LONDON – Meta owned streaming platform Instagram is taking on YouTube in high-stakes battle for content creators, reportedly offering deals worth up to half million dollars to bring long-form videos to its platform.
With its new 90-minute video feature, Meta is making an aggressive push to reshape the creator economy and challenge YouTube’s dominance. The financial incentives come as Instagram experiments with a new video format called Features, allowing creators to publish widescreen videos lasting up to 90 minutes, a significant departure from the platform’s traditional focus on Reels, photographs and short-form content.
Instagram ‘Features’
The initiative, introduced in late October 2026, is currently being tested among selected creators in the United States and Brazil, with Meta reportedly spending heavily to persuade established video producers to bring their content to Instagram.
The biggest attraction is money. Reports suggest that Instagram approached selected creators with lucrative financial agreements, including offers of approximately $50,000 and larger six-figure arrangements that could reach $500,000. The payments represent an ambitious attempt to attract established YouTubers, podcasters, documentary producers and other creators who already command substantial audiences.
Meta has acknowledged that it is directly financing some creators to support the initial rollout of Features, although the company has kept individual contracts and payment arrangements confidential. Unlike some previous Instagram incentive programs, the latest agreements reportedly allow creators to maintain their presence on competing platforms.
Creators have been encouraged to upload their long-form YouTube videos to Instagram on the same day, potentially earning additional income without sacrificing their existing audiences. However, the reported $500,000 figure should not be confused with a guaranteed payment for a single video. The precise duration, publishing requirements and compensation structure of these agreements have not been publicly disclosed.
Instagram’s newest experiment could significantly change how millions of users consume content on the application. Through Features, participating creators can publish horizontal, widescreen videos lasting up to 90 minutes, bringing Instagram closer to the viewing experience offered by YouTube.
The format is designed to accommodate longer interviews, podcasts, documentaries, entertainment programs and other productions that cannot easily fit into conventional Reels. Instagram is also exploring ways to connect full-length Features videos with shorter clips, allowing creators to use Reels to attract viewers to their extended content.
The strategy could help Meta turn its powerful short-form discovery system into a gateway for longer viewing sessions, including content designed for larger screens and televisions. For now, the experiment remains limited, and Instagram has not confirmed when Features will become available to its wider global audience.
Behind reported multimillion-dollar creator investment is a difficult business challenge: YouTube already offers something Instagram has struggled to establish for long-form creators. Through the YouTube Partner Program, eligible creators typically receive 55 percent of recognized advertising revenue from advertisements appearing on their long-form videos.
Actual earnings vary significantly depending on audience location, advertising demand, content category and viewer engagement. Long-form videos may generate anywhere from around $1 to more than $10 per 1,000 views for some monetized channels. Instagram does not currently operate a broadly available YouTube-style revenue-sharing system for Features videos.
Although creators can make substantial income through sponsorships, promotional campaigns and brand collaborations, ordinary long-form video views do not automatically generate comparable advertising payments. This financial disadvantage explains why Meta appears willing to offer substantial upfront incentives to attract successful video producers.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri has publicly recognized that attracting long-form creators requires more than introducing a new video format. Mosseri has acknowledged the importance of creator economics and discussed the challenges of building a sustainable monetization system capable of competing with established video platforms.
He also questioned the long-term viability of performance-based payment programs that consume large amounts of company funding without delivering sufficient financial returns. Placing advertisements before or during videos could generate revenue, but Instagram must consider whether such interruptions would damage the viewing experience that users expect from the platform.
Meta is therefore exploring different approaches rather than immediately introducing a YouTube-style advertising revenue-sharing system. The challenge is clear: creators may initially accept generous financial offers, but keeping them engaged after those payments end will require a reliable source of continuing income.
The latest initiative comes years after Instagram’s first major attempt to compete in long-form video failed to achieve its ambitions. In 2018, the company launched IGTV, hoping to establish an alternative to YouTube and encourage users to watch longer videos.
Despite considerable promotion, the product struggled to build sufficient momentum, and Instagram eventually shut down IGTV’s standalone application in early 2022. In July 2021, the company announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in programs supporting content creators through the end of 2022.
However, those efforts did not establish a lasting long-form ecosystem comparable to YouTube. Features now represents another opportunity for Instagram to overcome the challenges that undermined IGTV.
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