-day on this one image. Asset three: the feature screenshot. One screenshot showing your most defensible feature, tightly cropped, framed in a browser or device. This is the image you paste into pitch decks, demo emails, and onboarding flows. Pre-revenue startups love to build six feature shots; you only need the one that closes calls. Asset four: the founder photo. A clean headshot of you (or your founding team), taken in good light, in front of a neutral wall. Phone camera is fine — a $500 headshot session is overkill at this stage. This image goes everywhere from your investor updates to your press kit to your About page. Investors and customers buy people; show yours. Asset five: the social card template. One reusable square (1080x1080) and one landscape (1200x630) template with your brand colors, type, and a placeholder for screenshots. Build these once, then duplicate and swap content for every announcement. The first template takes two hours; every subsequent post takes ten minutes. That's the leverage.

Everything beyond these five — app store screenshots, Twitter banners, pitch deck mockups, press kits — can wait until you have a reason to need them. Don't pre-build assets for stages you haven't reached.

When Polish Matters More Than Personality (And When It's the Reverse)

Most early-stage founders read brand advice that tells them to "be authentic" and "let personality shine through," then they make scrappy hand-drawn visuals that look unprofessional next to their competitors. Other founders over-correct toward enterprise-grade polish and end up looking sterile, indistinguishable from a thousand B2B SaaS landing pages.

The rule that actually works: polish wins where trust is the bottleneck. Personality wins where attention is the bottleneck.

Polish-first contexts. Pitch decks for investors, landing page hero, OG images for link sharing, app store screenshots, founder photos in press kits. In each of these contexts, the viewer is asking a trust question: "is this team competent enough to bet on?" Rough visuals signal rough execution, fairly or not. A startup screenshot tool gets you 80% of the polish ceiling in 20% of the time — use it. Personality-first contexts. Twitter posts, changelog entries, indie hacker communities, Reddit launches, founder LinkedIn updates. Here the viewer's question isn't "are these people competent" but "should I care enough to stop scrolling." Polished templated visuals melt into the feed. A weird color palette, a hand-drawn arrow, an inside joke in the screenshot — these stop the scroll because they look human. Don't sand off the personality in these contexts; you'll lose the attention you were trying to win.

The mistake is using the same visual register everywhere. Polished founder photo in your pitch deck and a sharpie-on-napkin doodle on Twitter is fine — those audiences and contexts are different. Polished pitch deck and polished Twitter is fine too, if your brand voice is consistently that way. What kills you is when the polish level drifts unintentionally across the brand, so the OG image looks like a different company from the landing page, which looks like a different company from your Twitter.

Pick a register per surface, document it (a one-page brand guide is enough at this stage), and keep your team aligned. Monitor brand drift by collecting screenshots of every public-facing asset into a single board once a quarter. Drift is invisible day-to-day and obvious in aggregate.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should pre-seed startups outsource visual asset creation or DIY?

DIY at pre-seed unless a co-founder is already a designer. The reason isn't budget — it's iteration speed. At pre-seed your product, positioning, and value prop change weekly. Outsourced visuals lock you into the version you described to the designer two weeks ago. Use a templated tool, ship in-house, redo monthly. Once positioning stabilizes (typically post-PMF), then bring in a designer.

How often should I refresh visual assets by stage?

Pre-seed: monthly refresh, because the product changes that fast. Seed: quarterly refresh, with one major brand pass at funding close. Series A: biannual refresh, with intentional brand investment as headcount grows. The trap is refreshing too rarely at pre-seed (your visuals look stale next to the live product) or too often at Series A (your team can't keep up with the constant rebrand).

Do I really need a founder photo before I have customers?

Yes. Founder photos are trust accelerators, and pre-revenue is when you need trust the most. Customers buying from a no-name startup want to see a face. Investors evaluating your deck spend more time on the team slide than any other. The bar is "looks like a real person in good light," not "professional headshot session." Iterate later when you have budget.

Illustration versus photography — which fits a B2B SaaS better?

It depends on your buyer. Developer tools, infrastructure, and technical products do better with illustration because they're selling abstract concepts that don't photograph well (a database doesn't have a face). Industry-vertical SaaS — legal, real estate, healthcare — does better with contextual photography because buyers want to see the workflow in their world. Either is fine; mixing both inconsistently is not.

How do I monitor brand drift across a small team?

Quarterly screenshot audit. Once a quarter, capture every public-facing visual asset — landing page, every blog post header, last ten tweets, last three product launches, latest pitch deck, latest investor update — into one shared board. Drift is invisible day-to-day but slaps you in the face when you see everything at once. Fix what doesn't fit. Document why. Move on.

Ready to create stunning mockups?

Try Screenhance free - no credit card required.

Start Creating Free