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October 22, 2026
Instagram long-form video arrived on 26 October 2026. A small group of US creators can now upload horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long in a format called Features, and Instagram has not said it will pay anyone for the views.
Adam Mosseri announced it with product vice president Tessa Lyons in a video posted to Instagram rather than in a blog post, which is part of why the specifics are thin. There is no published eligibility list, no second country beyond Brazil and the United States, and no revenue share.
Features is a separate upload type that accepts a video of up to 90 minutes. Instagram names podcasts, vlogs and interviews as the use cases, and the format is horizontal rather than the 9:16 frame Reels trained everyone to shoot. Published Features appear on Explore and in the main feed, not in a separate tab.
It is a test, and Instagram has been specific about that much. Creators in Brazil have had it for some time. From 26 October it reached a selected group of US creators, with expansion promised over the coming months and no criteria published for who gets picked. Mosseri’s framing was that he had resisted the idea for years: “For a long time, I have been against doing long-form video on Instagram.”
Three related things shipped or were previewed alongside it. Instagram’s TV app now runs on Samsung, Fire TV and Google TV, with Apple TV listed as coming soon. Series, a hub on a creator profile that holds episodic Reels in order, has been in test since June and is still not launched. Background playback, the thing that would make a 90-minute podcast usable while you do something else, is not available.
The demand side explains the push. Nielsen now ranks YouTube as the largest streaming content provider in the US, and YouTube says people watch more than a billion hours of its content on home TV sets every day. That is the audience Features is reaching for, which is why the TV app shipped in the same announcement.
This is the part that decides whether the format matters to you. Mosseri said Instagram has no current plans for a revenue-sharing programme across short or long-form video, and a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch: “It’s too early to share a long-term monetization model.” No ad revenue share was announced, and existing brand deals carry over unchanged.
Instagram’s own documentation backs that up rather than contradicting it. The creator earnings page lists subscriptions, gifts, badges, partnership ads and Creator Marketplace, and describes bonuses in one line: bonuses reward you for the performance of your reels, carousels and single image posts. Long-form video is not mentioned anywhere on it. Mosseri was blunt about why the performance programme stays small: “we spend more money than we make back by a long shot.”
The contrast with YouTube is where the decision sits. VidIQ’s analysis, cited in the launch coverage, puts YouTube’s ad revenue share at roughly $1 to $10 per 1,000 long-form views, and estimates about $50,000 a month on YouTube against $5,000 to $15,000 on Instagram for creators above a million subscribers.
Treat those as directional, not precise. They are a third-party estimate rather than a platform disclosure, they describe top creators rather than a median, and they say nothing about what a 2,000-follower business account earns on either platform. The structural point survives the caveats: YouTube attaches a per-view payment to long-form watch time and Instagram, so far, does not.
So Features gives you distribution and nothing else. That is not worthless, because Explore and feed placement is real reach, but it is a different proposition from a format that pays per view, and the question for your social media strategy is which of the two you are actually short of.
Features is horizontal. Reels is vertical. A 90-minute horizontal interview does not cut into Reels without reframing, and a vertical shoot does not fill a Features frame without pillarboxing or a crop that loses the sides.
If you already produce a podcast or a webinar on a horizontal camera, you have inventory and the cost is close to zero. If your whole short-form video operation shoots vertical on a phone, adopting Features means either a second camera setup or a reframing pass on every clip. That is the real budget line, and nobody in the launch coverage put a number on it.
The practical test: look at what is already on your drive in 16:9. A recorded client webinar, a conference talk, a two-camera interview. If that folder is empty, Features is a production decision rather than a repurposing one.
The mechanic worth your attention is Clips as Reels. You can attach up to eight Reels clips to a longer Features post, and each clip links viewers to the full video. It is a funnel built into the product: the short clip does the discovery work it already does well, and the long video becomes the destination.
That pattern is familiar if you have run anything on YouTube, where Shorts feed long-form. The difference on Instagram is that the clips are what the algorithm already distributes at scale, so the top of the funnel is wider and the bottom pays nothing. Lyons was careful to say “Reels is still going to be a core part of Instagram,” which should be read as reassurance that nothing about Reels distribution changes.
If you get access, the clip is the asset to spend real effort on. A weak clip with a 90-minute video behind it produces neither watch time nor a click.
Almost certainly not. Features is limited to a selected group of creators in Brazil and the United States as of 26 October 2026. Instagram has published no application form, no eligibility criteria and no date for a wider rollout.
No, and it has not said it will. Mosseri said there are no current plans for a revenue share across short or long-form video, and Instagram’s creator earnings page still describes bonuses as rewarding reels, carousels and single image posts. Brand deals and subscriptions work as before.
No. Posting to both is reasonable if the horizontal file already exists, but moving off a platform with a per-view payment to one with none is not supported by anything Instagram has announced. Revisit it if a monetization model appears.
Nothing published says so. Instagram described Features as an additional upload type, and Lyons said Reels remains core to the app. Treat your Reels plan as unchanged until Instagram publishes something about ranking, which it has not.
Instagram long-form video is reach without revenue, in a frame most social accounts are not shooting. If you already have horizontal video sitting unused, it is a free extra placement and worth taking the moment access arrives. If you would have to change how you shoot, wait until Instagram either publishes a monetization model or opens the test, because what the platforms reward is the only thing that should move a production budget.
Audit the horizontal archive either way, because that answers the question before Instagram does. It is the same calculation as deciding whether tagging products is worth the extra step: a format is only cheap when the asset already exists.
This is the kind of thing we work on with clients at Social Lady. If you want a second opinion on whether long-form video belongs in your mix, get in touch.
