Instagram Tests 90-Minute Videos in Bid to Challenge YouTube's Creator Pay

Instagram is now testing video uploads up to 90 minutes long, a direct challenge to YouTube's dominance as the highest-paying platform for creators. The test, announced Monday, expands from Brazil to a small U.S. rollout and reverses years of Instagram betting almost entirely on short-form video.

The move matters because of money. YouTube's Partner Program pays enrolled creators 55% of ad revenue from their videos, and the platform said last year it has paid out more than $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies over the previous four years. Instagram has nothing comparable — most creators there earn from brand deals, not from the platform itself.

What did Instagram actually announce?

Instagram head Adam Mosseri laid out the current economics plainly on the Colin and Samir Show. "You can get paid by the platform directly, you can get paid by a fan, and you can get paid by a brand," he said. "Right now, the way that it works on Instagram primarily is you primarily get paid by brands."

He also admitted Instagram's performance-based payout program is small and unprofitable. "We spend more money than we make back by a long shot, and so it doesn't really make sense to scale up because we're just burning capital," Mosseri said.

Short-form video is inherently hard to monetize because there's less room to place ads. That's why many creators treat Instagram and TikTok accounts as promotional arms for their YouTube channels rather than revenue drivers. Longer videos change that math, and Meta — which makes its billions on advertising — could eventually place ads inside them.

In short: Instagram is chasing the ad-revenue model YouTube perfected, and it needs longer videos to do it.

What happens to monetization?

A Meta spokesperson kept the door open but committed to nothing. "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," the spokesperson told TechCrunch. They added that Instagram expects "compounding benefits for creators to tell new stories, reach new audiences, and find new partners."

It's not a firm promise of a YouTube-style revenue split. It's also not a refusal.

Why the sudden reversal on long-form?

Mosseri admitted he resisted this for years, and Instagram already killed one long-form product, IGTV, which launched eight years ago. Short content like Reels drives more shares and DMs, he noted. But Instagram VP of Product Tessa Lyons, a longtime advocate for the change, won him over.

"Reels is still going to be a core part of Instagram. But when you want to go deeper with the creators you love and the content that they're creating, you should be able to do that on Instagram," Lyons said in a video announcement.

The strategy is retention: Instagram would rather keep fans watching a creator's long work on its own app — including its TV app — than lose them to YouTube.

What tools are rolling out?

The test includes several connected features:

• Features: video uploads up to 90 minutes, currently testing in Brazil with a small U.S. expansion
• Clips as Reels: lets creators cut Reels from long-form videos, with links pointing viewers to the full piece
• TV handoff: viewers can save a long video and send it to Instagram's TV app
• Live discovery: improved discovery features for Live video in development
• Episodic Reels hub: a profile section for series of connected Reels, similar to TikTok's playlists

"The thing that the team has been working on is trying to make it so that the short-form and the long-form video can be symbiotic," Mosseri said. He added that supporting both formats on mobile and TV "is going to take some time to get right," but said the company is "very committed to it long term."

For creators, the practical read is this: there's no payout program to plan around yet, but a 90-minute format on Instagram with possible ad revenue down the line is worth watching closely.