The Vertical Drama Wager of a Kyiv Studio
Holywater was not started as a TV business. Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov established the studio in 2020 in Kyiv, Ukraine, and its range of products even now reads more like a lab for mobile entertainment than a streaming platform. My Drama is listed next to My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. It is telling that the lineup is reelshorts this broad, because it shows a business that treats video as one consumer product among several rather than its whole identity. The gamble it in the end placed was on the vertical drama, a format that began in China as duanju and is framed 9:16 for an upright phone. Entering this market was bold for a small Ukrainian company, since the genre’s leading names were supported by Chinese and Singaporean groups.
Spring 2024: The My Drama App Launches
The precise launch date of the My Drama app hinges on which source you believe, but the app went live in spring 2024. The launch timing varies by source: TechCrunch placed it in April, Google Play lists March 13, 2024, and the App Store shows May 9, 2024. Going by the gap between those store dates, Android probably came first and the iPhone version followed about two months later. The initial slate was heavily built around the genre’s favorite tropes. Early titles such as The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss reveal most of what you need to know about the tone just by their names. It was not the stories themselves that eventually made the studio stand out, but the partner it would soon be making them with.
Fox, $22M in Fresh Funding and a Webby Win
The month My Drama stopped being a startup curiosity was October 2025. Fox Entertainment took an equity stake in Holywater, with an agreement that included a pledge to produce 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 secured $22M in a funding round led by Horizon Capital. A Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025 is also held by the company, which features it on its App Store listing. Those milestones, taken together, give My Drama a distinctive advantage that few rivals can claim: a major American studio acting as both shareholder and producer.
My Drama at a Glance
The table below offers the short version of the story if you only have a minute. It gathers the ownership, legal, platform and pricing details that matter most to a new viewer. As of September 2026, the prices are those shown in the US App Store. Use them as a guide rather than a firm quote, since they differ by country, platform and promotion. On Google Play, the source of the install figure, the app lists 5M+ downloads. Where you live decides the legal entity you contract with, something that becomes relevant if you ever need to challenge a charge.
| Category | Information |
|---|---|
| Owner | Holywater, established in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020 |
| Founders | Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov |
| Related apps | My Passion (books), My Muse (AI), FreeBits |
| Legal entity for US users | XOLY LIMITED (Delaware) |
| Contract party, other users | Holy Water Limited (Nicosia, Cyprus) |
| Release | Spring 2024 (Google Play on March 13; App Store on May 9) |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple TV (tvOS 18+), Vision Pro and web |
| Installs on Android | 5M+ on Google Play |
| Full access pass | About $19.99 per week, renewing automatically |
| Coin bundles | About $4.99 to $24.99 |
| Premium options | Roughly $4.99 to $9.99 |
| Studio partner | Fox Entertainment, equity stake held since October 2025, 200+ titles over two years |
| Investment | $22M raised in January 2026, led by Horizon Capital |
| Honors | 2025 Webby Award, Best Streaming Service |
How Watching on My Drama Plays Out
The basic experience is the one the whole category is built on. Sized for an upright phone, episodes are vertical, and in this genre they typically run a minute or two before a cliffhanger nudges you toward the next. With series often running anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes, a single story can quietly eat up an evening in bite-sized pieces. What really marks this drama app apart is the range of screens it supports. It is listed for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later and for Vision Pro, in addition to iPhone, iPad and Android. ReelShort’s App Store listing, by comparison, shows no Apple TV version at all, which underlines that that big-screen option is rarer than you might think. The option transforms a solo phone habit into something a couple can watch together, even though a 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen TV.
The growing Fox slate sits alongside Holywater’s own early productions in the catalog. The genre’s well-worn formula is still the template for the Fox releases, as titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession make plain. Scale is the fair caveat here. At 5M+ installs on Google Play, the app has a fraction of the 100M+ that ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each show. That gap places My Drama in 2026 as a well-funded challenger rather than the category leader.
What My Drama Costs in 2026: Plans and Prices
Access comes in three ways, and the headline figure is the weekly pass. “My Drama: Full Access” is priced at about $19.99 a week in the US App Store as of September 2026. ReelShort, ShortMax, DramaWave and GoodShort list their weekly passes at about the same price in the same store, so My Drama sits level with them. Coin bundles, which unlock individual episodes, range from roughly $4.99 to $24.99. A separate Premium tier is listed at around $4.99 to $9.99, so lighter viewers have less expensive entry points than the full pass. Country, platform and promotion all change prices, so the figure on your own screen may differ. As with its rivals’ plans, the weekly subscription auto-renews until you cancel it. Before committing, do the arithmetic: four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass add up to around $80 a month.
Terms to Read Before You Pay
My Drama’s terms of use contain fine print that merits more attention than most viewers pay it. All coin purchases are final, which means no easy refund if a series disappoints after you unlock it. In addition, coins are forfeited after 12 months of inactivity, so a balance you ignore for a year can simply disappear. Purchases on the web are labeled non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. A 14-day right of withdrawal applies to viewers in the EU and UK, in line with the consumer rules in those markets. The terms say clearly, and this matters most, that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. iPhone owners cancel under Settings, then their name, then Subscriptions, while Android users use the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. Refunds for store purchases are handled by Apple or Google, not by Holywater.
It also helps to know exactly who sits on the other side of the contract. XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company, covers US users, while everyone else contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus. Another warning applies here as much as to any vertical drama app. Sites that promise modded APKs, unlimited coins or free coin generators are unofficial and are not a safe way to watch anything. When the price seems too high, the legitimate move is to cancel the pass, not to go hunting 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. Rather, 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. Like every rival, the drawback is a weekly pass of around $19.99 that keeps renewing quietly in the background. The My Drama app earns a place on your home screen if you want Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a TV. For viewers who simply want the largest claimed library, ShortMax and its 50,000+ dramas make the more obvious choice. Either way, set a reminder on the day you subscribe and cancel through your store account instead of trusting the delete button.
