Research background. The history of cooperative enterprises in Poland dates to the middle of XIX century. Despite the long history after the transformation of the central economy into a free market economy the cooperative branch in Poland is drastically diminishing, while in market economies the cooperative business model is an alternative to consumption and production. The ''free choice'' of the market means there is room for everyone.

Purpose of the article. The aim of the article is to analyze enterprises based on the cooperative and the commercial business models in terms of their economic results and their social functions on the Polish market.

Methods. The article is of theoretical and empirical nature. The theoretical part includes the overview of the two business models. The empirical part consists of a study containing two independent elements. Both were based on the method of analyzing financial reports, available on the Polish Ministry of Finance and The National Court Register (Krajowy Rejestr Sądowy — KRS) websites. The MS Excel 2016 and applications for creating and reading financial reports by e-KRS were used.

Findings & Value added. The results of the first empirical study have confirmed the usefulness of the biggest payer rankings in comparing the economic results of the enterprises based on cooperative business model (CBM) and commercial business model. The results of the second empirical study have shown that applying the criterion of value added in CBM allowed for determining the degree of their social utility. Economic results of the chosen enterprises based on the CBM model turned out to be similar to those of commercial business model but higher in terms of social utility. The presence of the cooperatives among the biggest taxpayer group in Poland confirms their economic results. Social utility was confirmed by gross value added (GVA) distribution structure, which included i.e. participation of members, employees, local budgets and governmental budget. The research, conducted in Poland, covered cooperatives operating only in one country. Therefore, the results may be affected by a cultural factor.