Translating Duolingo's Web Funnel
Today we're diving into the web funnel of language learning legend, Duolingo. Known for its gamified learning and owl mascot, Duolingo is a household name—but how does its web funnel perform when it comes to user experience and conversion? To unpack this, we're joined by award-winning growth expert and founder of Aperture, Hannah Parvaz, who brings a wealth of insights into creative strategy, product optimization, and funnel design. Want the full interview with Hannah? Subscribers get it for free.
Web2App Strategy
Here are three major reasons why a strong web strategy is a smart move for apps like Duolingo:
- Platform Fee Savings: Apple and Google take a sizable cut of in-app revenue—up to 30%. By pushing users to the web, Duolingo can sidestep those fees and retain more revenue.
- Higher Conversion Rates: Web users tend to show stronger intent and convert at a higher rate—often seeing trial-to-paid conversion rates upwards of 50-60%.
- Better Data Access: Changes in app tracking policies have made it harder to capture granular user data. Web allows Duolingo to collect first-party data, which fuels better targeting, faster learning loops, and ultimately, higher profitability.
Duolingo’s strategy here is all about control—of revenue, data, and conversion—and it sets a strong foundation for the rest of the funnel.
Onboarding
The onboarding experience for Duolingo is deeply thought-out and iterative:
- Warm, Engaging Entry: Users are greeted with Duo the owl and eased into onboarding. Unlike older versions of the app, which dropped users right into a lesson, this updated flow establishes connection and clarity from the start.
- Language Selection: Popularity indicators (e.g., “50 million learners”) add social proof. The depth of language options can be a double-edged sword—diversity is good, but overwhelming lists may slow decision-making.
- Self-Attribution Questions: Asking users where they found Duolingo is a clever use of self-attribution, increasingly important since 2021 due to changes in user tracking capabilities. Rotating the order of answers (e.g., Google search, blog) ensures more accurate responses.
- Personal Context: As users select why they're learning (e.g., work, travel), Duolingo dynamically adapts feedback, which helps personalize the experience. This segmentation also gives their product team valuable data to guide content development.
- Desktop vs. Mobile Differences: Duolingo runs over 10,000 tests per year, and mobile sees more celebratory interstitials and animations—likely due to higher engagement expectations on mobile devices.
- First Value Moment: Eventually, users land on a static page summarizing what they’ll gain (vocabulary, confidence, learning habits), complete with personalized stats like “25 new words per week.” It’s a small but impactful validation loop that supports user buy-in.
- Immediate Lesson Access: Instead of pitching a plan or paywall early, Duolingo throws users straight into a lesson. This rapid value delivery helps reduce distraction, builds confidence, and gives users a dopamine hit right away—enhanced by branded sound cues and gentle feedback loops.
Paywall
Duolingo’s paywall stands out in a few key ways:
- Localized Pricing: Whether users are in Germany or the U.S., they see prices in their local currency. This isn’t just cosmetic—it builds trust and removes mental barriers like conversion fees.
- True Localization: Adjusting price points per region also respects purchasing power differences. It opens access to more users globally and improves unit economics over time.
- Limited Payment Methods: Currently, Duolingo only accepts credit cards—no Apple Pay, Google Pay, or local alternatives. Expanding options could significantly improve trial opt-ins and overall conversion, a promising area for testing in 2025.
Download Friction
After users complete onboarding or a trial lesson on web, Duolingo surprisingly doesn’t guide them to the mobile app—there’s no QR code, no email, no nudge to continue the experience in-app.
This may be intentional. Duolingo likely tested this and found that many users prefer staying on the web. However, as she’s seen with other clients, some users are unaware an app even exists. A subtle prompt or optional handoff (like a magic link) could help bridge that experience without pushing users off-platform.
Wrap-up
To close, here are two areas where Duolingo truly shines:
- Personalization: From onboarding choices to in-lesson experiences, Duolingo constantly adapts and personalizes the flow.
- Gamification: Commitment screens, hearts, sound cues—Duolingo nails the emotional and behavioral hooks that drive habit formation and retention.
And for opportunities to grow even stronger in 2025?
- Add more “celebration moments” into the web experience, replicating the delightful animations and feedback loops that mobile users enjoy.
