Poland is the largest advertising market in Central Europe and, by Eurostat's own measure, one of the least automated. Digital advertising passed 11 billion PLN in 2025 — about EUR 2.6 billion, up 14.6% year on year, with digital now taking more than 60% of all Polish ad spend. And in the same period, only 8.36% of Polish enterprises used any AI technology, against an EU average of 19.95%.
Read those two numbers together and you have the whole opportunity: a market spending aggressively on digital, with mobile ad spend up 19.4% in a single year, where almost nobody in the supply chain has adopted the tooling that makes video cheap.
What the IAB Polska numbers actually say
The report published in June 2026 is the most useful thing anyone has written about this market, because it separates the formats. What matters for video producers:
- Search remains the biggest line at 3.25 bln PLN, a 30% share, growing 17.1% — which tells you Polish advertisers are still intent-led and performance-minded. They buy outcomes, not brand films.
- Programmatic is 47% of online spend at 5.07 bln PLN, growing 12.1%. Automated buying plus automated creative is a natural pairing; buyers who already trust software to place the ad will trust it to make the video.
- Mobile is the fastest-growing major segment at 3.89 bln PLN, up 19.4%. Mobile spend means vertical video, and vertical video means volume.
- Growth decelerated through 2025 — 18%, 16%, 15%, 11% across the quarters — so 2026 budgets are being planned with more discipline. Which is exactly the environment where "cheaper per asset" wins a pitch.
A market that is performance-led, mobile-first, programmatic-native and price-disciplined is the ideal buyer for AI production. It is not looking for prestige. It is looking for cost per asset that survives a media plan.
The CEE picture around it
Poland is the anchor, but the same gap runs across the region. Treat these as one commercial bloc with separate languages at the border.
| Market | AI use by enterprises | Language | Marketplace gravity | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poland | 8.36% | Polish | Allegro | Largest market, most competitive agencies |
| Czechia | mid EU range | Czech | Alza, Mall | High rates, exacting clients |
| Hungary | lower than EU average | Hungarian | Emag, Alza | Distinct language, few foreign suppliers |
| Slovakia | mid EU range | Slovak | Alza, Mall | Small, eurozone, price-aware |
| Lithuania | 20s% and rising fast | Lithuanian | Local + Polish platforms | Fastest AI adoption growth in the EU in 2025 |
| Romania | 5.21% | Romanian | Emag | Lowest AI adoption in the EU — see the Balkans guide |
Lithuania is worth a footnote: it recorded one of the largest year-on-year jumps in AI adoption of any EU country in 2025, which means it is closing the gap quickly. Markets that adopt fast stop needing outside help. Be early or be priced out.
Why Polish buyers behave differently
Four habits you have to respect, or the pitch fails before the creative is discussed:
Written scope, every time. Polish business culture documents things. A WhatsApp message confirming a project will not survive the first disagreement; a one-page scope with deliverables, revisions and dates will. This is a strength — build the template once and reuse it.
A VAT invoice is not optional. Every B2B buyer needs one. If your invoicing cannot produce a correct Polish VAT invoice, or at least an EU-compliant one, you are not a viable supplier regardless of quality.
Price is discussed openly and early. Polish buyers will ask what it costs in the first call and expect a straight answer. Vagueness reads as inexperience rather than sophistication.
Polish-language creative is the default, not the option. Polish e-commerce buyers are heavily Polish-first, and an English-only ad here reads as a foreign brand trying its luck. This is not Quebec-style regulation; it is simply commercial reality.
The local details that give away foreign creative
Polish ad feeds punish generic European creative in specific, quotable ways:
- Currency and price format. Złoty, written with a comma decimal and a space before the symbol — "299,00 zł". A price in euros, or a dot decimal, is an immediate tell.
- Payment language. BLIK is the default mobile payment and its absence from an ad about "fast checkout" is conspicuous. Cash on delivery still matters for older buyers and smaller towns.
- Delivery expectation. Parcel lockers are part of daily life. "Paczkomat" in a delivery claim is worth more than any amount of production polish.
- Marketplace context. Allegro is where a large share of Polish e-commerce happens, and a listing video has different rules from a feed ad: a still frame, an eight-second demonstration, a price beside it.
- Language register. Polish copy is more direct and less exclamatory than English ad copy. Translated hype reads as a scam to a Polish buyer, a pattern you will recognise from the German and Dutch markets covered in one shoot, five markets.
- Seasonality. The Polish retail calendar peaks around Christmas, Black Week in late November, and back-to-school in late August. It is dense and it is predictable, which makes it plannable.
