Duolingo (DUOL) Earnings Show Daily Users Up 29% as Growth Speeds Up
Duolingo (DUOL) earnings show daily users grew 29% in the third quarter of 2026, to 64.9 million, the second quarter in a row that growth sped up. The company raised its forecast for the year and will stop selling its top plan, Max, this month.
The short answer. Duolingo gained 6.2 million daily users in three months, more than twice its gain in the same months of 2025. In February it chose to put user growth ahead of earning more from each user, and it says that plan is now working. People who pay for Max on their own move to a Super family plan at the same price. Below are the results, the reasons, and what changes in the app.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Q3 2024 | 54% |
| Q4 2024 | 51% |
| Q1 2025 | 49% |
| Q2 2025 | 40% |
| Q3 2025 | 36% |
| Q4 2025 | 30% |
| Q1 2026 | 21% |
| Q2 2026 | 23% |
| Q3 2026 | 29% |
Duolingo third quarter 2026 results at a glance
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Every company reporting the same week, with its date and time, is in StockTitan's Earnings Calendar for the Week of November 2, 2026.
Duolingo earnings for the third quarter of 2026
Duolingo beat its own forecast. Daily users grew 29%, and the money customers paid in the quarter grew 12%, both faster than in the second quarter.
Duolingo counted 64.9 million daily active users from July to September 2026, against 50.5 million a year earlier. Growth sped up from 23% in the second quarter.
Monthly users, people who used the app at least once in a month, rose 13% to 153.1 million.
Bookings are the money customers paid during the quarter. They rose 12% to $316.1 million. In August, Duolingo had forecast about $307 million, according to its second quarter 2026 shareholder letter.
Subscription bookings grew faster, by 16%, up from 10% in the second quarter. Revenue rose 14% to $309.0 million. Revenue moves more slowly than bookings. Duolingo spreads the price of a subscription over its length, usually twelve months, so faster bookings growth shows up in revenue later.
Paid subscribers reached 13.1 million at the end of September, up 14%. Adjusted EBITDA, a profit measure that leaves out stock pay, taxes, interest and some other costs, was $78.7 million. Chief financial officer Gillian Munson wrote that bookings, revenue and adjusted EBITDA all came in ahead of the company's most recent guidance.
The stock jumped after the report. Duolingo shares were at $141.00 in after-hours trading at 4:25 p.m. ET on November 3. That was 10.2% above the regular session close of $128.00, according to StockTitan real-time Nasdaq data for DUOL.
| Measure | Q3 2025 | Q3 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily active users | 50.5 million | 64.9 million | 29% |
| Monthly active users | 135.3 million | 153.1 million | 13% |
| Paid subscribers, period end | 11.5 million | 13.1 million | 14% |
| Subscription bookings | $240.3 million | $278.4 million | 16% |
| Total bookings | $281.9 million | $316.1 million | 12% |
| Revenue | $271.7 million | $309.0 million | 14% |
| Gross margin | 72.5% | 72.9% | 0.4 points |
| Net income | $292.2 million | $27.2 million | (91)% |
| Adjusted EBITDA | $80.0 million | $78.7 million | (2)% |
| Free cash flow | $77.4 million | $75.3 million | (3)% |
Source: Duolingo third quarter 2026 shareholder letter, November 3, 2026. Net income for Q3 2025 includes a one-time tax benefit of $222.7 million.
| Q3 2026 | Forecast in August | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Bookings | $307 million | $316.1 million |
| Revenue | $302 million | $309.0 million |
| Adjusted EBITDA | $76 million | $78.7 million |
| Daily user growth | Above 20% | 29% |
Sources: Duolingo second quarter 2026 shareholder letter, August 5, 2026, for the forecast; third quarter 2026 shareholder letter, November 3, 2026, for the result.
Why Duolingo daily users grew 29%
In February, Duolingo said it would give up some sales to make the free app nicer to use. It also ran hundreds of small tests and teamed up with two popular mobile games.
Growth had been slowing for a long time. From mid-2022 to mid-2025, daily users grew at least 40% a year in every quarter, chief executive Luis von Ahn wrote in the fourth quarter 2025 shareholder letter. Then growth slowed through 2025, to 21% in the first quarter of 2026.
