OTT app development
Short drama & micro drama app development · India

Short drama app development company for vertical micro-dramas people binge one episode at a time.

SpikeSecure builds short drama and micro drama apps from Coimbatore, in the format Story TV, ReelShort, DramaBox and Kuku TV made familiar: vertical 1–2 minute episodes with auto-next, a coin wallet with rewarded-ad and season-pass unlocks, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubs, and a studio CMS that drops new episodes at midnight. Our own product already runs the wallet, payout and moderation stack in production. Fixed-scope written quotes, code in your name.

  • ₹7L+short drama MVP, indicative
  • 1–2 minepisodes, auto-next
  • 10–14 wksto a store-ready MVP
  • 48 hrsto a written quote
Illustrative product UI · sample dataIllustrative short drama app screen (sample data): vertical episode player on a phone, episode 7 of 60 of a Hindi romance series with like, share and episode buttons, Tamil and Telugu dub tags, a progress bar and auto-next
Direct answer

Which short drama app development company in India should you choose?

SpikeSecure Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is a short drama and micro drama app development company based at CHIL SEZ IT Park, Saravanampatti, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, building vertical-episode streaming apps for studios, production houses, OTT brands and founders across India and abroad. A short drama app (also called a micro drama, vertical drama or duanju app) plays 1–2 minute episodes in a full-screen vertical feed with auto-next, gives the first few episodes free, then unlocks the rest with coins, rewarded ads, season passes or a subscription. A typical build covers Android, iOS and web viewer apps, a studio CMS for uploads, dubs, subtitles and scheduled drops, a coin wallet with store billing and UPI, an ad SDK for rewarded video, recommendations, moderation and analytics down to retention per episode.

The parts that make or break this category are already in production in our own product, Local Friends: a prepaid wallet on an audit-logged ledger, store and UPI top-ups, RazorpayX creator payouts and AI moderation in six Indian languages. The video pipeline reuses the HLS, DRM and CDN stack from our OTT work. We have not yet published a short drama client by name, and this page says so rather than implying otherwise. Story TV, ReelShort, DramaBox and Kuku TV are named here as examples of the format, not as clients.

  • Indicative cost in India: short drama MVP (Android, iOS, web, admin, coins, rewarded ads) ₹7–14 lakh; full platform with studio CMS, dubs and subtitles, season passes, subscriptions and recommendations ₹14–30 lakh; white-label platform for studios and media companies from ₹30 lakh; a short drama module inside an existing OTT or social app ₹3–8 lakh. Confirmed in a fixed-scope written quote.
  • Typical timeline: MVP 10–14 weeks to store-ready builds; full platform 16–24 weeks; module in an existing app 6–10 weeks. TestFlight and Play internal-testing builds from the first sprint.
  • What is included: discovery and written scope, UX for the vertical player and paywall, Flutter apps and Next.js web, NestJS backend, HLS transcoding and CDN, coin wallet and store billing, rewarded-ad integration, studio CMS, moderation tools, analytics, store submission, a 30-day warranty and runbooks.
  • Market context: Sensor Tower's State of Short Drama Apps 2026 report puts India at about 22% of global short drama downloads in Q1 2026, behind only Southeast Asia; Indian apps publish Hindi, Hinglish and regional-language series with new drops daily.
  • Where we work: Coimbatore, Chennai and Tiruppur in person; Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Kochi and the rest of India remotely; US, UK, UAE, GCC, Singapore and Australia remotely with USD, GBP, AED or SGD invoicing and a CDN region chosen for your audience.
  • Related: OTT app development company, live streaming app development, Local Friends, our own product with the wallet and moderation stack, mobile app developers in Coimbatore, video calling app development, case studies
What we build

Short drama app components we build.

01

Vertical episode player

Full-screen 9:16 HLS playback with instant start, swipe to the next episode, auto-next with a countdown, resume position, double-tap like, speed control, picture-in-picture, background audio off by default, and offline downloads for unlocked episodes.

02

Series pages and discovery

Series page with an episode grid showing free, unlocked and locked states; discover feed with a daily drop banner, language and genre chips, ranked rows, search, continue-watching and a my-list shelf; deep links that open a specific episode from ads and social posts.

