Instagram Features is a new test that lets creators post horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long. Instagram head Adam Mosseri and product chief Tessa Lyons announced it on Monday, Oct. 26.
The test starts with a small group of US creators, plus some in Brazil. Instagram spokesperson Megan Buckley confirmed the markets to The Next Web.
The format is aimed at podcasters, comedians and other creators who make full-length shows. It puts Instagram in direct competition with YouTube, especially on television screens. But creators who post Features won’t get a cut of the ad revenue, at least for now.
How Instagram Features works
Features are wide, TV-shaped videos, unlike the vertical clips that fill Reels. According to The Next Web, they will show up in people’s main feeds and on the Explore page.
The bigger idea is linking short clips to long shows. Instagram is testing a way for up to eight Reels to point to one full-length video, TheWrap reported. That test also began in Brazil and is reaching a small group of US creators. A podcaster could post clips from one episode, and each one would send viewers to the whole thing.
Instagram also plans to let creators group related Reels into series on their profiles. Users will be able to save Series and Features on their phones to watch later on TV, TheWrap said. Instagram is also testing episodic Reels series for TV with select creators in the US, India and Mexico.
Other TV tests are smaller. They include using a phone as a remote and a Friends tab that shows what friends are watching, according to TheWrap.
Most people can’t post a Feature yet. Mosseri said new features would roll out this month, with more users getting access over time, The A.V. Club reported. Instagram hasn’t given a date for a full launch.
A reversal for Mosseri, and a second try after IGTV
Mosseri resisted long video for a long time. He said so himself in the nearly seven-minute announcement video. “For a long time, I have been against doing long-form video on Instagram,” he said, as quoted by The A.V. Club.
He worried that long videos would cut into the time people spend sharing posts with friends, The Next Web reported. In the announcement he called the link between short and long video “symbiotic.”
He gave his reason in an interview with the creators Colin and Samir. “We want to be the most culturally relevant platform, and to do that, we need to show up where people are,” he said.
Instagram has tried long video before. It launched IGTV, a separate app for longer clips, in 2018 and shut it down in 2022.
This time the format lives inside the main app, with Reels doing the work of finding an audience. Mosseri also set expectations low. “It’s going to take some time to get right,” he said.
The real target is the TV in your living room
Features is as much a TV play as a phone one. Instagram’s TV app launched on Amazon Fire TV in the US in December 2025. It has since reached Google TV and Samsung TVs. The Next Web said the TV app will put Features first, and that Apple TV support is coming.
That puts Instagram on YouTube’s home turf. YouTube has been the most-watched streamer or channel on TV for three years, TheWrap noted. In August it hit an all-time high of 15.8% of all TV viewing, more than twice the share of second-place Netflix.
Lyons framed the move around creators rather than rivals. “Instagram is all about connecting people over creativity,” she said, according to TheWrap. Creativity goes beyond short videos, posts and carousels, she added. Neither executive named YouTube.
Viewing habits on the big screen are already shifting. Netflix members are opening the app on fewer days. The company is leaning on price rises and ads for US growth.
Creators get reach, not a revenue share
This is where the comparison with YouTube gets uneven. Instagram doesn’t plan to share ad revenue from Features with creators for now, according to The Next Web. It hasn’t ruled out a change.
YouTube pays creators in its Partner Program 55% of net ad revenue from ads on their long-form videos. Shorts creators get 45% of the revenue YouTube allocates to them. To qualify for either, a channel needs 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 watch hours in 12 months or 10 million Shorts views in 90 days.
That gap shapes how creators are likely to use Features at first. A 90-minute podcast episode on YouTube earns its creator a share of the ads shown on it. On Instagram, the same episode earns only what the creator’s own sponsors pay.
So the likely early use is reposting shows that already live on YouTube. Reels clips would then pull in Instagram followers who might never search YouTube for them. For creators, that’s extra reach for work they’ve already paid to make, which is a different decision from making shows for Instagram first.
For Instagram, longer viewing still pays off without a revenue share. More minutes watched means more room for Meta’s ads. Meta needs that ad business strong while it spends heavily on AI. It is selling up to $95 billion of stock to help pay for it.
Access, money and Apple TV decide the next phase
Three things will show whether Instagram means it this time. The first is access: whether Features moves from a few creators to everyone, and when. The second is money: whether Instagram adds a revenue share, which it hasn’t ruled out. The third is TV: the Apple TV launch and whether people actually watch long Instagram videos on a big screen.
For now, Features is a test with a clear target and no payout attached. The next concrete step is the wider US rollout Mosseri promised for this month.
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