Marina Lyubimova
⬤ Something interesting has been happening at Duolingo over the last five years. The language app's been getting way better at convincing free users to actually pay for subscriptions. Back in mid-2020, only 3.3% of monthly active users were ponying up for premium features. Fast forward to September 2025, and that number's sitting at 8.5%. That's a pretty significant jump, and it tells you the paid tiers are resonating more than they used to.
⬤ What's notable is how steady the climb has been. By the end of 2020, conversions had already crossed 4%. Throughout 2021, they moved past 5%. Then 6% came and went in 2022. By 2023, the rate was hovering around 7%, and it just kept inching up through last year and into this one until landing near 8.5%. All told, that's a 156% increase with annual growth averaging about 19.6%. For a freemium company, those are the kind of metrics you dream about.
⬤ The pattern here suggests Duolingo's figured out what makes people want to upgrade. They've been tweaking features, adding new subscription perks, and apparently hitting the right notes with users. We don't have the full revenue picture, but when conversion trends look like this, it usually means people are finding enough value in the premium version to justify spending money on it.
⬤ Why does this matter? Because higher conversion means Duolingo's revenue gets more predictable and stable. Digital learning is competitive as hell, and being able to consistently turn more users into subscribers shows they've cracked the code on scaling their model. At a five-year high, there's every reason to think they'll keep finding ways to improve those numbers.
Marina Lyubimova
