The MAX Advertising Market Has Grown 55-Fold in Six Months

By budget: just over half of respondents (52%) spend less than 10 million rubles a year on advertising, 25% spend 10 to 100 million, 13% spend 100 to 500 million, and 10% spend over 500 million.

By platform presence: 39% of companies actively run their own channel on MAX, 15% have created one but post irregularly, and another 15% plan to create one. In total, 69% of market participants are moving toward a regular presence on the messenger, while only 31% do not yet have a channel there.

By ad placements: 25% have already run test campaigns in MAX channels, 14% plan to do so soon, and 4% have made MAX a permanent channel in their media mix.

Among those who have already advertised on MAX, 22% rate the results as exceeding expectations, and another 19% as meeting them. 26% say there is not yet enough data for evaluation. Among those who have formed an opinion, the share of those satisfied with the results exceeds the share of those dissatisfied.

Barriers to Growth

Respondents identified five main barriers:

• lack of case studies and verified results — 48%;

• difficulty selecting relevant channels and navigating the buying process — 43%;

• lack of internal demand for the platform — 37%;

• limited scaling opportunities — 32%;

• lack of clear attribution — 30%.

The study's authors divide the barriers into objective and subjective ones. The objective ones are confirmed by data: there are still fewer commercial channels than in Telegram, there are no unified pricing benchmarks, and analytics services are only taking shape. These are characteristics of a young market — they will disappear as it matures. The subjective barriers — perceived risk of a new channel, habit of using other platforms, and lack of in-house expertise — hold back growth more than the objective limitations.

The Most Effective Channel Categories

According to respondents, the most promising categories for advertising on MAX are:

• news and media (52%) — broad reach at a low cost per contact, which most advertisers need for initial tests and reach campaigns;
• family and children (42%) — an organically growing category with a paying and engaged audience;
• education (35%) — high concentration of the target audience.

Advertisers also note niche categories with a clear target audience: blogs (23%), sales of goods and services (20%), IT and technology (14%), fashion and beauty (13%). This matches the actual structure of advertisers on the platform: those who have already entered are working precisely with these topics and getting good results.

Forecast

According to the forecast by Telega.in and ARIR, if the current dynamics hold, the market will reach 2–2.5 billion rubles by the end of 2026. In an accelerated scenario — with growing audience engagement, the emergence of public case studies, and an inflow of users from other platforms — the volume could reach 3–5 billion rubles.

The study's authors advise against waiting for the market to expand: those testing MAX now are shaping the benchmarks and gaining access to inventory ahead of everyone else. Inventory is cheaper, the audience responds to advertising more actively, and early advertisers are already accumulating data and expertise before the mass segment arrives.