The craft transfers between the vertical platforms. The distribution does not
An honest comparison of the short vertical surfaces, what moves between them, and the limits of our own data, which is Instagram only. 2026-10-13.
A disclosure first
Our corpus is 2,543 Instagram Reels across 534 accounts. We have not analysed TikTok, YouTube Shorts or anything else, so this page compares the surfaces on their public characteristics and is explicit about where our measurements stop applying.
The surfaces
| Surface | Discovery leans on | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Instagram Reels | Existing audience plus recommendation | Creators with an account already doing something |
| TikTok | Recommendation, weakly tied to follower count | Starting from nothing |
| YouTube Shorts | Recommendation, with a path into long-form | Creators who also make long videos |
| Pinterest and others | Search and intent | Evergreen how-to rather than personality |
What transfers
The craft. A vertical video that autoplays in a feed has the same three-second problem everywhere: a first frame, a first line, and a reason to stay. Openings, structure and pacing move between surfaces essentially unchanged, which is why reposting works at all.
The length finding is likely to transfer too, though we can only show it on Reels: the 424 Reels under 15 seconds in our sample sit at 48,548 median views against 217,962 for 15 to 30 seconds. Very short videos give a hook nothing to pay off, which is not an Instagram-specific mechanic.
What does not transfer
- Anything about distribution. How each platform decides who sees a video is different and is the part we cannot measure.
- Audio trends, which are platform-specific and short-lived.
- Benchmarks. Our medians are Instagram medians. Do not judge a TikTok against them.
- The relationship between followers and reach, which differs most of all between these surfaces.
If you are considering a move
- Separate the two questions: is my content weak, or is my distribution weak? Moving platform only fixes the second.
- Check your own baseline first. If 66 percent of your Reels land under your follower count, that is the sample norm rather than a platform problem.
- Repost the structure, not the file. A reel recut for a different surface beats a straight upload.
- Expect to rebuild benchmarks. Your Instagram numbers tell you nothing about what good looks like elsewhere.
Figures on this page come from 2,543 Instagram Reels across 534 accounts, analysed by Scrptly and deduplicated so no reel is counted twice. Read 2026-10-13.
Check whether the problem is the content before you blame the platform.
Analyze a creator freePut your own idea through the same checks before you film it.
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