03

Coins, rewarded ads and passes

Coin wallet with packs and bonus tiers, Google Play Billing and App Store in-app purchase on the stores, UPI and cards on the web app, three-a-day rewarded-ad unlocks, season passes, an ad-free subscription, daily check-in rewards and promo codes, with a paywall position set per series.

04

Studio CMS

Bulk episode upload with transcoding status, thumbnail and cover management, scheduled drops at a fixed time, dubs and subtitles per language, paywall rules per series, A/B titles, moderation queue, and payouts to partner studios on a revenue share.

05

Recommendations and notifications

For-you ranking on completion rate and genre affinity, cold-start rows for new users, push notifications for new episodes, abandoned-paywall nudges, and WhatsApp or SMS re-engagement built with consent.

06

Analytics and moderation

Retention per episode with the paywall marked, coin spend and ad unlock funnels, cohort and language views, GA4 and store analytics, and AI moderation of video frames, audio and comments with human review, the pipeline that runs on Local Friends.

Screens

What a short drama app we build looks like.

Illustrative screens of the viewer app and the studio CMS: the vertical player in the page header, then the series page with its unlock sheet, the discover feed, the coin store and the studio dashboard. Fictional app, series and figures; your build carries your branding.

Short drama series page with a 52-episode grid, watched and locked episodes, and an unlock sheet offering 30 coins, a rewarded ad or a season pass
Series page and paywallEpisode grid with watched, current and locked states. The sheet at episode 9 offers three ways on: spend coins, watch a rewarded ad, or buy the season pass through UPI, cards or store billing.
Short drama discover screen with a daily 12 AM drop banner, language and genre chips, and trending and thriller rows of vertical posters
Discover feedDaily drop at 12 AM, language and genre chips for Hindi, Tamil and Telugu catalogues, ranked rows with episode counts, and a coin balance in the header.
Short drama coin store with four coin packs, a rewarded-ad free unlock card and an ad-free monthly plan
Coins, ads and plansCoin packs with bonus tiers, three rewarded-ad unlocks a day, and an ad-free monthly plan. Store billing on Android and iOS, UPI and cards on the web app.
Short drama studio dashboard with episode plays, paying viewers, coins spent and ad unlocks, retention by episode with the paywall marked at episode 8, revenue mix and a publishing pipeline
Studio CMS (web)Episode plays, paying viewers, coins and ad unlocks; retention by episode with the paywall position marked; revenue split between coin packs, rewarded ads and subscriptions; and a pipeline showing published, transcoding, scheduled and moderation-review states.

Stills inside the mock-ups are licensed stock photos standing in for episode frames; the app name ShortKatha, the series titles and every number are sample data, not any real app's interface or metrics.

Short drama app development cost in India

What a short drama app costs to build in India.

Indicative ranges, confirmed in a fixed-scope written quote after the discovery call. Store fees, ad-network revenue shares, CDN and transcoding usage are billed by those providers, not by us.

01

Short drama MVP — ₹7–14 lakh

Flutter apps for Android and iOS plus a web viewer, vertical HLS player with auto-next, series and discover screens, coin wallet with store billing and UPI, rewarded-ad unlocks, basic admin for uploads and scheduling, analytics. 10–14 weeks. Right for a studio launching its first catalogue.

02

Full short drama platform — ₹14–30 lakh

Everything in the MVP plus the studio CMS with bulk upload, dubs and subtitles per language, season passes and an ad-free subscription, recommendations, deep links, push and WhatsApp re-engagement, moderation queue, partner payouts and cohort analytics. 16–24 weeks.

03

White-label short drama platform — from ₹30 lakh

Multi-tenant or white-label product for media companies and studios: per-brand apps from one codebase, revenue-share accounting, regional CDN, SSO for partner studios and a phased rollout. 24–36 weeks.

04

Short drama module in an existing app — ₹3–8 lakh

Vertical episode feed, coins and rewarded unlocks added to your current OTT, news or social app on its existing stack, with the wallet ledger and reconciliation you need to close the books. 6–10 weeks.

05

Why our quotes come in lower

A wallet, payout and moderation stack already in production in our own product, the HLS and DRM pipeline from our OTT builds, one Flutter codebase for both stores, an open-source backend, a Coimbatore cost base and a fixed scope with no hourly drift.

