How a Kyiv Studio Wagered on the Vertical Drama

At the outset, Holywater was not a television company. The company was launched in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020 by Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov, and its range of products even now looks more like a mobile entertainment laboratory than a streaming service. My Drama shares the portfolio with My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. It is telling that the portfolio is this broad, because it shows a company that treats video as one reel short download of several consumer products rather than its whole identity. The vertical drama, a format born in China as duanju and framed 9:16 for an upright phone, became its eventual wager. Entering this market was a bold step for a small Ukrainian firm, because the genre’s largest players were backed by Chinese and Singaporean groups.

The My Drama App Goes Live in Spring 2024

In spring 2024, the My Drama app launched, though the precise date varies with which source you trust. Google Play lists March 13, 2024, the App Store shows May 9, 2024, and TechCrunch put the launch in April. Going by the difference between those store dates, Android probably came first and the iPhone version followed about two months later. At launch, the slate relied heavily on the genre’s favorite tropes. The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss were among the initial titles, and the names alone tell you most of what you need to know about the mood. What eventually made the company stand out was not the stories themselves but the collaborator it would soon be making them with.

Fox, $22M in Funding and a Webby Award

The month My Drama ceased to be a startup curiosity was October 2025. Under 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 some of the Fox-produced titles on the service. Horizon Capital headed a $22M round for Holywater three months later, in January 2026. A Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025 also belongs to the company, which shows off it on its App Store listing. Combined, those milestones hand My Drama something few rivals can match, namely a major American studio acting as both shareholder and producer.

The My Drama Fact File

The table below is the condensed version of the story if you only have a moment. The ownership, legal, platform and pricing details that matter most to a new viewer are collected there. Prices are the ones listed in the US App Store as of September 2026. Since they differ by country, platform and promotion, treat them as a rough guide rather than a quote. Where you live determines the legal entity you contract with, something that is relevant if you ever need to challenge a charge. The app shows 5M+ downloads on Google Play, which is what the install count refers to.

How Watching on My Drama Plays Out

The central experience mirrors the one the entire category is founded on. In this genre, episodes typically run a minute or two before a cliffhanger pushes you on to the next one, and they are vertical, sized for an upright phone. Because series often run anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes, a single story can quietly eat up an evening in short bites. The range of screens it supports is where this drama app truly stands out. Besides iPhone, iPad and Android, the app is listed for Apple TV running tvOS 18 or later and for Vision Pro. That big-screen option is more unusual than you might expect, since ReelShort’s App Store listing, for comparison, shows no Apple TV version at all. A 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen TV, but the option converts a solo phone habit into something a couple can enjoy together.

On the content side, the catalog blends Holywater’s own early productions with the growing Fox slate. The genre’s well-worn formula remains the template for the Fox releases, as titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession make plain. The fair caveat here is scale. 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.

My Drama Pricing in 2026

The main figure is the weekly pass, one of the three ways Holywater sells access. About $19.99 a week is what “My Drama: Full Access” runs in the US App Store as of September 2026. That puts it in line with the weekly passes from ReelShort, ShortMax, DramaWave and GoodShort, all listed at about the same price in the same store. Coin bundles, which are used to unlock individual episodes, range from about $4.99 to $24.99. With a separate Premium tier listed at roughly $4.99 to $9.99, lighter viewers get cheaper entry points than the full pass. The figure on your own device may differ, because prices change by country, platform and promotion. As with its rivals’ plans, the weekly subscription auto-renews until you cancel the plan. Do the math before signing up: with four renewals, a $19.99 weekly pass comes to roughly $80 a month.

Before You Pay: Terms Worth Knowing

Most viewers pay less attention than they should to the fine print in My Drama’s terms of use. Because coin purchases are final, there is no easy refund if a series disappoints after you unlock it. After 12 months of inactivity, coins are also forfeited, so a balance left untouched for a year can simply vanish. A 14-day right of withdrawal covers viewers in the EU and UK, in line with the consumer rules in those markets. Web purchases are labeled non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. Most important of all, the terms state plainly that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. iPhone owners cancel under Settings, then their name, then Subscriptions, while Android users go through the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. For store purchases, refunds 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, handles US users, while everyone else contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus. One more warning applies here as much as to any vertical drama app. A 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 go hunting 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. What it has instead is an unusual mix: 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. ReelShort, for one, does not list Apple TV support, which makes it the practical advantage for My Drama viewers. Like every rival, the drawback is a weekly pass of roughly $19.99 that keeps renewing quietly in the background. When the largest claimed library is all you want, ShortMax, with its 50,000+ dramas, is the more obvious choice. For Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a TV, the My Drama app earns a place on your home screen. Either way, set a reminder the day you subscribe, and cancel through your store account rather than trusting the delete button.