Who keeps the show? The microdrama deals that leave money or rights with the people who make it

On 6 November, Abhinav Singla explained how Canvas pays its creators. Singla is chief storyteller of the New York microdrama platform, and spoke to Net Influencer. Canvas covers all production costs. The creator partner owns a share of the IP, which the company puts at 30 to 50%. Canvas expects to earn its money back through subscriptions to its app, where episodes run about two minutes, Singla said.

Its next release, Red Flags, is built around Robert Maxwell. Maxwell has more than one million followers on TikTok and Instagram, according to Singla. Script and preparation took about 10 days. The shoot took three to four days.

Several deals announced since July leave creators part of the revenue or part of the rights. They differ first on who pays for the shoot.

The deal they are measured against

At MIPCOM in Cannes on 15 October, Clare Thompson of the research firm K7 Media separated three models, FormatBiz reported. The first is the app with a paywall. ReelShort, DramaBox and NetShort work that way: viewers pay through subscriptions, coins bought in advance, or per-episode unlocks. K7 also pointed to commissioned productions and work-for-hire agreements, under which the buyer pays for a series and owns it, and to newer co-financing models that let producers keep their rights.

K7 put a typical American vertical drama at $150,000 to $300,000. It is shot in eight to ten days. At the leading apps, marketing spending reaches up to nine times the production budget. Our vertical drama booklet follows where that marketing dollar goes.

The platform pays, the creator keeps a share

At Canvas, creators bring their face and their followers. The company pays for the crew.

Singla told Net Influencer that the share pays off later in a show's life. A second season may attract a brand. Netflix or YouTube may want to acquire a series, or another country may want it dubbed. Canvas would then share that revenue according to each show's ownership structure.

Drama Drama is a Los Angeles platform for AI-made series. It publishes the same kind of terms on its site. When it co-produces a project, it covers the agreed AI production costs. The creator gets 40% of the newly co-produced episodes and assets. Drama Drama gets 60%. Revenue follows the same split. "Underlying IP stays with the party that brought it," the site says. Drama Drama also becomes distributor and sales agent of the covered material, under a perpetual mandate.

The creator pays, the creator keeps most of the revenue

In the second group, the platform pays nothing up front. It takes a cut of sales.

Drama Drama's standard offer works that way. A creator who funds a series publishes it on a channel, with free episodes and paid ones. The creator receives 80% of net revenue, before payment and payout fees. Publishing there "does not transfer ownership", according to the site's FAQ. It is non-exclusive. Tonjé Bakang, the founder, told Streaming Radar on 4 November that creators bring their own audience, which keeps the platform's cost of acquiring viewers low.

Inverted, the platform of Jason Kiesel and Mat Raney, launched in 2025. It gives creators a 70/30 revenue split, Deadline reported on 7 July. Inverted won the rights to Orevwa, a series created by the actor E.J. Joseph. The deal followed what its producers called a "competitive bidding process". Deadline does not name the owner.

Roy Price, former head of Amazon Studios, returned in August with Number One Best Website (N1BW). Users upload their own microdramas there, and the site monetises them with tokens. Price resigned from Amazon in 2017 while facing a sexual harassment claim, which he denies, The Hollywood Reporter recalled.

N1BW also helps creators find collaborators. For teams formed that way, it offers standard agreements: 70% of revenue to the creative team, 30% to the platform. When several people share the creative roles, the split is set in advance:

The creator keeps the film and TV rights. Third parties can buy the series. At press time, THR wrote, all the microdramas on the platform seemed to be made with AI.

The audience the creator brings

Each of these platforms counts on the creator's followers for the first viewers. At Canvas, creators post trailers and promos to their own accounts, Singla said. When Canvas picks a project, "following does not matter as much as the story," according to Singla.

Three creators wrote in public posts that Facebook offered them a $5,000 bonus challenge, Net Influencer reported on 9 November. Two of them tied it to publishing a series. One described the condition: five 60-second episodes telling one story, each reaching 10,000 views. Meta has been testing a "Series" feature for episodic Reels since June. It has not said whether the bonus is connected.

YouTube added seasons and episodes to Shorts in September. It left payment to channel memberships. On both platforms, the series is published on the creator's own page or channel.

Buyers and studios

On 22 October, Minivela announced a "major ownership stake" in Red Minds Films. Minivela is a microdrama company aimed at US Hispanic and Latin American audiences.

Red Minds was founded in 2019 by Juan Altamirano and Jordan Soria. It produces Spanish-language microdramas in Mexico and Ecuador, and has about 1,800 titles in its library and 38 million followers, Net Influencer wrote. Minivela's release lists "co-owned original intellectual property", content licensing and exclusive worldwide resale rights to the Red Minds library, but neither it nor Net Influencer gives the size of the stake. Streaming Radar covered the deal in issue #60.

On 1 October, AGC Studios launched AGC Digital, which lists microdramas among the formats it will develop with creators. AGC's founder, Stuart Ford, said creators would move into feature films, scripted series and unscripted formats without losing "control of their own IP". The announcement gives no terms.

Dhar Mann Studios sells vertical series without giving up ownership. For the 40 titles it made for Fox and for Holywater's My Drama app, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter write that Mann keeps ownership of the original content. Our creator economy booklet sets out what each of the studio's three buyers has said about rights. It also notes what they have not said.

Six arrangements side by side

K7 Media also presented two arrangements for independent producers who keep their rights. An illustrative UK plan licenses a first window to three to six platforms. Each pays about £20,000 to £50,000 per title. Another model combines a $120,000 upfront exclusive agreement, production-related financial guarantees and a 50% revenue share; rights revert after 12 months. FormatBiz notes that these are not standard market rates. In some cases the first exclusive window lasts two weeks before the title moves to other platforms.

Red Flags is due on Canvas in December. If the series is sold on to another buyer, Robert Maxwell would earn "a substantial portion" of that revenue, Singla said.

Two free booklets cover this ground in more depth: the vertical drama booklet, linked below this article, on how the format makes money, and the creator economy booklet, on who pays creators and for what.