06

Running costs to plan for

Transcoding and CDN ₹15,000–2,00,000 per month depending on views and regions, store commissions on in-app purchases, ad-network shares, push and WhatsApp charges, cloud hosting ₹10,000–80,000 per month, and optional maintenance from ₹20,000 per month with security patching, SDK updates and a monthly health report.

OTT and live streaming prices are on the OTT app development and live streaming app development pages.

High-level architecture

How a short drama app we build is put together.

01

Apps and web

Flutter viewer apps for Android and iOS with a preloading vertical player, Next.js web viewer for shareable episode links and SEO, and a React studio CMS for your content team.

02

Video pipeline

Uploads to S3, transcoding to HLS ladders for 9:16 at 1080p, 720p and 480p with a fast-start first segment, optional Widevine and FairPlay DRM for premium catalogues, thumbnails and preview clips generated per episode, and a CDN with a region near your audience.

03

Wallet and payments

PostgreSQL double-entry ledger with an immutable journal, idempotent unlock APIs, Google Play Billing and App Store server notifications reconciled nightly, Razorpay, PayU or Cashfree for UPI and cards on the web, and RazorpayX for studio payouts, the pattern that runs the Local Friends wallet.

04

Ads and growth

Rewarded-video SDKs from AdMob, Unity or AppLovin with server-side verification before an unlock is granted, attribution via AppsFlyer or Branch, deep links into episodes, push via FCM and APNs, WhatsApp Business API for consented re-engagement.

05

Recommendations and search

Completion-rate and genre-affinity ranking, trending by language, Elasticsearch or Meilisearch for titles and cast, and editorial pinning for the daily drop.

06

Operations

AWS Mumbai or the client's region, infrastructure as code, blue-green releases, monitoring on player start time and rebuffer rate, backups with tested restores, and runbooks for CDN, store-billing and ad-network outages.

Where we build

Short drama app development in Coimbatore, Chennai, Mumbai and across India and abroad.

Coimbatore, Chennai and Tamil Nadu

Studios, production houses and founders in Coimbatore, Chennai, Tiruppur, Salem, Madurai and Trichy get in-person discovery, Tamil-first catalogues with Hindi and Telugu dubs, and on-site training for the content team. Coimbatore-specific app work is on the mobile app developers in Coimbatore page.

Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune and Delhi NCR

Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Marathi micro-drama catalogues for production houses and OTT brands in India's film and streaming hubs, served remotely with weekly demos and an on-site kick-off on request.

Kolkata, Kochi and other Indian cities

Bengali and Malayalam series with the same player, wallet and CMS, delivered remotely with recorded training and the same warranty and pricing anywhere in India.

International

Studios and founders in the US, UK, UAE, GCC, Singapore and Australia are delivered remotely from Coimbatore under an NDA, with Stripe or regional gateways on the web app, store billing on mobile, a CDN region for your audience, English, Arabic or Southeast Asian catalogues and invoicing in USD, GBP, AED or SGD. Country pages: Singapore, USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Ghana, Jordan, Vietnam; GCC pages: UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman. See international clients.

Evidence

Streaming and wallet work you can check.

  • Local Friends, our own product. A prepaid wallet on an immutable, audit-logged ledger with store and UPI top-ups, KYC-gated earning accounts, RazorpayX payouts to bank or UPI, live audio and video on Agora, and AI moderation of video, audio and chat in six Indian languages with human review. The coin wallet, payout and moderation modules in a short drama build come from here.
  • OTT app development and live streaming app development. The HLS ladder, DRM, CDN and TV-app stack, and the live and gifting modules, described with published pricing.
  • Krishna Textiles store and WeaveHub marketplace. Razorpay, UPI and cash-on-delivery checkout, and Razorpay Route split settlement with KYC-gated onboarding, the same payment rails a short drama app uses for web top-ups and studio payouts.

We have not yet published a short drama or micro drama client by name. We publish client names and outcomes only with permission and in the client's own words, and we never publish invented metrics; the numbers in the screens above are sample data.

Our stack

Technologies we build short drama apps with.

  • Flutter
  • Next.js
  • React
  • NestJS
  • Node.js
  • PostgreSQL
  • Redis
  • AWS S3 + MediaConvert / FFmpeg
  • HLS
  • Widevine / FairPlay DRM
  • CloudFront / Cloudflare CDN
  • Google Play Billing
  • App Store IAP
  • Razorpay / PayU / Cashfree
  • RazorpayX payouts
  • AdMob / Unity / AppLovin rewarded ads
  • FCM / APNs
  • Hive + Whisper moderation

See the technologies page for how we choose between them.

