Instagram is testing longer videos that could bring full podcasts, interviews and shows into its app. The question is whether creators will get paid for them.
Instagram helped build the short-form video culture that now dominates social media. Now it wants viewers to stay a lot longer. On October 26, Instagram announced it is testing Features, a format that lets select creators upload horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long. The test is underway in Brazil and expanding to some U.S. creators, with no date yet for a wider launch. A companion tool, Clips as Reels, lets creators link up to eight short clips to a single full-length video, so a viewer who finds a clip can watch the whole episode without leaving the app.
The move puts Instagram squarely in YouTube’s territory. For years, creators have posted highlights on Instagram and sent followers to YouTube for the full episode. Features could keep that whole audience in one place, including on the living-room TV. Instagram’s TV app, which began testing on Amazon Fire TV in December 2025, has expanded to Samsung and Google TV, with Apple TV support announced this week. It’s also a reversal for Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who long resisted longer videos because short ones drove the sharing and messaging the app was built on. He now says his thinking has changed.
The bigger question is money. YouTube shares ad revenue with qualifying creators, paying out 55% of what eligible ads earn on its watch pages. Instagram has leaned instead on brand deals, subscriptions and other tools, and it hasn’t committed to a long-term way to pay creators for Features. A spokesperson told TechCrunch the company is exploring options involving brands, fans and performance-based incentives. That matters, because a 90-minute show takes far more time, equipment and editing than a Reel. Reaching more viewers isn’t the same as earning more from them.
Instagram has tried this before. It launched IGTV for longer videos in 2018, then dropped the standalone app and the brand in 2022 as Reels took over. This time, long videos arrive alongside an established short-form system: Reels to pull viewers in, links to the full show, and a TV screen to watch it on. Instagram is also building Series, which groups related Reels into episodes, and making live video easier to find.
For independent publishers and podcasters, Features could make life simpler, with one place to post the clip and the full conversation. It also deepens a familiar dependence. The platform decides what gets seen and whether creators get paid, and a bigger audience doesn’t automatically mean a sustainable business. Instagram has already shown it can change how people discover video. Now it has to convince them to stay for the whole show, and convince creators it’s worth making one.