ReelShort Tips and Tricks Editor Picks 2026

How a Kyiv Studio Gambled on the Vertical Drama

Holywater wasn’t born as a television operation. The studio was set up in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020 by Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov, and its range of products still reads more like a mobile entertainment laboratory than a streaming service. My Drama shares the portfolio with My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. It matters that the lineup is so spread out, because it reveals a company that sees video as one of several consumer products instead of its entire identity. In the end, it put its bet on the reelshort movies vertical drama, a format born in China as duanju and framed 9:16 for an upright phone. The groups behind the category’s biggest names were Chinese and Singaporean, making this a bold market for a small Ukrainian firm to enter.

Spring 2024 and the Arrival of the My Drama App

Spring 2024 brought the launch of the My Drama app, although the exact date depends on which source you trust. The launch timing varies by source: TechCrunch placed it in April, Google Play shows March 13, 2024, and the App Store shows May 9, 2024. The difference between those store dates suggests that Android came first and the iPhone version came about two months later. The launch slate leaned heavily on the genre’s most popular tropes. Early titles such as The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss tell you most of what you need to know about the mood through their names alone. The collaborator it would soon be making them with, not the stories themselves, is what ultimately set the company apart.

Fox, $22M in Funding and a Webby Win

The month My Drama ceased to be a startup curiosity was October 2025. An equity stake in Holywater was taken by Fox Entertainment, and the deal carried a commitment to make more than 200 vertical titles over two years. Then, in January 2026, three months on, Holywater pulled in $22M in a round led by Horizon Capital. Fox-produced titles on the app include Billionaire Blackmail, Bound by Obsession and My Heart’s Offside. The company also has a Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025, an honor it features on its App Store listing. Put together, those milestones hand My Drama something few rivals can match, namely a major American studio acting as both shareholder and producer.

The My Drama Fact File

If you only have a spare minute, the table below gives you the quick version of the story. The ownership, legal, platform and pricing details that count most to a first-time viewer are pulled together in one place. The prices are those listed in the US App Store as of September 2026. They differ by country, platform and promotion, so use them as a rough guide rather than a quote. The app shows 5M+ downloads on Google Play, which is what the install count refers to. Where you live determines the legal entity you contract with, a detail that is relevant if you ever need to dispute a charge.

What Watching on My Drama Feels Like

The basic experience mirrors the one the entire category is founded on. Framed for a phone held upright, episodes are vertical, and in this genre they typically last one or two minutes before a cliffhanger pushes you toward the next. Because series often run anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes, a single story can silently swallow an evening in short bites. The range of screens it supports is where this drama app really sets itself apart. It is listed for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later and for Vision Pro, on top of iPhone, iPad and Android. ReelShort’s App Store listing, by comparison, shows no Apple TV version at all, which shows that that big-screen option is less common than you might expect. While a 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen television, the option transforms a solitary phone habit into something a couple can enjoy together.

The growing Fox slate sits next to Holywater’s own early productions in the library. As titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession make plain, the Fox releases stick close to the genre’s established formula. Scale is the fair caveat here. The app displays 5M+ installs on Google Play, a fraction of the 100M+ that ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each show. That gap shows where My Drama sits in 2026, as a well-funded challenger rather than the category leader.

What My Drama Costs in 2026: Plans and Prices

Access comes three ways, and the headline figure is the weekly pass. As of September 2026, the US App Store lists “My Drama: Full Access” at roughly $19.99 a week. That puts it level with the weekly passes from ReelShort, ShortMax, DramaWave and GoodShort, which are listed at about the same price in the same store. For unlocking individual episodes, there are coin packs priced from around $4.99 to $24.99. A separate Premium tier is listed at about $4.99 to $9.99, so lighter viewers have less expensive entry points than the full pass. Like its rivals’ plans, the weekly subscription renews automatically until you cancel it. The figure on your own device may be different, because prices change by country, platform and promotion. Four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass add up to roughly $80 a month, so run the numbers before you commit.

Terms to Read Before You Pay

Most viewers pay less attention than they should to the fine print in My Drama’s terms of use. There is no easy refund if a series disappoints after you unlock it, since coin purchases are final. Also, coins are forfeited after 12 months of inactivity, so a balance you ignore for a year can simply disappear. Viewers in the EU and UK get a 14-day right of withdrawal, reflecting the consumer rules in those markets. Purchases on the web are described as non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. The most important point of all: the terms state plainly that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. On an iPhone you cancel under Settings, then your name, then Subscriptions, while Android users use the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. Apple or Google, not Holywater, deal with refunds for store purchases.

It is also worth knowing exactly who stands on the other side of the contract. Everyone outside the US contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus, while US users deal with XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company. As with any vertical drama app, one more warning applies here. A site promising modded APKs, unlimited coins or free coin generators is unofficial, and it is not a safe way to watch anything. Canceling the pass, not looking for a hack, is the proper move when the price feels too high.

Verdict: A Challenger With Hollywood in Its Corner

My Drama is not the biggest vertical drama app, and on install counts it is not even close. Rather, it offers an unlikely combination: a Kyiv founding story, a Fox equity partner signed up for more than 200 titles, fresh funding from January 2026 and a Webby on the shelf. The practical advantage for viewers is Apple TV support, something ReelShort, for one, does not list. A weekly pass of around $19.99 that renews quietly in the background is the catch, the same one that dogs every rival. If you want Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a TV, the My Drama app deserves a place on your home screen. ShortMax, with its 50,000+ dramas, is the more obvious choice if you simply want the largest claimed library. Either way, set a reminder the day you subscribe, and cancel through your store account rather than trusting the delete button.