Polpo
Polpo is an AI political monitoring platform that tracks Dutch, Belgian and European Union institutions, plus every province and 30+ municipalities, delivering filtered real-time alerts to public affairs teams, policy officers, communicators, journalists and legal professionals.
What is Polpo?
Polpo is a Dutch political monitoring platform, published by Polpo B.V. in Amsterdam, that watches parliamentary and government activity around the clock and pushes the relevant parts to you. It is sold as four separate dashboards. NL Monitor covers the Tweede Kamer, the Eerste Kamer, central government, the European Commission and Parliament, stakeholders and the media. EU Monitor covers the European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Council and the main European stakeholders. BE Monitor covers the federal parliament and government, the Flemish, Walloon and Brussels parliaments and governments, the Council of State and Belgian political stakeholders. The Provincial and municipal monitor covers every Dutch province and more than thirty municipalities, including Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Eindhoven, down to meeting documents, letters and motions.
The service runs fully automatically: there is no human curation desk, and updates arrive in real time. What separates it from a keyword alert is the AI layer. Context filters, which you can tune per theme, read each item and drop the ones that do not actually concern your file. The AI Assistant then answers questions asked in ordinary language, returning an argued explanation rather than a list of hits; Polpo describes it as able to analyse arguments and framing, map influence and stakeholders such as rapporteurs, shadow rapporteurs and driving member states, produce tailored summaries, spot position shifts over time and draft motion texts and position papers.
Around that sit several modules. Debate Transcripts (AI) transcribes Tweede Kamer plenary, committee and round-table debates shortly after they end, with sentence-level synchronised audio and accelerated playback. An Agenda module tracks plenary and committee schedules and links them to Outlook. Newsletter and Stakeholder modules are available depending on the dashboard.
Onboarding is free: the Polpo team builds your first search queries with you, after which you create and edit themes yourself, with unlimited phone, chat and email support. Access is through the browser at monitor.polpo.nl, and there is no mobile app and no API. Data sits on servers in the Netherlands or Belgium, and the company holds ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certifications. In February 2026 Polpo entered a new growth phase with investor CNBB Equity Partners, aiming at European expansion.
What it does
- Track Dutch, Belgian, European, provincial and municipal political activity around your own themes, 24/7
- Receive real-time, daily or weekly email alerts filtered by AI context rules
- Ask the AI Assistant a question in plain language about a political file and get a reasoned answer
- Read AI transcripts of Tweede Kamer debates and click any sentence to hear the matching audio
- Follow plenary and committee agendas and link them to your Outlook calendar
- Compose and send internal newsletters, and follow players through the Stakeholder module
- Search the archive without limits and share relevant updates across your organisation
When to use Polpo / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Polpo is the right fit.
When to use Polpo
- Public affairs professionals and lobbyists following Dutch, Belgian and European files at the same time
- Trade associations and federations that must react within hours to a motion, an amendment or a parliamentary question
- Municipalities, provinces and public bodies tracking council papers, letters and Council of State documents
- Journalists and newsrooms covering Dutch national politics or the European institutions
- Small communications teams with no in-house monitoring capacity, since the Polpo team builds the search queries for them during free onboarding
When not to use Polpo
- Organisations tracking politics beyond the Netherlands, Belgium and the EU institutions, as no other member state is covered at national level
- Developers who need to pull updates into a CRM or a data warehouse, since no API and no developer documentation exist
- Users who want to monitor from a phone, as Polpo is browser-only with no iOS or Android application
- Freelancers and individuals looking for a self-service, permanently free tier: access runs through a demo, a quotation and a License Order
- Teams that would want to upload their own personal-data files, since article 5.8 of the EULA asks customers not to send personal data to Polpo
How to use Polpo
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Request a demo from the Polpo demo page, ticking the EU, NL or BE monitoring scopes you need, or book a slot directly in the team's calendar
- Take the full month of free access offered after the demo, with no commitment
- Go through the free onboarding, where the Polpo team builds your search queries and your automated flow with you
- Log in to the platform at monitor.polpo.nl from any browser, with nothing to install
- Create and save your own themes and search queries, then adjust them yourself whenever a file moves
- Choose your notification rhythm: real-time, daily or weekly email alerts
- Switch on the AI context filters so updates that do not concern your file never reach you
- Ask the AI Assistant questions in plain language to get summaries, framing analysis or a draft position paper
- Link plenary and committee agendas to your Outlook calendar
- Share relevant updates with colleagues or send them out through the Newsletter module, calling on unlimited phone, chat and email support whenever you need it
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Multi-level coverage that few monitors match: European institutions, Dutch national politics, Belgian federal and regional levels, every province and more than thirty municipalities
- A full month of free access, with no commitment
- Free onboarding in which the team builds your queries, then unlimited support by phone, live chat and email
- You stay autonomous afterwards: themes and search queries are created and edited without going back to the vendor
- AI debate transcripts with sentence-synchronised audio, rarely offered by traditional monitoring services
- ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certifications, data stored in the Netherlands or Belgium, and sharing confined to the EEA
- All-in packages with no hourly fees or hidden costs, and an EULA that leaves ownership of your outputs (searches, newsletters, notes) with you
Cons
- No public pricing at all: there is no pricing page and no indicative range, so every figure comes through a demo and a quotation
- No permanently free plan, only the one-month trial
- Coverage stops at the Netherlands, Belgium and the EU institutions; no other member state is followed at national level
- No API and no mobile application, so nothing can be pushed programmatically into another system, and only one third-party integration is documented (the Outlook calendar)
- No named list of sub-processors is published: the privacy policy lists only categories of third parties
- No published position on whether customer data feeds AI model training, and no documented way to opt out of it
- Vendor-friendly commercial terms: liability capped at 10,000 EUR, prices changeable at any time on thirty days' notice, and no responsibility if an external source becomes unavailable or a supplier blocks collection
Pricing & Plans
Polpo does not publish any price. There is no pricing page on the site, and the page sitemap, which lists all fifty-four pages, contains none: no range and no starting figure appear anywhere. The commercial model is described instead. Polpo works with all-in packages, without hourly fees or hidden costs, which can be subscribed to monthly or annually. The amount is set individually through a Quotation, which is non-binding and valid for thirty days, and then confirmed in a License Order. Invoicing is monthly and electronic only, payable within thirty days of the invoice date, exclusive of VAT and incidental costs. Polpo reserves the right to adjust its prices at any time subject to thirty days' notice, in which case the customer may terminate within fourteen days. A full month of free access, with no commitment, is offered to every prospect after a demo, but there is no permanently free plan. Prospective buyers should therefore expect to speak to the sales team before knowing what the platform costs.
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Polpo handles your data.
GDPR overview
Polpo states on its Security page that its systems comply with GDPR and that it operates according to ISO standards and the Dutch government's BIO framework, backed by ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certifications. The controller is Polpo B.V., Herengracht 449A, 1017 BR Amsterdam (Chamber of Commerce 68335660), and requests go to legal@polpo.nl. The privacy policy, updated in February 2026, sets out the rights of access, rectification, objection, erasure, withdrawal of consent, portability and restriction, with an answer within thirty days in principle, extendable on notice and refused where identity cannot be verified. The Dutch supervisory authority, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, is named for complaints, and article 15.11 of the EULA commits the parties to a GDPR-compliant data processing agreement where one acts as processor. No data protection officer is named; as a Dutch company, Polpo needs no Article 27 representative.
Who owns the data?
The EULA draws a clear line. Under article 3.1, the customer keeps all rights, including intellectual property rights, in the Development Outputs it creates on the platform: saved search lists, results, artefacts, newsletters, notes and diagrams, a definition that also covers Customer Data. Polpo and its licensors keep exclusive ownership of the software itself, and the customer receives only a non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-sublicensable right of use. For the personal data it compiles from public sources, the privacy policy states that Polpo acts as controller in its own right. Article 13 makes the customer indemnify Polpo against third-party claims relating to data stored or processed through the software.
Reuse rights
Because the customer owns its Development Outputs, it can reuse, circulate and republish its own saved searches, notes, summaries and newsletters inside and beyond its organisation without asking Polpo for permission; the licence to the software itself, by contrast, stays with Polpo. On its own side, Polpo processes account data (name, contact details, address, organisation, account details, payment information, the account's search history and personal notes) as well as names, public functions and, where the person concerned has manifestly made it public, political preference, on a legitimate commercial interest basis. Data is shared only with parties inside the European Economic Area, described by category: IT suppliers and service providers, a financial administration provider, the hosting provider, payment processors and debt collection agencies, and public authorities. Nothing goes outside the EEA without explicit consent. Polpo also prospects professionals whose role suggests relevance, using public professional sources, LinkedIn, public registers and commercial contact data suppliers, with a right to object at any time. One silence is worth noting: the site says nothing at all about whether customer data is used to train AI models, and the only documented opt-out concerns the newsletter.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Polpo's privacy policy states that personal data is stored on secure servers in the Netherlands or Belgium. Access to those servers is limited to Polpo staff and to authorised third parties acting for Polpo's own purposes. Sharing is confined to the European Economic Area: the policy commits never to pass data to parties outside the EEA without explicit consent. The third parties involved are described only by category, namely IT suppliers and service providers, a financial administration provider, the hosting provider, payment processors and debt collection agencies, and public authorities. No sub-processor is named. Stated safeguards include encryption of files containing personal data, SSL or equivalent, role-based access, two-step verification and employee confidentiality agreements, on top of ISO 27001 certification, regular backups and what the Security page calls hundreds of daily checks. One collection note: the website itself resolves to a Cloudflare anycast node in the United States. That is the CDN in front of the marketing site, not the location of customer data.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Polpo.
