Instagram Offers YouTube Creators Up to $500,000 to Post Long-Form Videos to Features

Instagram has offered select YouTube creators between $50,000 and $500,000 to post long-form videos to Features, its new format for horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long, Business Insider reported on Thursday, Oct. 29, citing people familiar with the deals. According to the report by Sydney Bradley and Lucia Moses, some creators were offered $50,000, others received six-figure offers, and some of those offers reached $500,000.

Meta, Instagram's parent company, confirmed that it is paying some creators but did not disclose amounts. "We've been public about the fact that we are funding Features content directly with some creators right now to support them," a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider. "The details of those deals are confidential, but we're excited to see the content going live."

What the deals reportedly require

The agreements do not require creators to post exclusively on Instagram, multiple people familiar with them told Business Insider. One person said Instagram is asking creators to post to Instagram, on the same day, any long-form content they publish to YouTube. Tubefilter, which covered the report the same day, noted that it is not clear whether the amounts are paid per video, per month or as a one-time fee.

Reza Izad, co-CEO at Underscore Talent, which represents creators including "Subway Takes" host Kareem Rahma and Noah Beck, called the deals an "exciting opportunity" for creators, according to Business Insider. "Every time there's a new feature in these apps that the company's promoting, people will have more opportunity to be seen because there's going to be algorithmic preference to this kind of content," he said. "And unlike short-form, there's not a lot of abundance."

Dexerto and the creator-industry outlet Net Influencer also reported on the offers, both citing Business Insider. Net Influencer noted that the report was published three days after the format was announced. Instagram has not publicly named the creators it is paying during the test.

How Features works

Instagram announced Features on Monday, Oct. 26. That day, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the company was starting a test of horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long with select creators in the U.S., aimed at podcasters, comedians and other long-form creators. Instagram had already been testing the format with creators in Brazil and plans to expand it to tens of thousands of creators in the U.S., the outlet reported. It named early U.S. participants including podcast host and Skims co-founder Emma Grede, beauty and fashion creator Monet McMichael, Preston Rakovsky and football content creator Donald De La Haye.

Features will appear in users' feeds and on the Explore page, and a related test called Clips as Reels lets participating creators link up to eight Reels clips to a longer video, TechRepublic reported. Instagram's TV app will prioritize Features, according to The Next Web. That app launched on Amazon Fire TV in the U.S. in December 2025 and has since expanded to Google TV and Samsung TVs, with Apple TV support coming.

The move reverses Instagram's earlier position on long-form video. "For a long time, I have been against doing long-form video on Instagram," Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in the announcement video, TechCrunch reported. The outlet said Instagram VP of Product Tessa Lyons, who had argued for the change, persuaded him to try long form again. Instagram previously offered long-form video through IGTV, which launched in 2018 and was shut down in 2022, according to Business Insider.

The open question of pay

Instagram has not announced an ad revenue-sharing program for Features. "It's too early to share a long-term monetization model, but we're exploring ways for creators to earn from brands, fans, and Instagram, including performance-based incentives," a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Lyons said existing ad deals will carry over into the videos and that the company would work with creators who do not have existing placements to find deals.

Mosseri addressed creators' concerns on Wednesday, Oct. 28. "We understand the economics matter a ton, and are exploring multiple options to help long-form creators get paid," he wrote in a post on X, Business Insider reported.

In his Oct. 26 interview on The Colin & Samir Show, Mosseri called Instagram's small performance-based payment program "ROI negative" and said scaling it would mean "burning capital," Net Influencer reported in its review of the episode. "If we don't figure out a way for creators to get a sufficient amount of value, whether it's dollars or something else, out of posting Features, they won't post Features," he said, according to the outlet.

The format competes directly with YouTube, which pays creators in its Partner Program 55 percent of the ad revenue their videos earn, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Net Influencer. Net Influencer also reported that YouTube says it paid more than $100 billion to creators and media companies over four years.

Paying creators to post on its apps is not new for Meta. Business Insider reported that the company paid creators thousands of dollars to post short-form videos to Instagram and Facebook last year, amid TikTok's potential ban. In 2021, while IGTV was still active, Instagram funded long-form episodic shows from creators including TikTok's "Sway Boys" and "Dance Moms" alum Nia Sioux, according to the same report.