A Kyiv Studio Wagers on the Vertical Drama
Holywater wasn’t founded as a TV company. It was in 2020 that Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov established the company in Kyiv, Ukraine, and its range of products to this day looks more like a lab for mobile entertainment than a streaming platform. Alongside My Drama are My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. That spread is telling, since video is one consumer product among several reelshorts.org/where-to-watch/the-lovers-saga for the company, not its entire identity. Eventually, Holywater bet on the vertical drama, a format that began in China as duanju and is framed 9:16 for a phone held vertically. The sector’s leading names were backed by Chinese and Singaporean groups, so entering this market was a daring choice for a small Ukrainian firm.
The My Drama App Launches in Spring 2024
Spring 2024 brought the debut of the My Drama app, although the precise date depends on which source you believe. According to TechCrunch, the launch took place in April, while Google Play lists March 13, 2024, and the App Store shows May 9, 2024. Android appears to have come first, as the difference between those store dates suggests, with the iPhone version following about two months later. At launch, the slate relied heavily on the genre’s favorite tropes. Most of what you need to know about the style is clear in the first titles such as The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss. The company was ultimately set apart not by the stories themselves but by the collaborator it would soon be producing them with.
Fox, $22M in Funding and a Webby Win
October 2025 was the month My Drama stopped being a startup curiosity. Fox Entertainment acquired an equity stake in Holywater, with an agreement that included a commitment to produce more than 200 vertical titles over two years. A $22M round led by Horizon Capital followed three months later, in January 2026, when Holywater raised the money. Billionaire Blackmail, Bound by Obsession and My Heart’s Offside are among the Fox-produced titles on the service. A Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025 is also held by the company, which displays it on its App Store listing. Those milestones, taken together, give My Drama a rare advantage that few rivals can claim: a major American studio acting as both shareholder and producer.
My Drama Fact File
The table below gives the short version of the story if you only have a moment. The ownership, legal, platform and pricing details that matter most to a first-time viewer are gathered in one place. Prices are the ones listed in the US App Store as of September 2026. They differ by country, platform and promotion, so use them as a rough guide rather than a quote. On Google Play, the source of the install figure, the app shows 5M+ downloads. Which legal entity you deal with depends on where you live, a point that is relevant if you ever need to challenge a charge.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Parent company | Holywater, set up in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020 |
| Founders | Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov |
| Companion apps | My Passion for books, My Muse for AI, plus FreeBits |
| Contract party, US users | XOLY LIMITED (Delaware) |
| Contracting entity, other users | Holy Water Limited (Nicosia, Cyprus) |
| Launch | Spring 2024 (Google Play: March 13; App Store: May 9) |
| Supported platforms | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV (tvOS 18+), Vision Pro, Android, web |
| Android installs | Google Play: 5M+ |
| Full-access plan | Roughly $19.99 a week, renewing automatically |
| Coin packs | Roughly $4.99 to $24.99 |
| Premium options | Roughly $4.99 to $9.99 |
| Studio partner | Fox Entertainment, equity stake since October 2025, 200+ titles over two years |
| Investment | $22M in January 2026, led by Horizon Capital |
| Honors | Webby Award, Best Streaming Service, 2025 |
What Watching on My Drama Feels Like
At its heart, the experience is the same one the entire category rests on. Episodes are vertical, sized for an upright phone, and in this genre they usually last a minute or two before a cliffhanger nudges you on to the next one. A single story can quietly eat up an evening in short bites, since series often run anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes. Where this drama app truly stands out is the range of screens it supports. Besides iPhone, iPad and Android, the app is listed for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later and for Vision Pro. This big-screen option is rarer than you might expect: by comparison, ReelShort’s App Store listing shows no Apple TV version at all. The option turns a solo phone habit into something a couple can watch together, even though a 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen TV.
Holywater’s own early productions and the growing Fox slate share the library, which blends the two. As titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession make obvious, the Fox releases stay close to the genre’s well-worn formula. The honest caveat here is scale. At 5M+ installs on Google Play, the app has a fraction of the 100M+ that ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each list. In 2026, that gap tells you that My Drama is a well-funded challenger rather than the category leader.
Pricing: What My Drama Costs 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. ReelShort, ShortMax, DramaWave and GoodShort list their weekly passes at about the same price in the same store, so the app sits level with them. Coin bundles, which unlock individual episodes, run from roughly $4.99 to $24.99. Lighter viewers have less expensive entry points than the full pass, since a separate Premium tier is listed at roughly $4.99 to $9.99. Prices vary by country, platform and promotion, so the figure on your own device may be different. As with its rivals’ plans, the weekly subscription auto-renews until you cancel it. Run the numbers before signing up: with four renewals, a $19.99 weekly pass comes to roughly $80 a month.
Terms Worth Knowing Before You Pay
The terms of use for My Drama contain fine print worth more attention than most viewers give it. There is no easy refund if a series disappoints after you unlock it, since coin purchases are final. On top of that, coins are forfeited after 12 months of inactivity, so a balance you ignore for a year can simply disappear. A 14-day right of withdrawal covers viewers in the EU and UK, reflecting the consumer rules in those markets. Whatever you buy on the web is described as non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. Crucially, the terms state plainly that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. To cancel on an iPhone, open Settings, then your name, then Subscriptions; on Android, use the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. Holywater does not process refunds for store purchases; Apple or Google handles them.
It also helps to know exactly who sits on the other side of the contract. If you are in the US, the contracting party is XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company; everyone else contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus. In this case, as with any vertical drama app, one more warning is worth making. Sites promising modded APKs, unlimited coins or free coin generators are unofficial, and they are not a safe way to watch anything. When the price seems too high, the legitimate move 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 close. What it offers instead is an uncommon 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. ReelShort, for one, does not list Apple TV support, which makes it the practical advantage for My Drama viewers. The catch is the same one that plagues every rival: a weekly pass of around $19.99 that quietly renews in the background. ShortMax, with its 50,000+ dramas, is the more obvious choice if you simply want the largest claimed library. If you are after Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a TV, the My Drama app earns a place on your home screen. Whatever you decide, do not trust the delete button: create a reminder the day you subscribe and cancel through your store account.