Instagram's $500K Long-Form Checks Are Not a Pay Plan

The launch video ran about six minutes. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, and Tessa Lyons, a vice president of product, sat down on October 26 to explain Features: a new home inside Instagram for long, horizontal video, up to 90 minutes per upload. Podcasts. Comedy specials. Full episodes that a creator's short clips could point back to. It would show up in the main feed and on Explore, and Instagram's TV app would put it front and center on the living room screen.

The replies arrived within hours. On Threads and Reddit, as The Verge reported, creators asked the same question in a dozen different tones: who pays for this? YouTube shares 55% of long-form ad revenue with creators in its Partner Program. Features, for now, shares nothing. Sidney Raskind, a creator with a large following across platforms, wrote on Threads that long-form creators "need ad rev to survive" and called the idea of uploading for free "insane."

Three days later, the answer started to leak, just not the one most of those creators were asking for. Business Insider reporters Sydney Bradley and Lucia Moses, citing people familiar with the deals, reported that Meta had offered some YouTube creators $50,000 to post long-form videos to Features, and others six-figure deals that reached as high as $500,000. The deals were reportedly nonexclusive. One person told the outlet that Instagram was asking creators to post their long YouTube videos to Features the same day. A Meta spokesperson would not confirm the figures but said the company is "funding Features content directly with some creators right now," adding that the details are confidential.

By the weekend, the story had settled into a familiar shape across the trade press: Instagram declares war on YouTube, and opens its wallet. That reading is not wrong, exactly. It is just aimed at the wrong number. The interesting figure here is not $500,000. It is zero, the revenue share every other creator gets, and the reasons Instagram has, in its own executives' words, for keeping it there. What follows explains what Features actually is, what those checks are really buying, why Instagram has run this play before, and what all of it means if you are one of the many creators who will never see an offer letter.

What Instagram actually switched on

Start with the product, because the details matter more than the headline. Features is a test, and a small one. A Meta spokesperson told The Next Web that it starts with a small group of creators in the US, with some in Brazil also taking part. Mosseri has said publicly that the format is not fully launched and that access is being widened gradually. There is no announced date for a broader rollout.

The format is horizontal and long: up to 90 minutes per video, built for the kind of content that already lives on YouTube, such as podcasts, interviews, vlogs and stand-up. According to CineD's reporting, Features appear in the main feed and on Explore, and Instagram is testing Reels that link directly to a full Feature, with up to eight clips pointing at one long video in the Brazil test. A companion idea called Series lets creators group episodic Reels into a section on their profile.

Then there is the screen. Instagram launched a dedicated TV app on Amazon Fire TV in the US on December 16, 2025, as a test that Bloomberg reported at the time. Since then it has spread to Google TV and Samsung sets, and Apple TV is being added. The TV app is set to prioritise Features. Read the strategy in that order and it becomes clear what Instagram is building: short Reels as the trailer, Features as the full show, and the television as the place you watch it.

Mosseri's stated reason is cultural reach. "We want to be the most culturally relevant platform, and to do that, we need to show up where people are," he said, a line quoted in coverage by both CineD and The Next Web. Where people increasingly are, for long video, is a living room TV running YouTube.

If you have followed the changes Instagram has made to its ranking this year, this is a notable shift in tone. Since IGTV wound down, Instagram has treated long video as a distraction from its core job, and The Next Web noted that Mosseri was previously reluctant to embrace it, worried that more passive video would crowd out the sharing between friends he sees as the heart of the app. Features is a reversal of that caution. It is a bet that long video and short clips can feed each other instead of competing.

The product is a funnel: Reels at the top, a 90-minute Feature at the bottom, and a television at the end of the pipe.

What a $500,000 check actually buys

Here is what the reported deals do, stated plainly. Instagram pays a creator, sometimes a lot, to publish long-form video inside Features. The creator does not have to leave YouTube. If the same-day request described to Business Insider holds, the creator uploads the episode to YouTube as usual and puts the same episode on Instagram that day. Instagram has not named the creators it is funding. Tubefilter pointed out that the reporting does not say whether the money is per video, per month or a one-time fee, and the length of the agreements has not been reported either.

Commercial real estate has a name for this arrangement. When a developer opens a new shopping mall, it signs an anchor tenant first: a department store, a supermarket, a cinema. The anchor often gets a deal the small shops never see, sometimes reduced rent, sometimes cash toward fitting out the space. The developer does not do this because the anchor is a great rent payer. It does it because a big, lit-up store at the end of the corridor tells shoppers the mall is real, and tells smaller tenants it is worth signing a lease.