How we work

Our short drama app development process, step by step.

The same six steps run on every project we take in Coimbatore, whether it is a five-page website or a multi-vendor platform.

01

Discovery — week 1

We map the catalogue, languages, free-episode count, paywall position, coin pricing and ad strategy, agree store-policy constraints, and send a fixed-scope written quote within 48 hours.

02

Design — weeks 2–3

Player, series, paywall, coin store and studio screens as a clickable prototype, tested with real viewers on the first-episode-to-paywall path before any code.

03

Build — week 3 onwards

Video pipeline and player first, then wallet, store billing and rewarded ads against sandboxes, then the studio CMS and recommendations, in weekly staging demos with GitHub access from day one.

04

Content and QA — final weeks

Your first series loaded through the CMS, dubs and subtitles checked, paywall and refund flows tested on real devices and networks, store-policy review for in-app purchase and rewarded ads.

05

Launch — soft launch first

Store submission, a limited cohort with daily reconciliation of coins, store receipts and ad unlocks, then the public launch with the first daily drops scheduled.

06

Support — ongoing

30-day warranty, then maintenance from ₹20,000 per month with security patching, SDK and store-policy updates and a monthly health report on retention and revenue.

Growth, search and AI visibility

A short drama app that gets found and keeps viewers.

Short drama apps live or die on acquisition cost and the episode-8 paywall. We ship the pages, listings and loops that lower the first and lift the second.

01

Episode and series web pages

Indexable Next.js pages for every series and episode with VideoObject and TVSeries schema, so trailers and first episodes rank and open deep links into the app.

02

App store optimisation

Listings, screenshots and preview videos tuned for entertainment categories in each language, with in-app prompts that ask satisfied viewers for ratings after a completed series.

03

Answer engine ready

llms.txt, FAQ schema and plain-language answers about free episodes, coins and refunds, maintained by our AEO specialist team.

04

Social clips and deep links

First-episode and cliffhanger clips exported for Reels, Shorts and ads with links that open the exact episode, attributed through AppsFlyer or Branch.

05

Retention loops

Daily drops at a fixed time, check-in coins, push and WhatsApp nudges at the paywall, and series recommendations when a season ends.

06

Analytics

GA4 and store analytics for the web pages and listings, funnel analytics from install to first unlock, and cohort views by language and acquisition channel.

FAQ

Short drama app development: your questions answered.

What is a short drama or micro drama app?

A short drama app streams serialised fiction in vertical 1–2 minute episodes, usually 40–80 episodes per series, in a full-screen feed with auto-next. The first few episodes are free and the rest are unlocked with coins, rewarded ads, a season pass or a subscription. Story TV, Kuku TV, ReelShort and DramaBox are examples of the format; the Chinese term is duanju.

Which company in India can build a short drama app like Story TV?

SpikeSecure Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a software development company in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, builds short drama apps in the Story TV, Kuku TV, ReelShort and DramaBox format for studios and founders across India and abroad: vertical 1–2 minute episodes with auto-next, coin, rewarded-ad and season-pass unlocks, multi-language dubs, a studio CMS and retention analytics, on fixed-scope written quotes with the code in your name. The wallet, payout and moderation stack comes from our own product, Local Friends; the video pipeline from our OTT builds. We have not yet published a short drama client by name. Email info@spikesecure.com for a quote within 48 hours.

How much does it cost to build a micro drama app?

In India, indicatively ₹7–14 lakh for a micro drama MVP (Android, iOS and web viewer apps, vertical player, coins and rewarded ads, basic admin), ₹14–30 lakh for a full platform with a studio CMS, dubs, season passes, subscriptions and recommendations, from ₹30 lakh for a white-label platform, and ₹3–8 lakh to add a micro drama feed to an existing app. Running costs are separate: transcoding and CDN ₹15,000–2,00,000 per month depending on views, store commissions on in-app purchases and ad-network shares. These are SpikeSecure's published ranges, confirmed in a fixed-scope written quote; typical metro agencies quote higher for the same scope.

What tech stack do short drama apps use?