- The site contradicts itself on the head office postcode: the EULA writes Herengracht 449A, 1013 BR, Amsterdam, while the privacy policy, the general terms and conditions and the Dutch trade register all say 1017 BR. It reads like a typo, but it sits in a contract.
- Two contact addresses coexist: info@polpo.nl in the body of the pages, in the EULA and in the general terms, and info@polpo.com in the footer of every page. Confirm which mailbox is actually monitored. The footer link to the contact page is also broken sitewide (https://polpo.comcontact/, a missing slash).
- Two contract documents sit side by side with no stated hierarchy: the EULA, linked from the footer, and General terms and conditions that appear in no navigation and are only findable through the sitemap. Ask in writing which one prevails.
- Article 5.8 of the EULA asks customers not to send personal data to Polpo, while the privacy policy describes Polpo processing personal data from accounts and from public sources. Two distinct regimes that are easy to confuse in practice.
- The platform compiles the political preference of third parties, a special category of data under the GDPR, justified here by the information having been manifestly made public. Polpo also prospects commercially on a legitimate-interest basis using LinkedIn, public registers and commercial contact data suppliers.
- Commercial terms tilt towards the vendor: prices and features can be changed unilaterally, with thirty days' notice on price, liability is capped at 10,000 EUR, and subscriptions renew automatically unless written notice is given in time. Ownership changed in February 2026, with CNBB Equity Partners taking a small majority, which can shape the roadmap over time.
- Over-reliance is the quiet risk: the AI context filters decide what never reaches you, so an item wrongly judged irrelevant is invisible rather than merely missing, and the habit of reading primary sources fades. The EULA also excludes Polpo's liability if an external source becomes unavailable or a supplier blocks collection.
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low. Polpo is a browser-based web application at monitor.polpo.nl: nothing to install, nothing to deploy and no API to integrate, so no development work is involved. Onboarding is free and hands-on, with the Polpo team building your search queries and automated flow with you, and afterwards you extend or adjust them yourself in the interface, with no technical skill required. Unlimited phone, live chat and email support is available, and periodic training sessions are offered to experienced users. The customer remains responsible for its own internet connection and IT systems.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Polpo
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Can I try Polpo for free?
Which sources does Polpo monitor?
Who is Polpo built for?
Is the monitoring done by people?
Can I follow as many topics as I want?
How much does Polpo cost?
Is there an API or a mobile app?
Where is the data hosted?
Which certifications and security measures does Polpo claim?
How do I exercise my GDPR rights, report a vulnerability or file a complaint?
Should you pick Polpo?
Polpo is a niche tool that is very solid inside its niche. If your files run through The Hague, Brussels or the European institutions, and often through all three at once plus a provincial or municipal council, little else on the market reaches as many levels of government in a single interface. The differentiators are real: coverage from the European Parliament down to a municipal motion, AI transcripts of Tweede Kamer debates with sentence-level audio, an assistant that argues rather than lists, and free human onboarding that gets your queries right before you are left to run them yourself.
The reservations are just as concrete. No price is published anywhere, so you cannot compare Polpo with an alternative without going through a demo and a quotation. There is no API, which rules out feeding updates into an existing system. The geographic scope is narrow: outside the Netherlands, Belgium and the EU institutions, nothing is covered at national level. And the site says nothing at all about whether customer data feeds AI model training, a silence rather than a denial, and one worth raising in writing before signing.
On the reassuring side, the publisher is an established Dutch company that publishes ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certifications, stores data in the Netherlands or Belgium, confines sharing to the EEA and, in February 2026, brought in investor CNBB Equity Partners to fund European expansion. The named customer testimonials, from CZ Group to the municipality of Leiden, Bouwend Nederland and ETOA, are there to be checked.
Ask for the trial month, use it on a live file, and settle three things before the License Order: which contract document prevails, what the package actually includes, and Polpo's written position on model training.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.