That is the job a funded Feature is doing. On launch day, a new format has an empty-shelf problem. Viewers will not open a tab with nothing in it, and creators will not stock a tab nobody opens. A handful of recognisable shows breaks that loop. Reza Izad, whose talent agency represents creators including Noah Beck, called the deals an "exciting opportunity" in comments to Business Insider, and argued that whenever Instagram promotes a new feature, creators get more chances to be seen. That is a reasonable expectation, it is worth noting, not something Instagram has promised.

The analogy is useful, but it undersells one thing. In a mall, the small shops still have a lease. They pay rent, and in exchange they get a defined space for a defined time. On Instagram, the creators outside the funded group pay with their time and their best long-form work, and the terms of the space can change whenever the landlord decides. There is no lease to read.

The funded shows are not the business model. They are the lights in the anchor store, paid for so the rest of the corridor looks open.

The turn: Instagram is telling you, in plain words, that the checks are not the plan

The obvious next assumption is that these deals are a first step toward paying everyone. Instagram's head has said, out loud and on the record, why that is not how he sees it.

On the day of the launch, Mosseri sat down with Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry on The Colin and Samir Show, the creator-economy interview program, for a long conversation about the launch. Asked about money, he described Instagram's existing performance-based payment program for video as "ROI negative," a phrase reported by both The Next Web and Net Influencer. According to Net Influencer's account of the interview, he said the program costs Instagram far more than it brings back, that scaling it would mean burning capital, and that creators do not produce much more content when they are paid. His argument, as reported, is that a platform payment only makes sense if it creates content that would not otherwise exist. If it just moves views from one video to another, the platform has paid for nothing new.

He also reportedly said Instagram will keep making bespoke deals to get the ecosystem started and to give the program legitimacy, while focusing on programs that can scale. Read that next to the Business Insider reporting and the picture is unusually clear. The checks are the bespoke deals. They exist to establish legitimacy. They are not the template for what everyone else gets.

Now add the detail most write-ups mentioned only in passing: the request to post the same episode on the same day it goes to YouTube. If Instagram simply wanted new long-form content to exist, it would ask for exclusives or originals. It is asking for neither. It is paying for simultaneity: a creator's existing YouTube catalog arriving on Instagram at the moment it is freshest. By Mosseri's own incrementality test, that is not new content. It is the same episode in a second building.

That is not a gotcha. It is consistent with the anchor-tenant logic. Instagram is not trying to buy content on launch day; it is trying to buy the impression of a full shelf, so that the next creator, the unfunded one, decides it is worth stocking theirs. A creator who reads the $500,000 headline as a sign that Instagram is about to start paying for long video has the signal backwards. The checks are evidence that Instagram has not decided to pay at scale, and is paying a few people precisely so it does not have to yet.

Two days after the launch, Mosseri posted a response to the backlash: "We understand the economics matter a ton, and are exploring multiple options to help long-form creators get paid." A Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch it is "too early to share a long-term monetization model," and Meta has said it is exploring ways for creators to earn from brands, fans and Instagram itself, including performance-based incentives. None of that is a commitment, and none of it is a denial. It leaves the door open. It also leaves the floor at zero.

On the evidence so far, Instagram is paying a few creators so that it does not yet have to pay all of them.

The question nobody is asking: Instagram already had a revenue share

Nearly every article about Features compares Instagram to YouTube as if Instagram were a newcomer to the idea of paying creators a cut of ad money. It is not. In May 2020, Instagram announced ads in IGTV and said creators would get 55% of the revenue. CNBC, Fortune and 9to5Mac all reported the split, and the coverage at the time framed it as matching YouTube's. The ads were short videos that ran with longer IGTV content, the closest thing Instagram has had to a pre-roll.

Less than two years later, in February 2022, Instagram announced it would close the IGTV app and stop supporting in-stream video ads, as Social Media Today and TechCrunch reported at the time. Creators who had been earning from them were offered a temporary monthly payment based on recent earnings. Advertisers were steered toward Reels.

The bonus era followed the same arc. Zuckerberg's July 2021 promise of more than $1 billion through 2022 paid creators for hitting milestones, including the Reels Play bonus. In March 2023, Meta stopped offering new Reels Play deals in the US, as it prepared to expand advertising in Reels. Instagram's own help pages put the US and India change on March 9, 2023, with South Korea following a year later.

