In May 2020, Instagram told creators it would pay them 55% of the ad revenue earned on IGTV, its long-form video product built to compete with YouTube. The company’s COO called that split “industry standard,” according to MediaNama’s report on the announcement. Less than two years later, on February 28, 2022, Instagram shut down the standalone IGTV app and said in-stream video ads “will no longer be supported.” Creators who had been earning from them got a temporary monthly payment based on recent earnings, and then nothing.
Keep that history in mind when you read about this week’s news. On October 26, 2026, Instagram began testing Features, a format for horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long, aimed at podcasters, comedians and other long-form creators. Tubefilter’s report says the test started with long-form creators in Brazil and that Instagram plans to expand it to “tens of thousands of creators” in the U.S. over the coming months. A companion tool, Clips as Reels, lets a creator cut segments from a Features video and post them as standalone Reels that link back to the full episode. Instagram also brought its TV app to Apple TV in the U.S., per 9to5Mac.
What the launch did not include is a paycheck. A Meta spokesperson said it is “too early to share a long-term monetization model.” Adam Mosseri, who runs Instagram, said on X: “We understand the economics matter a ton, and are exploring multiple options to help long-form creators get paid,” as Storyboard18 reported. There is no timeline for that, either.
So, should you put 90 minutes of your best work on a platform that hasn’t decided to pay for it? My answer: use Features for distribution, but don’t let it become the place your long-form work lives. Here is why.
Instagram needs long video more than you need Instagram’s long video
The reason for Features is the living room. Nielsen’s August Gauge, released October 22, put YouTube at 15.8% of all U.S. TV viewing, a record for the platform, with streaming as a whole at 49.6% and Netflix at 7.7%. That lead on the TV screen is built on long videos, which is exactly what Instagram has never had in volume.
Instagram’s own executives said as much. In the announcement video, Mosseri admitted, “For a long time, I have been against doing long-form video on Instagram,” and product VP Tessa Lyons said, “we need more than just short-form video” (Tubefilter). When a platform says out loud that it is missing a kind of supply, the people who can supply it have some leverage. They only keep that leverage if they don’t hand the asset over for free and exclusively.
Compare the other side of the market. YouTube says it has paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies since 2021, across ads, Premium, memberships and shopping. Instagram is asking for the same kind of content with none of that machinery in place yet.
“Exploring options” has a track record at Meta
IGTV is one data point. The Reels Play bonus is the second. Meta launched it in 2021 to pull creators into short video, and in March 2023 it stopped offering new bonus deals; on Instagram the program had only ever been open to U.S. creators (Digital Music News). Around the same time, Mark Zuckerberg said that “the monetization efficiency of Reels is much less than Feed.”
I don’t read that as bad faith. It is how a buyer behaves: Meta pays for a format while it needs supply, then stops when the format’s ad economics don’t support the payments. The lesson for a creator is narrow and practical. Don’t build an income forecast around a payment that hasn’t been announced, from a company that has started and ended two earlier ones. This is the same pattern behind X’s creator payouts and YouTube’s new 10 million view floor for Shorts: the platform sets the rate card and can change it whenever its priorities change.
The money in a Features video is the money you bring with you
If Instagram won’t pay for the minutes, the minutes have to pay for themselves. That means income built into the video: a sponsor read, a product you sell, or a call to join your email list.
Integrated sponsorships are already growing. ThoughtLeaders scanned 2.9 million long-form and live YouTube uploads between September 15 and October 14, 2026, and found a detected sponsorship in 6.2% of them, up from 4.8% in the same window a year earlier, with 4,977 brands active. A sponsor read pays the same whether the video plays on YouTube, a podcast app or Instagram. Lyons more or less said this herself: creators “who already have those relationships” can bring existing brand deals and branded content placements into Features (9to5Mac). Translation: early on, the format works for creators who already have their own income, and does much less for those still waiting to be paid by a platform.
I treat this the way I treated vendor pilots during 20+ years in IT operations at a large telecom. You can run real traffic through a pilot, but you never let it hold the only copy of anything, because pilots get cancelled when the vendor’s priorities move. The same rule holds in my fractional COO work: when I review a small business’s revenue lines, anything that depends on a counterparty “exploring options” goes in the forecast at zero until there’s a signed term. Features is a pilot. Treat it like one.
Testing Features without giving away the library
If you get access, these are the conditions under which uploading makes sense.
Publish the long version where it already earns. If your episodes earn YouTube ad revenue, put them there first and treat Instagram as a second window. Nothing in the announcements requires exclusivity, so don’t volunteer it.
Upload only episodes that carry their own revenue. An episode with a sponsor read or a clear pitch for your product earns from every extra view. One without either just adds watch time for Instagram. If you sell sponsorships, write Instagram distribution into the contract and price it; extra impressions on a new surface belong on your rate card, not given away.
Measure the funnel, not the views. The real product here is Clips as Reels: short cuts that Instagram can recommend through Explore, each one pointing at the full episode. Track the result that pays you, which is how many Features viewers join your email list, click your offer link or book a call. Total views and watch time come second. If an episode gets 40,000 views and no signups, Instagram got your content for nothing.
Keep the masters and the audience off the platform. The file on your drive and the email address in your list are the only parts of this setup that Instagram can’t pause, reprice or retire. That’s the same reasoning behind building owned assets instead of chasing platform payouts, and it matters more on a format whose payment model, by Meta’s own account, doesn’t exist yet.
If Instagram announces a real revenue share, with a percentage and a start date, the math changes and this is worth revisiting. Until then, Features gives you distribution with a TV screen attached. That’s worth something, but it isn’t income.