Short drama, built for the scroll.
Quarterswipe publishes vertical short dramas inside the apps people already spend their evenings in — no download, no homepage, no waiting for episode two.
A publisher, not a platform
Quarterswipe LLC is a United States company, registered in Florida, that publishes vertical short dramas — serialised scripted series shot for a phone held upright, watched in one- to three-minute episodes.
We publish where the audience already is. Rather than asking viewers to discover and install another app, our series run inside existing platforms, starting with TikTok Minis. The install step is the single largest point of loss in short-form entertainment, and removing it changes the economics of everything downstream.
Short drama is the focus
It is where the audience, the spending and the momentum currently are, and it is where our work is concentrated.
The format is not the limit
The same infrastructure — in-app distribution, episode-level monetisation, platform compliance and US settlement — carries more than drama. Adjacent formats we are built to publish:
- Mini games — lightweight titles that run inside a host app, monetised through rewarded advertising and in-app purchases.
- Interactive and branching narrative — where the viewer's choice determines the next episode.
- Branded and sponsored series — short drama produced around an advertiser rather than interrupted by one.
How a short drama actually works
Short drama is often described as "TikTok but scripted," which misses what makes it a business. The mechanics are specific and unusually consistent across the category.
- Episode length
- One to three minutes
- Series length
- Roughly 70–150 episodes
- Orientation
- Vertical, full-screen, sound-on
- Free window
- First 10–15 episodes
- Unlock cost
- About $0.18 per episode in virtual currency
- Full series
- Roughly $18 to binge without ads or wait timers
- Subscription
- Commonly ~$14.99 weekly or ~$199.99 annually
The paywall is the story structure
The first ten to fifteen episodes are free, and they are not a sample — they are the hook, engineered to land a cliffhanger exactly where payment begins. Everything about the format follows from that: the cold open, the compressed act structure, the refusal to let a scene breathe. A series that entertains for fifteen episodes and does not compel at the sixteenth has failed commercially regardless of its quality.
Volume beats polish
Retention in the category is brutal — roughly 27% of viewers return on day one, under 10% by day seven, and around 2% by day thirty. Publishers respond with volume, releasing new series weekly rather than betting on individual titles. This is closer to how magazines or mobile games operate than how film does.
Why in-app distribution matters
Standalone short drama apps spend heavily to acquire each viewer, and US revenue per daily active user has fallen below $0.50 as competition has intensified. Publishing inside a platform where the audience already sits removes the install barrier and changes what an audience costs to reach.
A category that went from niche to $700M a quarter
Short drama apps generated close to $700 million in the first quarter of 2025 alone — against roughly $2.3 billion in cumulative revenue across the category's entire history to that point. Downloads passed 370 million in the same quarter, a 6.2× increase year on year.
The United States is the largest single market, accounting for roughly 49% of global revenue — close to $350 million in one quarter. That is the reason a US publishing entity matters in this category rather than being an administrative detail.
The leaders are ReelShort and DramaBox, each clearing $90–130 million per quarter, with newer entrants including NetShort growing at triple-digit rates. Latin America and Southeast Asia are the fastest-growing regions by downloads, though not yet by revenue.
Market figures from Sensor Tower's State of Short Drama Apps and Naavik's microdrama analysis. Figures describe the category, not Quarterswipe.
Quarterswipe LLC
The arcade charged a quarter for ninety seconds of someone's full attention. That economy never went away — it moved into the feed. We build for it.
Quarterswipe LLC is a limited liability company registered in the State of Florida, United States, formed in July 2026 and based in Lakeland, Florida. We work with production partners on content and handle US publishing, platform compliance and distribution.
We are open to conversations with production studios, licensors holding US distribution rights, and platforms opening short-form catalogues.