The one thing to know this week

Instagram has offered some YouTube creators between $50,000 and $500,000 to post their long-form videos to its new Features format on the same day they go up on YouTube, Business Insider reported. Meta says it is funding Features content directly with some creators.

Instagram wants YouTube's long videos, and it is now paying some YouTube creators to bring them over. It wants the same video on the same day, so the sponsor read inside it would go to Instagram too.

Keep reading to find out

what Instagram is asking creators to do, and what happened the last time it paid for long videos

how many of the biggest US creators' videos carry a sponsor read, and which brand turns up on the most of their channels

which economics channel turned an AI-crash video into 600,000 views in four days

why software for plumbers and electricians spent October on car and movie podcasts

Let's get into it.

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This week's deep dive

Instagram Starts Paying for YouTube's Long Videos

The offer. Last Thursday Business Insider reported that Instagram has offered select YouTube creators $50,000 to post long-form videos to Features, its new format for horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long. Other creators have been offered six-figure deals, and some offers have reached $500,000. According to people familiar with the deals, they are not exclusive: Instagram asks creators to post the same long-form video as a Feature on the day it goes up on YouTube. It isn't clear whether the money is paid per video, per month or as one flat fee.

What changed. When Instagram introduced Features on October 26, which we flagged last week, it was a test with creators in Brazil and a small group in the US, with no plan to share ad revenue, so brand deals were the only way to earn from it. Three days later, Business Insider's report showed Instagram was also paying. A Meta spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that the company is funding Features content directly with some creators, and said the details are confidential.

Why Instagram wants it. Instagram wants these videos for the TV. Its TV app began testing on Amazon Fire TV in late 2025, reached Samsung TVs this year and arrived on Apple TV in October, Mashable reports. Tessa Lyons, Instagram's VP of Product, said a TV version of Reels needs more than short videos. YouTube already accounted for 15.8% of all TV viewing in the US in August, more than double Netflix, according to Nielsen. Instagram's Clips as Reels tool also cuts short clips out of a Feature and posts them as Reels that link back to the full video.

“We understand the economics matter a ton, and are exploring multiple options to help long-form creators get paid”

Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, in a post last week

Instagram has tried this before. In 2021 Meta said it would pay creators $1 billion through 2022, including bonuses for creators who allowed ads in their IGTV videos, Instagram's earlier long-video format. By early 2022 it was shutting down the separate IGTV app, Social Media Today recalls. YouTube, by contrast, gives creators in its Partner Program 55% of the ad revenue from their long videos, every month, with no deal to negotiate.

What it means for buyers. Instagram is asking for the same video on the same day. Unless a creator re-edits it, the sponsor read you bought inside that video goes to Instagram with it, which is distribution you didn't pay for and that creators' managers are likely to want to price. Before your next booking with a large creator, ask whether they have taken an Instagram Features deal, and check what your contract says about where the video can run, how long you can use it and what your exclusivity covers.

Zooming Out

Paying creators up front is the fastest way for Instagram to fill a new format, and the IGTV years showed that filling it is not the same as getting people to watch. For a sponsor, the useful question is narrower: if your read starts appearing on two platforms, ask the creator for views from each one separately, so you can see whether the Instagram copy is adding an audience or just repeating the YouTube one.

The story behind the numbers

From Our Data

What Would Ride Along to Instagram

In October we looked at which brands buy YouTube's top tier; this time the question is what would travel with the videos Instagram wants. We took the US creator channels on YouTube with more than 10 million subscribers that posted at least three long-form videos between August 5 and November 3 (leaving out companies, TV, music, kids' and clip channels): 90 channels and 2,320 videos. Only 180 of those videos, about 8%, carry a sponsor read spoken by the host. 49 of the 90 channels didn't carry a single one. — 2,320

long-form videos, Aug 5 to Nov 3

8%

with a spoken sponsor read

49 of 90

channels with no read at all

Chime is on more of these channels than any other brand. Chime, the fintech app, ran sponsor reads on 10 of the 90 channels: Airrack, Doctor Mike, Dream, FaZe Rug, Good Mythical Morning, Jesse James West, LARRAY, MrBallen, The Game Theorists and Tyler Vitelli. That is 14 videos since August 8, with about 61 million views between them. The biggest are Airrack's I Secretly Lived In A 5 Star Hotel and Dream's Minecraft Speedrunner VS 6 Hunters FINALE, each past 13 million views. No other brand is on more than four.

Some channels sell a read in almost every video. Binging with Babish put a sponsor read in all 6 of its long-form videos in those three months, Bobby Parrish in 15 of 17 and JerryRigEverything in 12 of 18. At the other end, Ray William Johnson, Thinknoodles and Caylus each posted more than 80 long-form videos without one.

Chime is on more than twice as many of the 90 channels as any other brand

Chime — 10 channels

BetterHelp — 4

Zocdoc — 4

Freecash — 4

Channels where the brand ran at least one spoken sponsor read in a long-form video, August 5 to November 3, 2026. Channels: US creator-led, 10M+ subscribers, at least a fifth of the audience in the US, three or more long-form videos in the window. Description links alone do not count. Four more brands are on three channels each.

Why it matters

If even a few of these creators take Instagram's money, the reads inside their videos travel with them, and right now Chime has more of those reads than any other brand: 14 videos across 10 of the 90 channels.