- Test additional payment methods to reduce friction and unlock higher revenue.
As always, Fix That Funnel will be back next time, where we’ll break down Ultimate Guitar's Web2App strategy. Stay tuned!
Full Interview with Hannah (Subscribers only)
00:00:00:15 - 00:00:19:11
Steve
Now. I love to travel. But different countries means different languages. That's why language learning apps have been super helpful. When I'm trying to order a beer in Germany or order a beer in Italy, or order a beer in Ireland without completely embarrassing myself. Hi. I'm your host, Steve Saar, and today we are breaking down the web funnel of Duolingo.
00:00:19:12 - 00:00:36:10
Steve
Now I have a flight to Japan in about 30 minutes, so I need to learn Japanese fast. Will I learn it or will I fail miserably? Make sure to stick around to find out. Now, Duolingo is a great product. They gamify language learning and make it so much fun. But how is their web funnel? Well, today we're getting expert insight to find out what they're doing.
00:00:36:10 - 00:01:03:04
Steve
Great and not so great to help steer you in the right direction. So are you ready to fix that funnel? We're going to fix that funnel tonight. We're gonna fix your funnel, right? We're gonna fix that funnel tonight. We're going to make those prospects by. Doesn't matter if you're big or small. We're gonna fix your onboarding. And meanwhile, we're gonna fix that funnel tonight.
00:01:03:04 - 00:01:04:06
Steve
We're gonna fix.
00:01:04:06 - 00:01:12:13
Steve
That up to 90.
00:01:12:15 - 00:01:44:17
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00:01:44:17 - 00:01:50:05
Voice Over
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00:01:50:06 - 00:02:02:08
Steve
Hey. Thank you, thank you. Two kind, two kind. Welcome to fix that funnel. Today we are joined by an award winning growth expert and the founder of aperture, Hannah Parvaz. Hannah, thanks for being here.
00:02:02:10 - 00:02:05:04
Hannah
Thank you so much for having me. It's really lovely to be here with this.
00:02:05:04 - 00:02:10:03
Steve
You know, Hannah, what got you into this wild world of app growth? Where did you get your start?
00:02:10:09 - 00:02:30:09
Hannah
And I started working at a music tech company. A music app called Dice. Web has always been a massive part of my kind of product and marketing mix. I launched aperture, which is a kind of two sided business, one side focused on the product and how we're optimizing and building products, and the other side focused on creative strategy, advertising, media buying.
00:02:30:12 - 00:02:41:03
Steve
Well, Hannah, you're clearly the right person for the job. So with that being said, let's take a step back and check out their web app strategy as a whole.
00:02:41:05 - 00:02:51:11
Steve
So Duolingo, I've used it. You've used it. Everyone I know has used it. It's a household name at this point. So what benefits does Duolingo get from running a web app strategy like this?
00:02:51:13 - 00:03:10:13
Hannah
Usually, the very first reason that companies go after web is because you can save a good bit of money on their Apple and Google charge you to have your app on the App Store. So if you're making less than a million a year, they're going to take 15%. And if you're making more than a million a year, then they're going to be taking 30% of that first year and 15% of every subsequent year.
00:03:10:14 - 00:03:28:03
Hannah
There are a lot of other reasons as well. People on web actually tend to convert. Usually they're trial higher. You're usually going to be kind of over 50 or 60% trial to page conversion. It can be a substantial increase. And the last thing I'll mention before we continue is the data. Now here's some changes to how we are able to collect data.
00:03:28:03 - 00:03:50:14
Hannah
It meant that we weren't actually able to have the visibility on who were requiring the volumes that we were requiring, but by putting three people and targeting people and sending them on a destination to the web, we're actually able to capture that first party data. So this allows us to have better campaigns that have more data in them, which means they can optimize faster, which means we can learn faster, which means we can get better results, which means we can become more profitable quicker.
00:03:50:17 - 00:03:59:09
Steve
So now that Hanna's laid out all the amazing benefits of web app, it's time to dive into their onboarding strategy.
00:03:59:11 - 00:04:01:16
Steve
What about our Intro to Duo on the next screen?
