The Vertical Drama Wager of a Kyiv Studio
TV was not where Holywater started out. Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov started the business in 2020 in Kyiv, Ukraine, and its lineup still reads more like a mobile entertainment laboratory than a streaming platform. My Drama shares the portfolio with My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. That spread matters, because it shows a company that treats video as one of several consumer products rather than its whole identity. Eventually, the company bet on the vertical drama, a format that began in China as duanju and is framed 9:16 for a phone held upright. For a small Ukrainian business, this was a reel shorts movies daring market to enter, as the sector’s leading names were backed by Chinese and Singaporean groups.
Spring 2024: The My Drama App Arrives
The My Drama app went live in spring 2024, although the precise date depends on which listing you trust. The launch timing varies by source: TechCrunch put it in April, Google Play lists March 13, 2024, and the App Store lists May 9, 2024. Judging by the difference between those store dates, Android likely came first and the iPhone version arrived about two months later. From the start, the slate leaned hard on the genre’s best-loved tropes. Most of what you need to know about the tone is clear in initial titles such as The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss. The partner it would soon be making them with, not the stories themselves, is what ultimately made it stand out.
A Fox Deal, a $22M Raise and a Webby
My Drama stopped being a startup curiosity in October 2025. Fox Entertainment acquired an equity stake in Holywater, and the deal came with a pledge to make more than 200 vertical titles over two years. Three months later, in January 2026, Holywater secured $22M in a funding round led by Horizon Capital. Billionaire Blackmail, Bound by Obsession and My Heart’s Offside are among the Fox-produced titles on the platform. A Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025 also belongs to the company, which displays it on its App Store listing. Few rivals can boast what those milestones hand My Drama, namely a big American studio serving as both shareholder and producer.
My Drama at a Glance
The condensed version of the story is in the table below, for anyone who only has a minute. It gathers the ownership, legal, platform and pricing details that count most to a new viewer. As of September 2026, the prices are the ones shown in the US App Store. Read them as a rough guide rather than a quote, since they differ by country, platform and promotion. On Google Play, where the install figure comes from, the app lists 5M+ downloads. Which legal entity you deal with is determined by where you live, a detail that becomes relevant if you ever need to contest a charge.
| Topic | Information |
|---|---|
| Owner | Holywater (founded in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020) |
| Founders | Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov |
| Sister apps | My Passion (books), My Muse (AI), FreeBits |
| Contracting entity, US users | XOLY LIMITED (Delaware) |
| Legal entity for other users | Holy Water Limited (Nicosia, Cyprus) |
| Launch | Spring 2024 (Google Play on March 13; App Store on May 9) |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple TV (tvOS 18+), Vision Pro and web |
| Android downloads | 5M+ on Google Play |
| Full-access plan | Roughly $19.99 per week, with automatic renewal |
| Coin bundles | Roughly $4.99 to $24.99 |
| Premium tier | About $4.99 to $9.99 |
| Studio backer | Fox Entertainment, equity stake held since October 2025, 200+ titles over two years |
| Investment | $22M in January 2026, led by Horizon Capital |
| Honors | Webby Award for Best Streaming Service, 2025 |
What Watching on My Drama Feels Like
The central experience mirrors the one the entire category is founded on. Formatted for an upright phone, episodes are vertical, and in this genre they typically run one or two minutes before a cliffhanger nudges you on to the next. With series often running anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes, a single story can silently eat up an evening in bite-sized pieces. The range of screens it supports is where this drama app truly distinguishes itself. It is listed for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later and for Vision Pro, beyond iPhone, iPad and Android. ReelShort’s App Store listing, by comparison, shows no Apple TV version at all, which suggests that that big-screen option is rarer than you might expect. While a 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen television, the option transforms 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. Titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession demonstrate that the Fox releases stick close to the genre’s established formula. Scale is where the candid caveat comes in. The app displays 5M+ installs on Google Play, a fraction of the 100M+ that ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each list. This gap shows where My Drama sits in 2026, as a well-backed challenger rather than the category leader.
What My Drama Costs in 2026: Plans and Prices
Access is sold in three ways, and the main 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. That places it on par 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 bundles priced from roughly $4.99 to $24.99. Lighter viewers have lower-cost entry points than the full pass, as a separate Premium tier is listed at around $4.99 to $9.99. Until you cancel it, the weekly subscription auto-renews, as its rivals’ plans do. Prices change by country, platform and promotion, so the figure on your own screen may differ. Four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass add up to roughly $80 a month, so do the math before you commit.
Before You Pay: The Terms to Know
The terms of use for My Drama include fine print that deserves more attention than most viewers give it. Every coin purchase is final, which means no easy refund if a series lets you down 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 vanish. Except where the law requires otherwise, purchases made on the web are described as non-refundable. A 14-day right of withdrawal covers viewers in the EU and UK, reflecting the consumer rules in those markets. The most important point is this: the terms state plainly 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 handled by Apple or Google, not by Holywater.
Understanding exactly who sits on the other side of the contract is also useful. XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company, handles US users, whereas everyone else contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus. Here, as with any vertical drama app, a further warning is worth making. Any site promising modded APKs, unlimited coins or free coin generators is unofficial, and it is not a safe way to watch anything. The proper move to a steep price is to cancel the pass, not to hunt for a hack.
Our Verdict: A Challenger With Hollywood in Its Corner
My Drama is not the largest vertical drama app, and on install counts it is not even 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 there is a practical advantage in Apple TV support, which ReelShort, for one, does not list. The catch is the same one that dogs every rival: a weekly pass of about $19.99 that quietly renews in the background. ShortMax, with its 50,000+ dramas, is the more obvious pick if you simply want the largest claimed library. 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. Whichever you pick, cancel through your store account rather than trusting the delete button, and set a reminder the day you subscribe.
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