Line those events up and a pattern emerges that has nothing to do with whether Instagram understands creators. Each time Instagram wanted creators to adopt a new format, it paid to seed it: production money for early IGTV shows (a history The Next Web and Business Insider both recalled in this week's coverage), a revenue share for IGTV, bonuses for Reels. Each time the format either took off or got folded into something else, the payments narrowed or ended. Reels took off. IGTV did not. In both cases, the money that built the habit was gone within roughly two years.

That history reframes the YouTube comparison. YouTube's ad split is not a gift; it is the foundation of a business that now pays at enormous scale. At its Made on YouTube event on September 16, 2025, YouTube said it had paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies over the previous four years. Instagram is not missing a revenue share because it has not thought of one. It had one, and it chose to close it.

To be fair to Mosseri, his reasons are coherent from the platform's side. Long video on Instagram has never had the ad slots that make an attributed split easy. Net Influencer reported that in the Colin and Samir interview he said adding pre-roll and mid-roll ads would annoy users and draw a lot of heat. That is an honest trade-off, and so is the incrementality argument. They are trade-offs that land, every time, on the creator side of the ledger.

The useful question is not whether Instagram will ever pay for long video. It is how long any payment lasts once the format no longer needs it.

Meanwhile, YouTube is raising the toll

There is a connected story that makes this moment stranger, and it sits on the other side of the fight. On August 10, 2026, YouTube announced that from February 1, 2027, it will double the entry requirements for its Partner Program. New applicants will need 1,000 subscribers plus either 8,000 qualified watch hours in the past year or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the past 90 days, up from 4,000 hours or 10 million views, as Forbes and The Next Web both reported. Existing partners keep their status but must accept updated terms. YouTube said the change lets it invest in new incentive programs for creator growth.

Put the two announcements side by side. YouTube is making it harder for small creators to start earning, while continuing to pay a generous share to the ones who qualify. Instagram is making it easy for anyone in the test to upload long video, with no threshold at all, and paying nothing to almost everyone. Each platform, in its own way, is concentrating money at the top. One raises the price of the ticket. The other gives the ticket away and keeps the box office.

For a creator in the middle, say a podcaster with a few thousand loyal listeners who is nowhere near 8,000 watch hours, that combination is not all bad news. It means the two platforms are now offering clearly different things. YouTube offers a path to income, with a higher wall in front of it. Instagram offers reach, with no wall and no income. Knowing which one you need right now matters more than which platform wins the headlines. Our platform comparison guide makes the same case for short video: the right channel depends on the job you need it to do, not on which app is loudest this month.

YouTube charges small creators a higher entry fee. Instagram lets them in free and does not pay them. Both are choices about who the money is for.

The numbers, and what they can and cannot tell you

The figures in this story come from different places and carry different weight, so it is worth keeping them apart.

The deal range, $50,000 to $500,000, comes from Business Insider's anonymous sources. Meta has confirmed that it is funding some creators directly and has declined to confirm the amounts. We do not know how many creators received offers, whether the money is per video or per agreement, how long the deals run, or whether funded videos get any extra distribution. Instagram has not said publicly that they do.

The 55% figure for YouTube's long-form ad share is long established and public. So is Instagram's current share for Features, which is none, along with Meta's statement that it is too early to share a long-term model. The 90-minute limit, the US and Brazil scope and the linked Reels test are all on the record from Instagram or its spokespeople, as reported by several outlets.

What the numbers cannot tell you is the one that matters most for most readers: what an unfunded Feature is worth. A view of a 40-minute episode on Instagram earns its creator nothing directly today. Whether it is worth something indirectly, as a new subscriber, a podcast listener, a newsletter sign-up or a brand that notices you, depends entirely on what you do with the attention. That is not a number Instagram reports. It is one you have to measure yourself, and our guide to Instagram analytics is a reasonable place to start setting up that measurement before you post.

The only reliable figure for an unfunded Feature is the one Instagram pays you for it today: nothing. Everything else is a bet on what the attention turns into.

What we know, and what we don't

A few honest limits. The deal figures rest on unnamed sources in one outlet's reporting, widely repeated but not independently confirmed by any other publication we could find, and Meta has neither confirmed nor denied them. The same-day posting request comes from one person familiar with the offers. Several of Mosseri's remarks in the Colin and Samir interview are drawn here from published accounts of the interview rather than a full transcript; the "ROI negative" line was reported by more than one outlet, while some of his other comments were reported by one.

We also do not know where this ends. Mosseri has said Instagram is exploring multiple options to pay long-form creators, and the company has not ruled out a revenue share later. History suggests caution about any program, in either direction. Instagram has launched creator pay quickly before and wound it down quickly too. Anyone who tells you with confidence what Features will pay a year from now is guessing.

