Instagram Features: 90-minute video, but no revenue share
Instagram is testing Features in Brazil, a horizontal video format of up to 90 minutes, and paying some YouTubers up to $500,000 to bring their videos over. Ad revenue sharing like YouTube's does not exist and has no date. Here is who wins, who loses, and how to use the format without counting on money that is not there yet.
Instagram Features: 90-minute video, but no revenue share
Instagram is testing a horizontal video format of up to 90 minutes in Brazil, called Features, and paying contracts of up to $500,000 to get some YouTubers to bring their videos over. What it does not offer, and has no date to offer, is what YouTube has done for years: share ad revenue with the people who publish. My take is simple: use the format as a showcase, but do not put a single dollar of Instagram money in your 2027 plan.
What did Instagram launch, and where does it apply?
Features is a long, horizontal video of up to 90 minutes, with a title and description. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, and Tessa Lyons introduced the format on October 26, 2026. A Meta spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that the test started with a small group in the United States and that Brazilian creators are also taking part, according to Canaltech. Most accounts in Brazil still do not see the option.
The detail that matters most to anyone working with clips: the creator can link up to eight Reels to the full video, according to Fast Company Brasil. Someone who watches the short clip taps the link and lands on the whole episode. Until now, the Reels cap was 20 minutes. Features also shows up in Instagram's TV app, although Canaltech could not use it in Brazil.
How much is Instagram paying, and to whom?
For a hand-picked group, quite a lot. Business Insider reported that Instagram offered $50,000 to $500,000 to selected YouTubers, and Tubefilter summarized the terms: there is no exclusivity requirement, only that the long video goes out on Features on the same day it goes out on YouTube. Meta confirmed it funds some creators directly, but said the details are confidential.
The amounts come from people familiar with the deals, not from Meta. And nobody knows whether it is a one-time payment, a per-season payment, or one with performance bonuses.
What about revenue sharing?
It does not exist. Meta said it is "too early" to present a long-term monetization model and that it is studying ways for creators to earn from brands, fans, and Instagram itself, including performance incentives. On October 28, Mosseri wrote on X that he understands "the economics matter a lot" and that the company is weighing several options to pay people who make long video. No date, no percentage.
On the other side, YouTube pays out 55% of net ad revenue from long videos to people in the Partner Program. It is a written rule, the same for everyone who joins. Eduardo Mendes's column on InfoMoney points out that YouTube paid out $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies over the last four years. Instagram, for now, has one-off contracts and nothing recurring.
Why is Instagram doing this now?
Because video money is moving to the living room. According to the same column, more than a third of YouTube's ad revenue in the quarter ($11.2 billion) already came from TV viewing, and Mosseri himself said on Colin and Samir's podcast that YouTube's mobile time spent in the United States is flat and that growth is on television. Nobody watches 30-second Reels back to back on a TV: they watch episodes.
And Meta has the cash to buy that catalog. The company made $64.6 billion in the third quarter of 2026, almost all of it from advertising. Paying half a million to a big YouTuber is cheap next to that. Sharing revenue with millions of creators forever is not.
This pattern is not new. The blog has already covered the $5,000 bonus per series on Facebook and the Creator Fast Track that arrived in Brazil: Meta pays to kick-start a format, for a fixed period, to people it picks. On the same podcast, Mosseri said the creator payment program for video loses money for the company, according to Net Influencer. Start-up money has an end date, and a revenue-sharing rule does not.
Who wins and who loses?
The winners are the people who are already big on YouTube and got an invitation. The video is the same, the extra work is one upload, and the check is fixed. For them it is nearly free money.
Podcasters, interviewers, and long-live streamers who already publish clips win too. The link between Reels and the full video is exactly what this kind of channel tries to do by hand today, with an "full episode in the bio link" that almost nobody clicks. If the format reaches your account, the clip becomes a way into the episode without leaving the app. It is the logic of the podcast built to be clipped, now with the connector ready.
The mid-size creator loses by reading "Instagram now has long video" and concluding they will earn like on YouTube. They will not. A 40-minute video with 200,000 views on Features earns zero from ads. The same video on YouTube, inside the Partner Program, earns revenue, even if little.
And anyone thinking of moving house loses too. YouTube doubled the monetization requirements for new channels starting in February 2027, and it is tempting to look at Instagram as an alternative. Today it is not: what it offers is reach, not income per view.
What I would do starting today
Do not change where long video makes money. YouTube is still the home of revenue. Features is a second window for the same video, never a replacement.
If Features shows up on your account, publish the same episode on the same day. With no exclusivity, the cost is one upload. Measure two things for four weeks: how many new followers each episode brought and how many people reached the full video through the linked Reels. If neither moves, stop.
Use the eight Reels as a funnel. Pick moments that open a question and do not close it, so the link to the episode makes sense. A clip that resolves everything in 40 seconds has no reason to lead to the long video. In Cut.Pro, the AI finds those moments in the episode, you adjust the captions in the editor, and you schedule the clips across your social networks in one go.
Charge brands for both windows. If you close sponsored deals on long video, the Instagram audience becomes part of the delivery. Put that in the contract and the price, because that is how Features can turn into money before any revenue share.
Do not plan on Instagram platform revenue. Not from Reels, not from Features. In the comparison of how much each network pays per thousand views, Reels already showed up as the network that pays little directly and a lot indirectly, in followers and sales. Long video, for now, follows the same rule.
My take
I like the product. The link between clip and episode is the best distribution idea Instagram has had in years, and it favors people who already work with long video and clips. But Meta is buying catalog with checks and putting off the question that matters. Until there is a public rule on how much of the ad money goes to the people who publish, Features is a good place to be discovered and a terrible place to depend on. If Meta announces a revenue share, I will be back here with the math. Until then, treat every contract and every bonus as what they are: temporary.
