Watch Vertical Drama Hits Now Everything Explained

A Kyiv Studio Gambles on the Vertical Drama

The company called Holywater didn’t start life as a television business. Back in 2020 Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov set up the studio in Kyiv, Ukraine, and its product lineup still reads more like vertical drama a lab for mobile entertainment than a streaming service. My Drama shares the portfolio with My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. That spread is significant, because it shows a business that sees video as one consumer product among several rather than its entire identity. Ultimately, it placed its bet on the vertical drama, a format that began in China as duanju and is framed 9:16 for an upright phone. The groups behind the sector’s biggest names were Chinese and Singaporean, making this a daring market for a small Ukrainian firm to enter.

Spring 2024: The My Drama App Launches

The exact launch date of the My Drama app hinges on which source you trust, but it went live in spring 2024. TechCrunch put the launch in April, Google Play lists March 13, 2024, and the App Store lists May 9, 2024. Based on the difference between those store dates, Android likely came first and the iPhone version arrived about two months later. The initial slate was heavily built around the genre’s favorite tropes. The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss were among the initial titles, names that tell you most of what you need to know about the mood. It was not the stories themselves that eventually made the studio stand out, but the partner it would soon be producing them with.

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

The month My Drama stopped being a startup curiosity was October 2025. Fox Entertainment acquired an equity stake in Holywater, and the deal came with a commitment to produce more than 200 vertical titles over two years. Among 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 secured $22M in a funding round led by Horizon Capital. On its App Store listing, the company displays a further credential: a Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025. Those milestones, taken together, give My Drama a distinctive asset that few rivals can claim: a major American studio serving as both shareholder and producer.

The My Drama Fact File

If you only have a minute, the table below gives you the quick version of the story. It gathers in one place the details on ownership, legal matters, platforms and pricing that matter most to newcomers. All prices are taken from the US App Store as of September 2026. Use them as a rough guide rather than a quote, as they vary by country, platform and promotion. If you ever need to contest a charge, it matters that the legal entity you contract with depends on where you live. On Google Play, where the install figure comes from, the app lists 5M+ downloads.

What Watching on My Drama Feels Like

The core experience is the one the whole category is built on. Episodes are vertical, framed for an upright phone, and in this genre they typically run a minute or two before a cliffhanger pushes you on to the next one. With series often running anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes, one story can quietly eat up an evening in short bites. What truly marks this drama app apart is the range of screens it supports. Beyond iPhone, iPad and Android, it is listed for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later and for Vision Pro. That big-screen option is rarer than you might think: for comparison, ReelShort’s App Store listing shows no Apple TV version at all. While a 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen television, the option transforms a solo phone habit into something a couple can enjoy together.

Holywater’s own early productions and the growing Fox slate share the library, which blends the two. As titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession make clear, the Fox releases stay close to the genre’s established formula. The honest caveat here is scale. ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each list 100M+ installs on Google Play, while My Drama shows 5M+, a fraction of that. This gap puts My Drama in 2026 as a well-financed challenger rather than the category leader.

Pricing: What My Drama Costs in 2026

The main figure is the weekly pass, one of three ways Holywater sells access. In the US App Store as of September 2026, “My Drama: Full Access” costs roughly $19.99 per week. That places it on par with the weekly passes from ReelShort, ShortMax, DramaWave and GoodShort, all listed at about the same price in the same store. Coin packs, used to unlock individual episodes, run from around $4.99 to $24.99. Lighter viewers have less expensive entry points than the full pass, because a separate Premium tier is listed at about $4.99 to $9.99. Prices change by country, platform and promotion, so the figure on your own device may differ. The weekly subscription renews automatically until you cancel it, like its rivals’ plans. Before you commit, run the numbers: four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass total about $80 a month.

Terms to Check Before You Pay

My Drama’s terms of use contain fine print that deserves 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. On top of that, coins are forfeited after 12 months of inactivity, so a balance you ignore for a year can simply disappear. Purchases made on the web are labeled non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. In the EU and UK, there is a 14-day right of withdrawal, mirroring the consumer rules in those markets. Crucially, the terms state plainly that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. Android users go through the Subscriptions menu in Google Play, while on an iPhone you cancel under Settings, then your name, then Subscriptions. Apple or Google, not Holywater, process refunds for store purchases.

Understanding exactly who sits on the other side of the contract also helps. Everyone outside the US contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus, while US users contract with XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company. Another warning applies here as much as to any vertical drama app. Sites promising modded APKs, unlimited coins or free coin generators are unofficial, and they are not a safe way to watch anything. When the price seems too high, cancel the pass; do not hunt for a hack.

The Verdict: A Challenger Backed by Hollywood

By install counts, My Drama is not close to being the biggest vertical drama app. What it has instead is an uncommon 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. Viewers get a practical upside in Apple TV support, which ReelShort, for one, does not list. The drawback remains the same one that plagues every rival: a weekly pass of roughly $19.99 that quietly renews in the background. Anyone who wants Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a TV will find that the My Drama app earns a place on the home screen. For viewers who simply want the largest claimed library, ShortMax and its 50,000+ dramas are the more obvious choice. Whichever you pick, cancel through your store account rather than trusting the delete button, and create a reminder the day you subscribe.