Duolingo and Consumer Subscription Businesses

Duolingo, which was also driven almost exclusively by word of mouth, optimized for free user growth: “By offering all of its learning content for free, Duolingo built a massive user base through word of mouth and no paid marketing. This also helped us build a growth revenue loop: Building a free and fun product → more users → more subscribers → mor... See more

The company was selling about $50k of subscriptions per week in January and sales grew steadily to about $200k during the last week of November. As with jobs sold on the site, there are no incremental costs associated with each dollar of subscription revenues, which makes for a very attractive business model.

On the other hand, the idea of increased productivity is a harder sell in the home. Generally speaking, consumers prefer subscriptions when there’s a clear cost savings for the “all-you-can-eat buffet” vs. a la carte purchases.

- Freemium ladder conversion increasing from early single digits (1-3%) to late single digits (5-10%) through compounding accrual of consumer trust and stickiness