If you are a creator without a check, a five-step plan

Most readers of this site will not get a Business Insider-sized offer, and that is fine. Features may still be useful. It just needs to be used for what it is.

1. Decide what job Features does for you before you upload anything. On current terms, it is a discovery surface, not an income line. Write down the single action you want a long-form viewer to take: subscribe to a podcast, join an email list, book a call, buy a product. If you sell something, our Instagram for business guide covers how to set up that path. If you cannot name the action, a 40-minute upload is mostly a donation of your best work.
2. Build the clip-to-feature funnel the product is designed around. Instagram is testing Reels that link to a full Feature. Cut your strongest 30 to 60 seconds into standalone Reels that work without context, then point them at the long version. The same rules that drive a strong Reels strategy apply: a hook in the first seconds and a reason to share, which is also why saves and shares carry more weight than likes. Mosseri has repeatedly named sends, the number of times a post is shared in DMs relative to its reach, as one of the strongest signals for reaching people who do not follow you yet.
3. Protect the platform that pays you. If you already earn from YouTube, think hard before posting full episodes elsewhere on the same day. The funded creators were reportedly paid to accept that trade. You would be making it for free. A shorter cut, a different edit or a delayed upload keeps your Instagram audience fed without competing with your own paid views. Instagram's ranking already rewards original work over reposts, so a version made for the platform is also the safer bet for reach.
4. Run it as a 30-day experiment, with a number attached. Pick one metric that matters to your business, such as new followers from non-follower reach, link clicks or podcast downloads in the week after a Feature, and compare it against your normal Reels. Our content calendar guide shows how to slot a test like this in without breaking your posting rhythm. If the number does not move, stop.
5. Keep the money where it already is on Instagram: brands. When Meta lists the ways it says creators can earn, brands come first, ahead of fans and Instagram itself. A long-form show with a loyal audience is a far easier sponsorship pitch than a stack of Reels, and our guide to influencer marketing covers how those deals are priced. Features can be the product that makes a brand deal possible, even while it pays nothing directly.

One more point, and it applies to any shortcut. A format with no revenue share will tempt some creators to chase reach by any means available. Paid follower packages and engagement pods do not make a long-form audience; they make a long-form video that nobody watches to the end, which is the clearest signal of all that a show is not worth recommending. We explain why in our honest look at getting real followers, and the logic is even stronger for 90-minute video, where the only metric that counts is attention people actually give you.

The anchor store and the corridor

Walk through a new mall in its first month and you can usually tell which stores were paid to be there. They are the big ones with every light on, staffed and stocked, before anyone knows whether shoppers will come. The small shops along the corridor are a mix: some that signed because the anchor made the place look real, some that will be gone by spring.

Instagram has just opened a new wing and paid a few anchor tenants to light it up. That is a reasonable thing for a platform to do. The mistake would be for everyone else to read the lights as a promise. The lights are paid for by Instagram's marketing budget, and its head has explained in public why that budget does not extend to the rest of the corridor. Whether a small creator's shop does well in there will depend on what it always depended on: whether people walk in, stay and come back.

The real shift this week is not that Instagram started paying for long video. It is that Instagram, for the first time, gave every creator in the test a TV-sized stage and told them, honestly, that it will not pay them to stand on it. Treat it as a free billboard with an unusually long screen, and build the business somewhere you own. If Instagram ever decides to share the box office, you will be ready. If it does not, you will not have bet your rent on it.

FAQ

What is Instagram Features?

Features is a test format for long, horizontal video, up to 90 minutes per upload, launched on October 26, 2026 with a small group of creators in the US and Brazil. Features appear in the main feed and on Explore, can be linked from Reels, and are prioritised in Instagram's TV app.

Does Instagram pay creators for Features?

Not through a revenue share. Meta says it is directly funding some creators during the test, and Business Insider reported offers between $50,000 and $500,000, which Meta has not confirmed. A Meta spokesperson said it is too early to share a long-term monetization model.

How does this compare with YouTube?

YouTube's Partner Program pays eligible creators 55% of ad revenue on long-form video. From February 1, 2027, the entry bar rises to 1,000 subscribers plus 8,000 watch hours in a year or 20 million Shorts views in 90 days. Instagram has no entry bar for Features in the test, and no ad share.

Should a small creator post long-form video to Instagram now?

It can make sense as a discovery tool if you have a clear next step for viewers, such as a podcast, newsletter or product, and you measure the result. If your long-form income comes from YouTube, avoid undercutting it with free same-day uploads elsewhere.