Channels in MAX have become a business for 61% of administrators
61% of administrators of public channels in MAX see running them as a business. The number of channels grew 3.2 times from January to August 2026 — to 475.4 thousand.
61% of administrators of public channels in the MAX messenger already see running a channel as a professional business. Engagement confirms this: for 39% of respondents, working on a channel takes more than 20 hours a week. These figures were presented by MaxStat and Yandex Advertising, which analyzed the dynamics of ad placements and surveyed 537 channel administrators.
Audience and content are growing faster than the number of channels
According to MaxStat, from January to August 2026, the number of public channels in MAX grew 3.2 times — from 148.3 thousand to 475.4 thousand. The total number of subscriptions over the same period increased almost 5-fold — to 336.6 million. The accumulated volume of publications grew almost 7-fold: from 9.4 million to 64.5 million.
The sharpest monthly spike came in July — another 109.7 thousand public channels appeared on the platform (+39.7%). The growth coincided with the opening of channel creation to all MAX users: previously it was available only to authors with an audience of 10 thousand or more subscribers on other social networks. Growth continued in August: the number of channels increased by another 89.3 thousand (+23.1%).
A professional environment has formed around channels
According to MaxStat, 61.3% of respondents see running channels more as a business. 74.5% prioritize long-term development over rapid audience growth. 79.2% work with more than one channel, and for 62.3% the largest channel has more than 10 thousand subscribers. Almost half of respondents (48.6%) work as part of editorial teams or author collectives. At the same time, administrators work across multiple platforms.
Advertising demand is growing
The economics of channels rests on advertising. 49.7% of administrators sell placements directly to advertisers and agencies, 36% use affiliate programs, and 25% use specialized advertising services, networks, and exchanges. For 35.2% of administrators, direct advertising is their main source of income.
Finding advertisers and selling placements are among the most labor-intensive tasks for more than a third of administrators. Meanwhile, 62.5% find advertisers on their own, 28.6% through services and agencies. Most often, advertisers come from regular clients (25%), through independent outreach (20.9%), and word of mouth (16.6%).
Marketing investments by businesses are steadily growing. According to Yandex Advertising, the number of Yandex advertisers choosing MAX as a promotion platform tripled from May to August 2026. With a narrowing choice of available social networks and messengers, advertisers maintain high confidence in influencer marketing and take up new inventory in the early stages of its growth.
“Advertisers are already including MAX in their portfolio strategy today: about 70% of businesses in Direct consider it necessary in 2026 to distribute promotion budgets across several content platforms, and more than half of them — 56% — name MAX specifically as the new one. This means our advertisers perceive MAX not as experimental inventory, but as a full-fledged promotion channel that they are already building into their media plans,” noted Oleg Ivanov, Director of Advertising Product Development at the Yandex Advertising Network (YAN).
From May to August 2026, Yandex advertisers' investments in promotion in MAX channels grew actively in several major consumer categories. The leader is the automotive industry: over three months, investments grew 7-fold. In second place are “pharma and medicine” and “real estate” — in both segments, investments grew 6-fold. Third place went to the “education” niche, with a 5-fold increase in investments.
The choice of channels for advertising is also expanding rapidly. Over three months — from May to August 2026 — the number of MAX channels available for placements through Yandex Direct grew more than fivefold: from 2 thousand to 11.7 thousand.
66% of administrators use analytics, 88% await monetization tools
Most often, analytics are used to evaluate one's own channel (70.4%) and competitors (49.7%), and another 35.2% use them to evaluate advertising effectiveness. The demand is shifting from basic metrics toward a deeper understanding of the audience and the market: 58.1% of administrators lack data on the audience profile, 51.8% lack analysis of its behavior, 43.6% lack competitor analytics, and 35.2% lack average prices for ad placements. Another 29.1% would like to see analytics of the market as a whole.
“We see that the market is already ripe for the next stage — not just channel growth, but further development of the tools around them. 66.3% of administrators use analytics regularly, and the demand is shifting toward deeper data about the audience, its behavior, and the competitive environment: 77.5% are ready to automate advertising monetization, 79.1% would use new solutions more often if they were built into the services they already use,” commented Mikhail Sutchev, Commercial Director of MaxStat.
87.9% of surveyed administrators believe that advertising and analytics platforms should help authors not only attract an audience, but also earn money.
“This is exactly what we observe in our own data: authors and administrators need unified infrastructure. In September, we combined channel and blog monetization and analytics tools — including MAX — into a single entry point for authors instead of separate dashboards for each platform. Over three years, we have already paid out more than 6 billion rubles to administrators and authors, and Yandex advertisers' investments in influencer marketing have grown 7-fold,” added Oleg Ivanov.
Among the obstacles to further channel development, administrators cite lack of time (36.9%), high competition (32.8%), and insufficient budget for promoting the channel itself (29.1%).
Methodology
MaxStat analyzed open data from MAX public channels from January to August 2026 — the number of channels, total audience, number of publications, and their month-by-month dynamics. Private channels were not included in the analysis. Yandex Advertising data is aggregated statistics on ad placements in MAX channels through the Yandex Direct service. The administrator survey is a quantitative online study of 537 respondents, administrators and editors of channels in MAX.
Original: t.me
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