A Kyiv Studio Gambles on the Vertical Drama

Television wasn’t where Holywater started out. The studio was launched in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020 by Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov, and its range of products even now reads more like a lab for mobile entertainment than a streaming network. My Drama sits in a portfolio with My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. It matters that the portfolio is so spread out, since it reveals a business that https://reel-short-app.com/ treats video as one of several consumer products rather than its entire identity. Eventually, the company wagered on the vertical drama, a format that originated in China as duanju and is composed 9:16 for a phone held vertically. The groups behind the sector’s largest players were Chinese and Singaporean, which made this a bold market for a small Ukrainian firm to enter.

The My Drama App Arrives in Spring 2024

The precise launch date of the My Drama app hinges on which source you trust, but the app arrived in spring 2024. Google Play shows March 13, 2024, the App Store shows May 9, 2024, and TechCrunch put the launch in April. Based on the difference between those store dates, Android probably came first and the iPhone version arrived about two months later. From the start, the slate leaned hard on the genre’s go-to tropes. The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss were some of the first titles, names that tell you most of what you need to know about the mood. The collaborator it would soon be producing them with, not the stories themselves, is what eventually made it stand out.

The Fox Deal, a $22M Round and a Webby

My Drama stopped being just a startup curiosity in October 2025. An equity stake in Holywater was taken by Fox Entertainment, and the deal included a commitment to make more than 200 vertical titles over two years. Included in the Fox-produced titles on the platform are Billionaire Blackmail, Bound by Obsession and My Heart’s Offside. Three months later, in January 2026, Holywater raised $22M in a funding round led by Horizon Capital. A Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025 also belongs to the company, which features it on its App Store listing. Combined, those milestones hand My Drama something few rivals can boast, namely a major American studio working as both shareholder and producer.

My Drama at a Glance

If you only have a moment, the table below offers the condensed version of the story. It gathers in one place the ownership, legal, platform and pricing details that count most to a first-time viewer. The prices are the ones listed in the US App Store as of September 2026. Country, platform and promotion all affect them, so read them as a guide rather than a quote. Where you live determines the legal entity you contract with, something that becomes relevant if you ever need to dispute a charge. The install figure comes from Google Play, where the app shows 5M+ downloads.

The My Drama Viewing Experience

At its heart, the experience is the same one the entire category is built on. Framed for a phone held upright, episodes are vertical, and in this genre they usually run one or two minutes before a cliffhanger pushes you toward the next. With series often running anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes, one story can quietly eat up an evening in short bites. The range of screens it supports is where this drama app really sets itself apart. Beyond iPhone, iPad and Android, listings show it for Vision Pro and for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later. That big-screen option is rarer than you might think, since ReelShort’s App Store listing, for comparison, shows no Apple TV version at all. The option turns a solo phone habit into something a couple can watch together, even though a 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen television.

The growing Fox slate runs alongside Holywater’s own early productions in the catalog. The Fox releases stick close to the genre’s familiar formula, as titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession make obvious. Here, the fair caveat is scale. ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each list 100M+ installs on Google Play, whereas My Drama lists 5M+, a fraction of that. This gap places My Drama in 2026 as a well-financed challenger rather than the category leader.

Pricing: What My Drama Costs in 2026

The headline figure is the weekly pass, one of the three ways Holywater sells access. In the US App Store as of September 2026, “My Drama: Full Access” costs around $19.99 a week. The weekly passes from ReelShort, ShortMax, DramaWave and GoodShort are listed at about the same price in the same store, which places My Drama level with them. At around $4.99 to $24.99, coin packs open up individual episodes. Lighter viewers have cheaper entry points than the full pass, since a separate Premium tier is listed at around $4.99 to $9.99. The figure on your own device may differ, because prices change by country, platform and promotion. Until you cancel it, the weekly subscription renews automatically, as its rivals’ plans do. Four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass total about $80 a month, so run the numbers before you commit.

Terms Worth Knowing Before You Pay

My Drama’s terms of use carry fine print that merits more attention than most viewers pay it. Coin purchases are final, so there is no easy refund if a series disappoints after you unlock it. After 12 months of inactivity, coins are also forfeited, so a balance left untouched for a year can simply vanish. Reflecting the consumer rules in those markets, viewers in the EU and UK have a 14-day right of withdrawal. Purchases on the web are described as non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. Most importantly, the terms say clearly that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. iPhone owners cancel under Settings, then their name, then Subscriptions, whereas Android users use the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. For store purchases, refunds are processed by Apple or Google, not by Holywater.

It is also wise to know exactly who sits on the other side of the contract. US users contract with XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company, while everyone else contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus. As with any vertical drama app, a further warning applies here. Modded APKs, unlimited coins and free coin generators come from unofficial sites, and those sites are not a safe way to watch anything. If the price seems too high, the legitimate move is to cancel the pass, not to hunt for a hack.

Verdict: A Challenger With Hollywood in Its Corner

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