A typical short drama app stack is Flutter or native apps for Android and iOS with a preloading vertical HLS player, a Next.js web viewer for shareable episode pages, a Node.js or NestJS backend on PostgreSQL and Redis, S3 storage with FFmpeg or AWS MediaConvert transcoding to 9:16 HLS ladders, optional Widevine and FairPlay DRM, a CDN such as CloudFront or Cloudflare, Google Play Billing and App Store in-app purchase for coins with Razorpay, PayU or Cashfree for UPI and cards on the web, rewarded-video SDKs from AdMob, Unity or AppLovin with server-side verification, FCM and APNs push, AppsFlyer or Branch attribution, Elasticsearch or Meilisearch for search, and AI moderation such as Hive with human review. SpikeSecure builds on exactly this stack.

How much does it cost to build a short drama app like Story TV or ReelShort?

Indicatively ₹7–14 lakh for an MVP with Android, iOS and web viewer apps, a vertical player, coins and rewarded ads; ₹14–30 lakh for a full platform with a studio CMS, dubs, season passes, subscriptions and recommendations; from ₹30 lakh for a white-label platform; and ₹3–8 lakh to add a short drama module to an existing app. Every figure is confirmed in a fixed-scope written quote.

How long does a short drama app take to build?

An MVP takes 10–14 weeks to store-ready builds, a full platform 16–24 weeks, and a module inside an existing app 6–10 weeks. The video pipeline and player come first so your content team can start loading series by week six.

How do short drama apps make money?

Coin packs bought through store billing or UPI and spent per episode, rewarded video ads that unlock an episode free, season passes for a whole series, an ad-free monthly subscription, and brand integrations. The studio CMS lets you set the free-episode count and paywall position per series and see retention around it.

Can we sell coins through UPI instead of paying store commission?

On Android and iOS, digital content unlocked inside the app must use Google Play Billing or App Store in-app purchase. The web viewer can sell coins and passes through UPI and cards with Razorpay, PayU or Cashfree, and the wallet is shared across platforms. We build both and keep the store policies in scope.

How are rewarded ads prevented from being abused?

The ad network's server-side callback is verified before an unlock is granted, daily unlock limits are enforced on the server, and device and account signals flag farms. Unlocks and ad revenue are reconciled nightly in the studio CMS.

Do you handle dubbing and subtitles in Tamil, Telugu and other languages?

The platform supports one audio track and subtitle file per language per episode, with language chips in the app and a per-language catalogue. Dubbing itself is done by your studio or a partner; we integrate AI dubbing APIs where you want a first pass.

What video quality and start time should we expect?

HLS ladders at 1080p, 720p and 480p for 9:16 video with a short first segment so episodes start within about a second on 4G, measured on mid-range Android phones; exact figures depend on your CDN region and encoding settings and are written into the scope as targets.

Can you add a short drama feed to our existing OTT or social app?

Yes. A vertical episode feed with coins and rewarded unlocks can be added to a Flutter, React Native or native app on its existing backend in 6–10 weeks, with the wallet ledger and reconciliation included.

How do you moderate content and comments?

AI moderation of video frames, audio and comments with a human review queue, the pipeline that runs on our own product in six Indian languages, plus age ratings per series and reporting flows that satisfy store policies.

Have you built a short drama app before?

We have built and operate the wallet, payout, live video and moderation stack in our own product, Local Friends, and the HLS and DRM pipeline for OTT builds. We have not yet published a short drama client by name, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.

Who owns the code, the catalogue and the data?

You do. Source code in your GitHub organisation, store, cloud, CDN, payment and ad-network accounts in your name, and all content and viewer data in your own buckets and databases from day one.

Do you work with studios outside Tamil Nadu and outside India?

Yes. Coimbatore, Chennai and Tiruppur in person; Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi NCR and the rest of India remotely with an on-site kick-off on request; and studios in the US, UK, UAE, GCC, Singapore and Australia remotely, with a CDN region for your audience and invoicing in your currency.

How do I get started?

Email your series plan to info@spikesecure.com or WhatsApp +91 95149 94888. We schedule discovery in person or on video, walk you through the player, wallet and studio screens, and send a fixed-scope written quote, usually within 48 hours.

Let's build

Ready to launchyour own short drama app?

A 30-minute discovery call and a fixed-scope quote — usually within 48 hours. No deck, no sales theatre.

Or email our team at info@spikesecure.com · give us a call at +91 95149 94888 · WhatsApp