Instagram Tests 90-Minute Landscape Video Without a Plan to Pay Creators

Instagram is testing a long-form video format called Features with a small group of creators in the United States and Brazil. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, announced the format on Monday, October 26, according to The Verge.

Features videos can run up to 90 minutes, compared with a 20-minute cap for Reels. The format is built for landscape (widescreen) video rather than the tall, vertical clips that define Reels. The test is limited to the creator group, and Instagram has not announced a wider rollout date.

The monetization question is unresolved. Instagram has not determined how, or whether, it will pay creators for Features videos. Mosseri said the company understands that economics matter and is exploring multiple options to help long-form creators get paid. He also said that inserting pre-roll ads (shown before a video starts) or mid-roll ads (shown partway through) into long-form video would be problematic from a user experience perspective. That rules out the ad-insertion model most long-form video platforms rely on.

Creators have already raised the issue publicly. Complaints on Threads and Reddit point to the lack of monetization for Features, compared with YouTube's ad revenue share and performance-based incentives. Meta's existing Reels tools are limited, and none of them pay creators directly per view the way YouTube's programs do.

Separately, Variety reported that Instagram has launched on Apple TV.

The broader context here is the mismatch between the format and the revenue model. Long-form video has historically earned money through pre-roll and mid-roll ads, sponsorship integrations, and platform revenue shares. Instagram has ruled out the first of these for now and has not named a replacement. Whatever mechanism it chooses will need to pay creators enough to justify the production cost of a 90-minute landscape upload, while preserving the feed experience Mosseri's comments suggest the company wants to protect.

In my view, the test is as much about creator behavior as about ad products. A creator who has built an audience on 15-second vertical clips needs a reason to shoot and edit longer, landscape work for the same followers. If Instagram's payment design holds up, Features could give educators, interviewers, and documentary-style creators a place on a phone-first platform that currently has little room for them. If it does not, the complaints already circulating suggest creators will spend their production hours elsewhere.

For now, the facts are narrow: a limited test, a 90-minute ceiling, a landscape orientation, and a monetization model that does not yet exist. The next signal will be whether Instagram expands the test beyond the initial creator group, and what it says about payment when it does.