Links Roundup

Quick hits from across the web

YouTube is testing a $20 payout minimum, down from $100, for a random group of Partner Program creators in the US, India and Indonesia, so smaller channels would reach their first payout sooner.

PodcastOne, the network behind Adam Carolla's shows, formed a special committee and hired an adviser to weigh "multiple" offers to buy the company, after a shareholder argued its shares were undervalued.

Newpress, the news company run by YouTube journalist Johnny Harris and his co-founder Iz Harris, raised $12 million in a round led by Emerson Collective, and former 60 Minutes Executive Producer Bill Owens joins as its Executive Producer in March.

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Fox's creator company Red Seat Ventures took exclusive audio and video rights to Homecoming Golf's shows, starting with the comedy series Drink Cart Scramble, so the shows now sit inside a Fox-owned company.

Kalshi, the prediction market whose YouTube sponsorships we covered in October, raised $1 billion at a $40 billion valuation from Sequoia and Wellington, nearly double its value five months ago.

Partner message Before you book a big creator, see how their latest uploads actually did. The ThoughtLeaders Chrome extension, free to download, shows each video's views against the channel's usual numbers right on the YouTube watch page.

Creator on the Rise · add to your watch list

Joe Blogs

488K subscribers • Economics and markets news

Joe Blogs explains what is moving the world economy and the markets, from China's stock market to Russia's oil trade, in new videos most days. His October 30 video "AI CRASH SPREADS WORLDWIDE" passed 600,000 views in four days, more than eight times what his long-form videos since YouTube's August view-count change usually have at the same age, and "AI Panic Spreads Worldwide" from October 16 is past 330,000. NordVPN has sponsored 35 of his videos since March 2024 and Investing.com 16 since February 2025, each across four separate campaigns and both still running, and Incogni has sponsored 22 more since July 2024.

92%

Male

United States

34.2%

United Kingdom

14.3%

Canada

8.1%

Australia

5.1%

Subscribers

488K +24% in 2 yrs

Median age

55-64

Projected views

92K at day 30

Partner with the channel →

Advertiser Spotlight

Brand Strategies Worth Stealing

Housecall Pro Found the Plumbers on Car and Movie Podcasts

Housecall Pro sells software that plumbers, electricians and other home-service businesses use to run their jobs. In October its sponsor read ran in 45 long-form videos on 18 channels. In the twelve months before, it never ran in more than two videos in a month.

Hardly any of those shows are about the trades. The biggest placements are Formula 1's interview podcast F1 Beyond The Grid, whose Daniel Ricciardo episode is past 600,000 views, and Doug DeMuro's car podcast episode on the Tesla Roadster reveal, past 350,000. The movie-news host John Campea carried 25 of the October videos, and the read also ran on Internet Today, Wild Times Podcast and Gypsy Tales Podcast.

“Jake Kadoro from Mother Flushers Plumbing said that using Housecall Pro felt like it took maybe 10 hats off of the top of his head”

Doug DeMuro's car podcast, in a sponsored Housecall Pro read

Nearly every show gets its own web address, like housecallpro.com/CARS on Doug DeMuro's podcast and housecallpro.com/CAMPEA on John Campea's, with the same offer: 50% off base plans for the first three months. The person who buys this software owns the business, and owners watch car, racing and movie shows like everyone else. The steal is to book the shows your buyer watches on their own time, which for a plumbing-software brand turned out to be car and movie podcasts. All of this started in October, so these buys are too fresh to be proven, and Housecall Pro is not yet what we call a guide brand.

Guide brands worth studying

Brunt Workwear. The work boots and workwear brand gives its shows their own codes and web addresses, like bruntworkwear.com/CBOYSTV on CboysTV. Over the past two years it came back to 117 of the 338 channels it had time to return to, about one in three, at least 70 days later, including Doug DeMuro's channel and Gypsy Tales Podcast.

Helix Sleep. The mattress brand runs a helixsleep.com path per show, like helixsleep.com/SRS on Shawn Ryan Show. It came back to 242 of the 851 channels it had time to return to, about three in ten, at least 70 days later.

Trending on YouTube

What's going viral right now

A Security Channel Tests a Viral Repo

11x

the channel's usual long-form views

Low Level, a programming and security channel with 1.2 million subscribers, tested a reverse-engineering code repository that had gone viral. Posted on October 16 and sponsored by CodeRabbit, the video has reached nearly 3.6 million views. Watch the video.

Social Security Changes Draw a Big Audience

49x

the channel's usual long-form views

Epic Real Estate, a real estate and money channel with about 347,000 subscribers, explained how next year's Social Security changes depend on your birth year. Posted on October 28 and sponsored by the budgeting app Monarch, it is close to 1.8 million views. Watch the video.

Uniqlo Against Quince, Piece by Piece

13x

her usual long-form views

Kathryn Mueller bought the same wardrobe basics from Uniqlo and Quince to see which brand did them better. The video's sponsor is the clothing brand Colorfulkoala, not either of the brands it compares. Posted on October 21, it has passed 320,000 views on a channel with 250,000 subscribers. Watch the video.

A Dog Groomer's Favorite Client

13x

the channel's usual long-form views

Girl With The Dogs 2, a dog-grooming channel with 1.75 million subscribers, posted "The Best Client of My Entire Pet Grooming Career" on October 25, sponsored by the shoe brand Vessi. It has passed 6.7 million views. Watch the video.