In the spring of 2025, the Center for Evidence-Based Expertise at the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy conducted a study of the paid household services market in Russia. Experts from the Center for Evidence-Based Expertise studied the characteristics of this rapidly growing segment, assessed the behavior of customers and service providers, and identified various models of digital intermediation in the services market. They analyzed the applicability of the Platform Economy Law adopted in the summer to various formats of digital intermediation in the services market, compared regulatory approaches in Russia and abroad, and considered possible regulatory scenarios laid out in the adopted law.
The analysis is based on data from our own quantitative research on a multi-stage quota-based all-Russian sample of service providers using online services to find customers (N > 500) and service consumers using online services to find specialists (N > 500), the results of research into the operating conditions of Russian and foreign digital service platforms with service providers (N > 25), best foreign regulatory practices, the Russian legal architecture for regulating the platform economy as a whole, official statistics from the Federal Tax Service and SPARK data, as well as the accumulated data set of the platform economy team.
To assess the effects of the development of the services market, the researchers used a proprietary economic-mathematical model developed by analysts at the Gaidar Institute's Center for Evidence-Based Expertise.
According to the study in 2024 the volume of the paid household services market amounted to Rb17.9 trillion and by 2026, it could increase to Rb27 trillion. At the same time, the share of digital platforms in the market for paid household services in 2024 was 21% (about Rb3.8 trillion, or approximately 2% of Russia's GDP), and by 2026 it may exceed 28% (approximately Rb7.5 trillion). The reason for this dynamic is the steady trend of customers and entrepreneurs moving from offline to online. The authors of the study note that the development of the market is influenced not only by supply and demand, but also by external conditions: in particular, legislative regulation of the sector.
Analysts at the Gaidar Institute's Center for Evidence-Based Expertise have identified two business models in the digital intermediation market for services: “bulletin boards” (classifieds) and “platform managers” (digital employment platforms).
Classifieds, acting as a “bulletin board,” do not participate in managing the order fulfillment process and accordingly do not organize it, minimally participating in the work of contractors. Classifieds may also include transactional classifieds, if such platforms technically conduct payments between users.
Unlike classifieds, a digital employment platform, as a “platform manager,” has a set of characteristics. Mainly, it organizes the fulfillment of orders through:
Participation in the selection, recruitment, and assignment of contractors for each order using algorithms.
Influence on the order matching process and control over its fulfillment.
Monitoring transactions, including recording a “digital footprint” of all payments.
Establishing minimum quality standards for order fulfillment.
The presence of a critical number of these characteristics allows a platform to be classified as a digital employment platform. However, individual characteristics alone are not sufficient grounds for such a classification.
Analysis of the survey findings showed that the share of workers who noted a high level of control by the platform among users of digital platforms is 61%, while among users of classifieds it is 32%. Thus, the degree of influence of platform managers on workers is almost twice as high.
Both in Russia and abroad, the regulatory environment is gradually adapting to the conditions of the platform economy. The main trend in international practice is to differentiate between types of digital services for regulatory purposes based on the degree of control that the service platform has over the service provider or its transaction with the customer.
In Russia, the Platform Economy Law does not distinguish between different types of digital service platforms. This leads to a confusion of different business models and the imposition of excessive requirements on advertising platforms, including transactional classifieds.
The authors of the study analyzed in detail the provisions of the law that could negatively affect the functioning of transactional classifieds and concluded that not every digital platform is an employment platform and, as a result, should not be regulated by platform economy legislation. Effective and fair regulation requires a differentiated approach that takes into account the actual degree of involvement of the platform in the service provision process.