What actually sells in this market
Three products, in order of demand:
1. Marketplace listing videos. Eight to fifteen seconds, silent-safe, product-first, priced per asset and bought in batches of twenty. This is the volume business.
2. Meta and TikTok paid social variants. Ten hooks per product, tested weekly. Polish buyers are numerate and will ask for the hook rate; have a reporting format ready.
3. Product page video for brand stores. Slower to sell, higher margin per asset, and the natural upsell once a batch relationship exists.
What does not sell: brand films, aside from the handful of large FMCG and retail advertisers already served by established agencies. Do not pitch prestige work into a performance market.
Pricing in złoty, quoting in euros
Regional buyers think in złoty and pay in złoty; agency partners and export sellers think in euros. Quote in whichever currency the buyer uses, and keep both on the rate card.
| Offer | PLN | EUR equivalent | Buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single listing video | 300-450 zł | EUR 70-105 | Small Allegro seller |
| Ten-video batch | 2,400-3,200 zł | EUR 560-750 | Growing brand, paid social |
| Twenty-video monthly retainer | 4,200-6,000 zł | EUR 980-1,400 | Established e-commerce brand |
| NNI white-label per video | from $70 | Invoiced in USD, every market | Polish agency |
| Localisation into Czech or Hungarian | +25% | +25% | Brands selling across CEE |
The retainer is where the relationship becomes a business. Polish buyers renew what they can plan around, so price monthly and cap revisions rather than pricing per campaign.
How to enter without a Warsaw office
The route that works is agency-first, brand-second — the same logic as the Balkans, with a bigger market.
Find the agencies with video on their service list but no AI pipeline. There are many: full-service Polish agencies that outsource production and lose margin on every retainer. A white-label offer removes their cost problem and gives you recurring volume without a single cold pitch to a brand.
Produce one sample in Polish for a real product. Not a mockup, not a showreel with Polish subtitles. One 15-second Polish listing video for a product you can buy online, sent to three agency contacts with the source footage and a price. That is a pitch no local competitor is making, because most local competitors are still quoting studio days.
Then prove the reporting. Polish buyers who spend on performance want hook rate, CTR and cost per add-to-cart. Provide the numbers and you become a partner rather than a supplier. That reporting discipline is the same one set out in the 2026 AI video production cost breakdown, which prices the work rather than the software.
The three-month window
Adoption gaps close. Lithuania's AI usage jumped double digits in a single year, and Poland's own agencies will not stay at 8% for long. The window is roughly now until local supply catches up — call it a year, and be pessimistic.
That argues for speed over polish: three Polish-language videos, ten agency emails, and a published price list. The market is large enough that a modest share of it is a real business, and empty enough that being early is worth more than being perfect.
The rate question
One pricing detail decides whether a retainer renews: quote in złoty even when your own costs are in euros, and hold the rate for the quarter. A Polish client who sees the price move with the exchange rate every month starts shopping for a local supplier, and the conversation stops being about output. Add the currency risk to the per-video price once, tell them you have done it, and the renewals stay quiet.
This week
Buy one product from a Polish online store. Produce a fifteen-second Polish listing video for it in 48 hours. Send it to three Polish agencies with a per-video price in both złoty and euros. That is a complete market test for the price of one product.
The Allegro listing, specifically
The listing video is a different format from a feed ad, and most producers get it wrong by treating them as the same thing. The version that performs on Polish marketplaces:
- 8 to 15 seconds, product on screen in the first frame, because the thumbnail is the click decision.
- Silent-safe throughout, with captions inside the middle band — marketplace players put controls at the bottom and the listing chrome eats the top.
- No price in the video. The price sits beside the player and changes with promotions; a baked-in price dates the asset within a week.
- One mechanism, shown once. A listing answers "what is it and how does it work", not "why should I feel something".
- Neutral background for the first three seconds, then context. Polish marketplace buyers are comparing on a grid, and a busy opening reads as noise at thumbnail size.
Produce twenty of these in a batch and you have a catalogue asset rather than a campaign. The same batch can serve a brand store and a marketplace listing with a re-cut end card, which is why the format suits per-video pricing better than project pricing: the buyer counts assets, not hours.
The Multilingual Localisation Checklist
Seven checks to run before a German, French, Spanish or Italian version ships — length budgets, formality, claims discipline and the pass that makes a version read as local rather than translated.
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One email, the PDF as a link. Reply and a person answers.
Test the Polish market with one video, not a retainer. Twenty-minute call, then one trial video at $40 — $30 off the standard $70 — in Polish and English, in 48 hours under your brand.
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