Instagram's 90-minute Features test asks creators to bet on unpaid long-form

Adam Mosseri said in a post on X on 27 October that Features has not been fully launched. Instagram has announced no timeline for wider access. He added that Instagram is "exploring multiple options to help long-form creators get paid". He gave no figure.

The test began on 26 October with selected creators in Brazil and is expanding to a small group in the US. Instagram has not said how many creators are involved. For viewers, Features puts full interviews, podcasts and comedy sets inside an app built for short clips. A Reel becomes the way in. For creators, the question is narrower: whether a 30-minute video earns anything at all.

Features is built for widescreen video, the shape people expect from a podcast or an interview rather than a vertical Reel. Instagram is also testing Clips as Reels, which links a short clip to the full-length video behind it. A viewer can move from a teaser to a 40-minute programme without leaving the app. That link is the commercially interesting part. It lets Instagram point the discovery engine it already has at a format it has never made work.

The money gap creators are looking at

YouTube pays creators 55% of advertising revenue from long-form videos and keeps 45%. Instagram has published no comparable split. The gap shows up per view as well. Industry estimates put Indian YouTubers at Rs 50 to Rs 200 for every 1,000 long-form views. At those rates a video with a million views brings roughly Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh in advertising money, before sponsorship.

Instagram's structure is different in kind.

It does not pay all creators automatically on watch time; creators earn through brand partnerships, subscriptions, Gifts that viewers buy with Stars, and selected incentive programmes. A Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch it was "too early to share a long-term monetization model". The company is looking at earnings from brands, fans and Instagram itself, including performance-based incentives, the spokesperson said.

The earnings stack goes further. Divyanshu Damani said long-form creators on YouTube can add brand partnerships, sponsorships, affiliate marketing and direct product sales to advertising, then courses, workshops, memberships and paid communities. He put a well-run education channel with about 100,000 subscribers at Rs 10-15 lakh a month.

Instagram's pitch to creators rests on reach. Meta said in September 2025 that Instagram had three billion monthly active users.

IGTV is the precedent nobody at Instagram wants to repeat

Instagram has tried this before. IGTV launched in 2018 to carry videos longer than the one-minute limit then applied to the main feed. The standalone IGTV app was discontinued in 2022 as Meta folded its video formats together around Reels. Mosseri said he had opposed long-form video in the past, partly because longer viewing could cut into interactions such as sharing Reels and messaging friends. Creators make a related point about attention. Larissa D'Sa said Instagram will struggle to attract serious long-form creators without a clear revenue-sharing system. Holding someone for 15 or 30 minutes is a different problem from holding them for seconds, she said. Prerenaa Khatri, chief business officer at Only Much Louder (OML) Entertainment, said changing established viewing habits will take time.

Mosseri made the case alongside Tessa Lyons, Instagram's vice president of product, in a company video conversation. They framed Features as room for episodic series and livestreams. Reels stays central to short-form viewing. Ninety minutes dwarfs the one-minute limit of 2018. The difference this time is that long videos are meant to be found inside Reels, not in a separate app.

Divyanshu Damani of TagMango put the platform logic plainly. Short videos pull users in; longer ones keep them watching.

What happens next

Instagram has set no date for wider access. Features remains a test.

Mosseri said the rollout will take time as the company works to get the offering right, and that Instagram would communicate updates as the initiative progresses. YouTube is not waiting. It has announced changes to its Shorts recommendation system to give more visibility to original content and less to minimally edited reuploads. It is also expanding tools that let creators organise Shorts into episodic series. Both moves point at the same contest: where a creator publishes the long version, not just the clip. For Meta, longer sessions mean more places to sell advertising without sending viewers to YouTube.

Until Instagram names a revenue share, 90 minutes is the only firm number it has given creators. That is the whole of the offer so far.