A Kyiv Studio Puts Its Wager on the Vertical Drama

The company called Holywater did not start life as a television business. The company was established in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020 by Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov, and its product lineup to this day looks more like a mobile entertainment lab than a quick dramas online streaming platform. Beside My Drama sit My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. This breadth matters, since video is one consumer product among several for the company, not its entire identity. The vertical drama, a format that began in China as duanju and is framed 9:16 for an upright phone, was the bet it eventually made. Entering this market was daring for a small Ukrainian business, because the sector's biggest names were supported by Chinese and Singaporean groups.

The My Drama App Arrives in Spring 2024

Spring 2024 saw the arrival of the My Drama app, though the exact date depends on which record you trust. The launch date varies by source: TechCrunch put it in April, Google Play lists March 13, 2024, and the App Store shows May 9, 2024. The gap between those store dates suggests that Android came first and the iPhone version came about two months later. The first slate leaned heavily on the genre's favorite tropes. Early titles featured The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss, names that reveal most of what you need to know about the tone. It was not the stories themselves that ultimately set the company apart, but the collaborator it would soon be producing them with.

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

In October 2025, My Drama stopped being a mere startup curiosity. In a deal that came with a commitment to produce more than 200 vertical titles over two years, Fox Entertainment took an equity stake in Holywater. Billionaire Blackmail, Bound by Obsession and My Heart's Offside are among the Fox-produced titles on the platform. Three months later, in January 2026, Holywater secured $22M in a funding round led by Horizon Capital. The company also has a Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025, a credential it features on its App Store listing. These milestones, taken together, give My Drama a distinctive asset that few rivals can claim: a major American studio acting as both shareholder and producer.

My Drama at a Glance

The quick version of the story sits in the table below, for anyone who only has a minute. The ownership, legal, platform and pricing details that matter most to a new viewer are gathered there. As of September 2026, the prices are those shown in the US App Store. Treat them as a rough guide rather than a quote, as they differ by country, platform and promotion. If you ever need to challenge a charge, it matters that the legal entity you deal with depends on where you live. On Google Play, where the install figure comes from, the app shows 5M+ downloads.

What It Feels Like to Watch My Drama

The basic experience mirrors the one the whole category is founded on. Episodes are vertical and sized for an upright phone; in this genre episodes usually last one or two minutes, and then a cliffhanger nudges you on to the next one. A single story can silently consume an evening in small bites, as series often run anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes. Where this drama app truly distinguishes itself is the range of screens it supports. Apart from iPhone, iPad and Android, listings show it for Vision Pro and for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later. By comparison, ReelShort's App Store listing shows no Apple TV version at all, so that big-screen option is less common than you might expect. A 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen TV, but the option converts a solo phone habit into something a couple can watch together.

Holywater's own early productions and the growing Fox slate make up the catalog, 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. Here, the fair caveat is scale. On Google Play the app displays 5M+ installs, a fraction of the 100M+ that ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each list. This gap shows where My Drama stands in 2026, as a well-funded challenger rather than the category leader.

Pricing: How Much My Drama Costs in 2026

Access comes in three ways, and the headline figure is the weekly pass. As of September 2026, the US App Store prices "My Drama: Full Access" at about $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 on par with them. From around $4.99 to $24.99, coin bundles open up individual episodes. With a separate Premium tier listed at about $4.99 to $9.99, lighter viewers have cheaper entry points than the full pass. Country, platform and promotional offers all affect prices, so the figure on your own screen may be different. Until you cancel it, the weekly subscription renews automatically, just as its rivals' plans do. Four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass add up to around $80 a month, so run the numbers before you commit.

Before You Pay: Terms Worth Knowing

My Drama's terms of use include fine print that merits more attention than most viewers pay it. There is no easy refund if a series disappoints after you unlock it, because coin purchases are final. After 12 months of inactivity, coins are also forfeited, so a balance left untouched for a year can simply disappear. Anything you buy on the web is described as non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. In the EU and UK, there is a 14-day right of withdrawal, 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, whereas Android users use the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. Refunds for store purchases are dealt with by Apple or Google, not by Holywater.

It is also wise to know exactly who sits on the other side of the contract. For US users, the contracting party is XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company; everyone else contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus. One more warning applies to My Drama as much as to any vertical drama app. Modded APKs, unlimited coins and free coin generators are promised by unofficial sites, and those sites are not a safe way to watch anything. The legitimate move to a steep price is to cancel the pass, not to look for a hack.

Our Verdict: A Challenger With Hollywood in Its Corner

Measured by install counts, My Drama is not the largest vertical drama app, and it is not close. 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 add up to the uncommon combination it offers instead. Viewers get a practical advantage in Apple TV support, which ReelShort, for one, does not list. Like every rival, the drawback is a weekly pass of roughly $19.99 that renews quietly in the background. If you are after Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a television, the My Drama app earns a place on your home screen. If you simply want the largest claimed library, ShortMax, with its 50,000+ dramas, is the more obvious choice. Either way, cancel through your store account rather than trusting the delete button, and create a reminder the day you subscribe.