Instagram tests 90-minute videos as short-form platforms reverse course on length

Instagram is testing a format called Features that allows select creators to publish horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long, with the US test beginning October 26 following earlier trials in Brazil. The test marks a reversal for a platform that killed IGTV four years ago and has spent the period since positioning Reels as the centre of its video strategy.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri said he had been against doing long-form video on Instagram for a long time, but the platform would now "lean in for a bunch of different reasons". The Meta-owned platform announced the test on Monday alongside Tessa Lyons, the company's vice president of product.

Early creators involved in the test include podcast host and Skims co-founder Emma Grede, beauty and fashion creator Monet McMichael, Preston Rakovsky, who interviews New Yorkers about love and relationships, and football content creator Donald De La Haye.

What Features does differently from IGTV

Instagram launched IGTV in 2018 as a dedicated home for long-form vertical video. Instagram dropped the IGTV brand in October 2021, merged long-form video into a single "Instagram Video" format, and in July 2022 folded everything into Reels. Only 7 million Instagram users had downloaded the standalone IGTV app as of 2020.

The difference now is distribution. IGTV sat off to the side in its own app, so people had to go looking for it. Features hang off Reels, the format people already share most.

A separate test, called Clips as Reels, lets participating creators link up to eight Reels clips to a longer video. Instagram is testing a feature called Clips as Reels, which lets creators make Reels out of their long-form content. The Reels link viewers to the longer video.

The architecture assumes shorter videos work as trailers for longer ones, rather than treating short and long formats as separate destinations. Mosseri said the company is trying to make short-form and long-form video symbiotic, combining "long video, which you might sit back and enjoy, and the short videos which are really stackable and maybe easier to just consume on the go".

The monetisation gap YouTube has and Instagram does not

Unlike YouTube, Instagram is still not paying creators a share of ad revenue for long-form video. An Instagram rep said the platform is providing funding for longer-form content "directly with some creators right now to support them", but that "it's too early to share a long-term monetization model".

YouTube shares 55% of ad revenue with Partner Program creators on long-form videos. Instagram has invite-only Reels bonuses and pays creators through Gifts at a flat rate of $0.01 per Star, but no equivalent revenue-sharing programme exists for longer video.

Existing ad deals will carry over into the videos, but Instagram will also work with creators without existing placements to find deals. That puts the onus on creators to secure brand integrations themselves or wait for Instagram to broker them, rather than earning passively from platform ads the way they would on YouTube.

The platform where creators build the most valuable audiences pays them almost nothing directly. YouTube shares ad revenue, which makes the economics of moving a 90-minute podcast from YouTube to Instagram unclear for anyone already monetising there.

What this changes for social teams on Monday

The format is in test with a limited group. Instagram has already tested the format in Brazil and is now expanding the test to tens of thousands of creators in the US. No general rollout timeline has been confirmed.

Where you have existing long-form video (tutorials, interviews, product deep dives, behind-the-scenes content longer than three minutes), audit what would work horizontally and what already lives on YouTube. If the same asset can generate reach on Instagram without cannibalising YouTube revenue, the calculation shifts. If YouTube monetisation funds production, Instagram Features competes for the same content without equivalent return.

The linked Reels test matters more immediately. If you are already clipping long videos into Reels for discovery, Instagram's Professional Dashboard will show whether those shorter assets drive profile visits and follows. Features would let you keep that traffic inside Instagram rather than sending it to YouTube, Spotify or a website, which changes the funnel but not necessarily the revenue.

Brand deals for long-form Instagram content are negotiable now, while the format is new and before rate cards solidify. Creators with existing podcast or interview formats have leverage to test whether brands will pay for Instagram placement in addition to YouTube, or shift budget between the two.

The videos will also be recommended to users on Instagram's Explore page and in other areas, which gives Features potential reach beyond a creator's existing follower base. Whether the algorithm weights 90-minute videos the same way it weights three-minute Reels is unknown, and the test group is too small to generate reliable benchmarks yet.

The wider pattern: platforms raising length caps audiences ignore

Platforms keep raising their length caps, but audiences keep rewarding shorter videos. TikTok now allows in-app recorded videos of up to 10 minutes, while the cap for uploads sits at an eye-popping 1 hour. In October 2024, YouTube Shorts stretched its limit to 3 minutes.

The median TikTok video runs 16 seconds, the median Reel 18, the median YouTube Short 19 and the median Facebook video 22. Between 66% and 74% of videos on each platform run under 30 seconds. Video length did not change between late 2025 and mid-2026 across 3.3 million tracked videos.

Instagram's discovery algorithm heavily stops recommending Reels longer than 3 minutes to non-followers, which means creators uploading 90-minute Features are trading algorithmic reach for the ability to monetise an existing audience through brand deals or, eventually, platform payments.

That mirrors YouTube's 2x Reels speed feature, which shipped 18 months ago: audiences want control over pacing, and platforms want to accommodate longer formats, but actual consumption trends still skew heavily toward brevity.

The strategic question for brands is not whether to make 90-minute Instagram videos. It is whether the ability to post long-form horizontally inside Instagram, linked from short Reels, changes where you publish assets you are already making. For most teams, the answer depends entirely on whether Instagram eventually pays for those views the way YouTube does.

Until then, Features is an option for keeping traffic inside one platform, not a new revenue stream.