00:04:01:18 - 00:04:13:08
Hannah
So this is really nice because previous iterations of the onboarding flow. Actually Duolingo just jumped straight. And you're starting to feel already the sense of connection because you celebrating with you.
00:04:13:11 - 00:04:20:15
Steve
So say duo's cute little eyes took us in and we hit Get Started. We end up on this first page right here. What's the importance of this first page?
00:04:20:21 - 00:04:37:06
Hannah
I think that this is a really good page for a lot of reasons. So here you can see Spanish 50 million learners. So you can see very quickly what are the most popular languages on the product. As you scroll down there's loads and loads and loads of different languages. That's something that could make it a little bit harder.
00:04:37:06 - 00:04:49:01
Steve
So after we select our language duo continues to guide us along our onboarding journey and we get to tell them a little bit about ourselves, our first question we get asked is where do we find Duolingo? What's the importance of a question like this?
00:04:49:03 - 00:05:05:13
Hannah
This is self attribution. So this is something that's got more and more and more and more popular and important since 2021. Ultimately, it is to help the team just understand where people are coming from. I don't think news article and blog or at the top. When I was going through this on my phone earlier, Google search was at the top.
00:05:05:14 - 00:05:17:04
Hannah
This is really important so that people aren't just all selecting the top option. One of the things that used to happen is you'd play through and get survey a couple months later. I'm not going to remember, like in two months, how I found out about this latest product.
00:05:17:09 - 00:05:24:14
Steve
So as we move further and further down the onboarding flow, we get to tell do a little bit more about ourselves. What's the importance of these next couple pages here?
00:05:24:15 - 00:05:42:21
Hannah
I love this one, because one of the things I noticed about this is whenever you're clicking on any of them, what Joe's responding is different every single time. This is something as well that will help the Duolingo team understand context. We've had a 50% increase in people learning French for their work, for work like, let's produce more content.
00:05:42:21 - 00:05:55:09
Hannah
That's about work. So it's really nice, and I think it's really interesting what happens on the next page. So yeah, like boost my career. Oh that's interesting. On the mobile version there are these interstitials that happen between each of these.
00:05:55:12 - 00:05:58:17
Steve
It's interesting. Why would the mobile flow be different from the desktop flow?
00:05:58:23 - 00:06:12:09
Hannah
I think it's a combination. Duolingo run more than 10,000 tests per year. So at the moment we have been seeing some of these little components of celebration and delight. But I think on mobile you're just getting a lot more.
00:06:12:10 - 00:06:18:07
Steve
We then end up on this page here, where we get to take a break from answering questions and kind of absorb Duolingo value.
00:06:18:09 - 00:06:41:17
Hannah
This is kind of the first page on the web flow that it's not interactive. And then after you've understood, okay, this is going to help me build my vocabulary, convert some confidence and develop the learning habit. Those were personalized, by the way, whenever you select each of those, it will give a different response and it'll tell you how many words you're going to learn per week, which just gives you a little bit more validation and confirmation that this is a product that's going to benefit you.
00:06:41:17 - 00:06:51:10
Hannah
So it would be really cool to see how many words what I learned per year, you know, 25 words is like is that does that feel like a lot? Does that feel achievable. Does that not feel like a lot?
00:06:51:11 - 00:07:01:17
Steve
So once we stop answering questions about ourselves, Duolingo actually tosses us headfirst into a real Duolingo lesson. Now this is way different from a lot of flows we're seeing this season, right?
00:07:01:19 - 00:07:19:20
Hannah
I love that about Duolingo because there's a lot of brand trust. And so what they are trying to do very quickly is just get people to experience value, putting you stress into a lesson so that you don't get distracted. You straight away get that sound, which is actually the first time you get sound. I believe in the onboarding flow.
00:07:19:22 - 00:07:34:19
Hannah
When you hear that on the bus or like you're walking down the street and you hear, you know, someone's playing Duolingo, they've sonically branded that. So while each mistake costs one heart, you know, stay sharp and focused like it's prompting you, it's giving you like feedback straight away. And they do that really, really well.
00:07:34:19 - 00:07:46:01
Steve
Wow. I feel like my Japanese is getting better from that one lesson alone. Now let's pull out our credit cards and head over to the paywall.
