Already using WebP but the files are still too large? Re-compress existing WebP images using lossy or lossless modes. Start from the original source when possible — or squeeze existing WebP files down when you don't have it.
Upload your existing WebP files — or start from JPG/PNG for a cleaner result.
WebP is a more efficient format than JPEG or PNG — but "more efficient format" doesn't mean every WebP file is already optimally compressed. A WebP file can still be large for several reasons:
High quality setting on export. Design tools like Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD export WebP at quality 85–95 by default. That's higher than most web images need. A hero image exported at quality 90 is often 2–3× larger than one at quality 80 with no visible difference at normal viewing.
Large source dimensions. A 4000×3000 WebP for a website that displays it at 1200px is carrying 11× more pixel data than needed. Compression reduces bytes per pixel; it doesn't fix dimensional mismatch. The correct fix for oversized dimensions is resizing before or during compression.
CMS or CDN re-encoding at high quality. Some content management systems convert uploaded images to WebP at quality 90 or above because they want to "preserve quality." The result is a WebP that's smaller than the original PNG but still larger than it needs to be.
WebP is unique in supporting both lossy and lossless compression — the same format, two very different use cases. The distinction matters a lot for which quality settings are appropriate:
Works like JPEG but more efficiently. Discards imperceptible visual data to achieve smaller files. At quality 80, a lossy WebP is typically 25–35% smaller than a JPEG at the same quality. Use for hero images, blog photos, product photography, social media images.
Stores pixel data exactly — identical to the original. More efficient than PNG: lossless WebP is typically 25–35% smaller than PNG at equal quality. Use for logos, UI screenshots, images with text or sharp edges, product cutouts with transparency.
If the image is a photograph going on a website and you don't need to keep it in JPEG for email or print, lossy WebP at quality 78–82 delivers the best size-to-quality ratio of any web image format available today.
Logos with transparency, product cutouts, UI components, and screenshots that need to stay sharp. Lossless WebP beats PNG-32 in file size consistently while offering identical quality and the same transparency support.
| Quality Range | Visual Result | Typical File Reduction vs Original | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85–92% | Near-perfect | 35–50% smaller than JPEG source | High-detail product photos, portfolio work, images requiring zoom |
| 78–84% | Excellent | 50–65% smaller than JPEG source | Web hero images, blog photos, social media — default recommended range |
| 68–77% | Good | 60–72% smaller than JPEG source | General web images, content blocks, background images |
| 55–67% | Acceptable | 68–78% smaller than JPEG source | Low-priority images, decorative elements, thumbnails |
| Below 55% | Visible artifacts | 75–85% smaller | Not recommended — blocking artifacts visible even for photos |
WebP's quality scale maps differently to visual output than JPEG's scale. A WebP at quality 80 looks roughly equivalent to a JPEG at quality 85 — WebP is simply more efficient at a given quality number. This is why the recommended WebP quality range (78–84%) appears lower than JPEG's (75–82%) even though the visual output is similar.
WebP support reaches 97%+ of global browser users as of 2025. Chrome (since version 23), Firefox (since 65), Safari (since 14, iOS 14+), Edge (all versions), and Opera all support WebP natively. The gap has effectively closed.
The remaining 3% are primarily very old iOS devices (pre-iOS 14) and Internet Explorer 11. For most production websites, serving WebP without a fallback is safe. If you serve an audience that includes older iOS users in significant numbers, use the <picture> element to provide a JPEG fallback:
Note that WebP is not supported in email clients — Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, and Yahoo Mail all fall back to a broken image icon. For any image going into an email (inline or attached), use JPEG. For web only, WebP is the superior choice.