Short dramas, September 2026
What DramaBox, GoodShort, ReelShort, and ShortMax released in September 2026: 2,064 dramas with a release date, read from the apps' own pages. How much of each is free, what the rest costs, and how the dramas were made.
The findings
- ReelShort labelled 208 of its 233 September 2026 releases as AI-generated (89%).
- Finishing a ReelShort drama released in September 2026 costs a median of $23.95 in coins. A one-week pass at $14.99 is the cheaper way to finish 189 of the 233.
- The free part of a new short drama is small on every app: a median of 9 episodes on DramaBox, 6 episodes on GoodShort, 8 episodes on ReelShort, and 8 episodes on ShortMax, which is 15% to 21% of the series.
- A new short drama runs to a median of 46 episodes on DramaBox, 46 episodes on GoodShort, 50 episodes on ReelShort, and 40 episodes on ShortMax.
- Revenge is the most common story type among September 2026 releases (926 of 2,064, 45%), ahead of betrayal & cheating (890) and underdog comeback (793).
- The single most common plot is a cheating husband: 121 of the month's releases have one.
- DramaBox, GoodShort, and ShortMax publish no price per episode, so the cost of finishing a drama on them cannot be worked out in advance.
By app
| App | Released in September 2026 | Episodes | Free episodes | Free share | Cost to finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DramaBox | 1,115 | 46 | 9 | 18% | not published |
| GoodShort | 651 | 46 | 6 | 15% | not published |
| ReelShort | 233 | 50 | 8 | 18% | $23.95 |
| ShortMax | 65 | 40 | 8 | 21% | not published |
Episodes, free episodes, free share and cost are medians across the month's releases. "Released in September 2026" counts the dramas with a September 2026 release date that the app still listed on Oct 9, 2026; apps take dramas down, so this is not a count of everything they put out and should not be compared with an earlier month.
How many are AI-generated
ReelShort marks each drama as AI-generated or not. Of its 233 September 2026 releases, 208 carry the label and 25 do not. See the AI dramas we track.
DramaBox, GoodShort, and ShortMax do not label dramas this way, so there is no figure for them.
The most watched new releases
View counts are each app's own figure on Oct 9, 2026. The apps count differently, so compare within an app, not across apps.
| DramaBox | Views | Episodes | Free |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forbidden Fling With My Bestie's Dad | 96.6M | 51 | 10 |
| The Betrayed Wolfless Is The Lycan King | 40M | 45 | 12 |
| Sorry, No Dragon Heiress Here | 33.6M | 61 | 12 |
| Love Is A Dangerous Game | 31.1M | 43 | 8 |
| Your Dumped Housewife Is Your Boss | 27.9M | 51 | 14 |
| GoodShort | Views | Episodes | Free |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hero Husband's Apocalypse Harem | 6.9M | 63 | 11 |
| The Twins Love Me Too Late | 2.4M | 54 | 10 |
| His Baby Girl Is a Magical Beasts Whisperer | 2M | 68 | 13 |
| I Walked Away You Wasted Away | 1.4M | 55 | 11 |
| His Forgotten Wife Is a Mafia Principessa | 1.2M | 69 | 8 |
| ReelShort | Views | Episodes | Free |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Triplets' Final Regret | 72.1M | 51 | 8 |
| Step Back! That Homeless Man Is Not to be Messed with | 50.4M | 54 | 12 |
| You Can't Stop My Super X-Ray Vision | 40.7M | 58 | 10 |
| Accidentally His: The Dragon King Won't Let Go | 34.3M | 50 | 9 |
| Tempted by My Bad Boy Stepbrother | 34M | 61 | 9 |
| ShortMax | Views | Episodes | Free |
|---|---|---|---|
| The OP Taoist Boy Rules the City | 295K | 72 | 10 |
| Reborn I Stopped Loving Him | 291K | 25 | 8 |
| I Seduced His Rival: Now the Hockey Star Wants Me | 291K | 30 | 6 |
| The Alpha's Swapped Luna | 289K | 41 | 14 |
| He Humiliated Me Until He Learned Who My Father Was | 289K | 25 | 9 |
What the stories were about
A drama usually fits two or three types, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
The plots that turned up most often among the month's releases:
Where the numbers come from
- The catalog. We read the public pages of each app every day: 7,888 dramas on Oct 9, 2026. Episode counts, free episodes, release dates, view counts and AI labels are the apps' own.
- Which month. A drama belongs to September 2026 when its app gives a release date in that month. Dramas without a date are left out of this report.
- Cost to finish. Locked episodes × the coins an episode costs × the price of a coin, using the prices the app publishes. Only ReelShort publishes a price per episode. How we read prices.
- Story types and plots. Types come from the apps' own tags; plots come from our reading of what each drama is about.
- Frozen. These figures were fixed on Oct 10, 2026 and are not updated. Today's numbers are on the research page.
Use this report
The figures are free to quote, chart and republish with credit (CC BY 4.0). Please name GASP and link to this page: https://gasptv.com/research/2026-09/
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