00:07:46:02 - 00:08:00:23
Steve
So say we had a great time with our free lesson. We decide we want the premium product. We pull out our credit card, we head over to the paywall. We run this page through a VPN, and we saw that Duolingo is actually using localized pricing. So if I'm in Germany, I'm getting euros. If I'm in America, I'm getting charge in USD.
00:08:01:04 - 00:08:12:17
Steve
Our data even showed that most people were able to purchase Duolingo in their native currency. Padel is a merchant of record and we can handle this part for you. So we love this section. Now how important is this for such a global product like Duolingo?
00:08:12:19 - 00:08:30:19
Hannah
I mean, the cosmetic side of it and just showing what the actual currency is helps people with trusting the brand. If I'm in England and I'm seeing dollars, a lot of the time people think, okay, well, now I have to pay a conversion fee. And so seeing a different currency creates a disconnect. But then in terms of the localization of the pricing, this is kind of different.
00:08:30:20 - 00:08:52:02
Hannah
You know, if you're a company that wants to become truly global, then countries have different economies. So they've got they're earning in different currencies, they're earning different amounts relative to the kind of global averages. You're going to be able to open the opportunity up to more people, meaning actually you're going to get so many more people in that it will be better for your unit economics anyway.
00:08:52:05 - 00:09:03:04
Steve
Now let's talk payment methods. They only offer credit card. You can't pay in Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo, Zelle, whatever. Now, would they benefit from offering a more diverse set of payment options?
00:09:03:09 - 00:09:22:13
Hannah
For the most part, we do see by having Google Pay, Apple Pay, and of course, many, many products. I've seen that the trial opt in is going to be so much higher that your actual net revenue is going to be higher as well. So yeah, I would love to see them test out or see the results of those experiments if they have been running on.
00:09:22:15 - 00:09:40:11
Steve
It so after we actually purchased Duolingo, we don't have much to guide us from the web over to the app. There's no QR code, there's no magic link, there's no email. It's just kind of expects us to know about the app. Is Duolingo that ubiquitous in the space that they just assume everyone knows their app? Or why do they not have anything guiding us over to it?
00:09:40:14 - 00:10:00:02
Hannah
I think they will have been testing this. I'm working with one company at the moment, and some of the people that have signed up on web didn't actually even know that there was an app, but when they found out about the app, that's amazing. But on web, they've clearly done a lot of research here and said, okay, the context in which people are trying to use the web product is that they want to stay on web.
00:10:00:04 - 00:10:04:07
Steve
Now let's go over some takeaways. What are two things that Duolingo is doing really, really well?
00:10:04:09 - 00:10:28:08
Hannah
I think of course Duolingo are doing personalization incredibly well. Like I love how they're bringing elements that you've answered before into that experience. They're doing it even better on mobile. The gamification elements of Duolingo are also really key. They ask you, what is your commitment? We've seen a 50% increase in day 30 retention just by adding a screen, and so that's pretty significant.
00:10:28:08 - 00:10:35:20
Hannah
And so that gamification element and that personalization both of these are doing unbelievably well like Duolingo. Absolutely smash it with this.
00:10:35:20 - 00:10:42:03
Steve
And with the good. There's always room for improvement. What's something they could experiment with in 2025 to be even better?
00:10:42:05 - 00:11:02:07
Hannah
Something they could test bringing in some more of these elements, these celebration elements, these moments of delight into the web experience. And then secondly, just trying out, the Apple Pay and Google and seeing what the options for these are. It could be that there is higher friction. So there's a higher trial conversion rate, but their bottom line could really improve.
00:11:02:09 - 00:11:14:05
Steve
Well, we finished up our web funnel and I want to thank Hannah us for being here today. Make sure to check out Hannah on Social, and make sure to check out aperture to help develop your creative strategy and optimize your product. Hannah, thanks for being here.
00:11:14:07 - 00:11:16:19
Hannah
Thank you so much for having me. It was great to be here.
00:11:16:21 - 00:11:33:08
Steve
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a flight to catch to Tokyo. Ari got to Hannah Parviz, Ari got to Duolingo and arigatou to you at home. I think I'm getting pretty good at Japanese. Make sure you check us out next week where we break down Ultimate guitar. Now, if you'll excuse me, I got a flight to catch.
