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How Duolingo Makes Money with Few Paying Customers

Freemium app profits off ads and premium upgrades despite low conversion.

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For most of the past decade, the language learning app Duolingo has ranked as the top education platform on Apple’s App Store. Most people download it for free, with only a small percentage of users opting to pay for a yearly subscription. So how does Duolingo manage to earn more than $500 million in annual revenue? Along with examining the roles that advertising and AI play in Duolingo’s success, the video below also explains how the app keeps its dedicated user base hooked.  

Questions:

  1. How does Duolingo earn money even though just a fraction of its users pay for the service?
  2. Why does Duolingo remain free to use even though it could easily increase paid subscriptions in a number of ways?
Author: NickelsMcHughMcHugh