Von Ahn blamed part of that slowdown on the company's own push to make money. Duolingo had added small annoyances, such as more ads and more prompts to subscribe. In February it said it would put user growth ahead of making money in 2026 and give up more than $50 million of bookings to do it. At the time it expected daily users to grow about 20% this year.
Growth has beaten that. Average daily users rose by 6.2 million from the second quarter to the third. In the same months of 2025 they rose by 2.8 million.
Bookings grew more slowly than daily users. For each average daily user, Duolingo took in about $4.87 of bookings in the third quarter, down from about $5.58 a year earlier.
The new letter credits two things with the growth. Duolingo ran hundreds of experiments on parts of the app such as notifications and streaks, a testing process it calls the Green Machine. Duo, the company's mascot, also showed up inside two mobile games: Brawl Stars, a global multiplayer game, and Eggy Party, a game popular in China. Players could earn rewards by learning on Duolingo. The company says these deals brought in millions of new and returning users.
Duolingo also expanded speaking practice. Von Ahn calls speaking the hardest skill to practice regularly. Since the start of 2026, the share of exercises that learners can answer by speaking has doubled, the letter says. In the release, von Ahn said users grew in every region of the world and in every subject Duolingo teaches.
Duolingo Max is ending: what subscribers keep
If you pay for Max on your own, you move to a Super family plan at the same price, with the same features. If you pay for Super, you get unlimited Video Call by the end of 2026.
Duolingo is free to use, and it sells paid plans on top. Max is its highest subscription tier, above Super. Its main feature is Video Call, a practice conversation with Lily, a Duolingo character powered by AI. Duolingo added Video Call to Max in 2024, according to its third quarter 2024 shareholder letter.
Now Video Call is moving to Super. New Super subscribers already get unlimited Video Call, and Duolingo says it is on track to give it to all Super subscribers by the end of 2026. In February, the company said the move would bring conversation practice to about ten times as many learners. With Video Call in Super, Duolingo decided to end Max.
This month, Duolingo will stop selling new Max subscriptions. People who pay for Max on their own move to a Super family plan at the same price. They keep the same features and can share the plan with family or friends.
| Before November 2026 | After the change | |
|---|---|---|
| New subscribers | Max on sale as the top plan | Max no longer sold |
| Max on your own | Max individual plan | Super family plan at the same price |
| Features | Max features | The same features |
| Sharing | Individual plan | Can share with family or friends |
| Max family plan | Max family plan | Options to be addressed in 2027 |
| Video Call in Super | Unlimited for new Super subscribers | All Super subscribers by end of 2026 |
People on a Max family plan will wait longer. Duolingo says it is still weighing options for them and will address it in 2027. The company expects the change to have a minimal effect on bookings.
What the user growth plan means for the free Duolingo app
Duolingo says it will keep the free app as good as it is. It wants to earn more step by step, through optional extras such as avatar outfits.
Von Ahn wrote that teaching better and user growth "remain our top priorities." He said Duolingo is leaning more into making money step by step, "in ways that preserve the quality of our free experience."
One new tool is collection events. In Junior's Toy Hunt, learners collected puzzle pieces to win outfits for their avatars. Duolingo says the event got learners to finish more lessons and showed it could grow in-app purchases over time. For now, in-app purchase revenue fell 38% from a year earlier, to $6.88 million.
Duolingo guidance for the fourth quarter and 2026
Duolingo raised its forecast for the year. It expects daily users in the fourth quarter to grow about as fast as in the third.
For the fourth quarter, Duolingo expects bookings of $382 million, up 13% from a year earlier, and revenue of $322 million, up 14%. The company says this reflects more users than it expected in the third quarter, plus continued strength in advertising and in-app purchases.
For the full year, Duolingo now expects bookings of $1,296 million, up from $1,285 million in its August forecast. That puts both bookings and revenue at the high end of the growth targets it set at the start of the year. It also raised its adjusted EBITDA forecast by $3 million.
Costs rose too. Operating expenses grew 24% and included $11.4 million set aside for a company-wide bonus. Staff get the bonus if daily users grow 25% or more in the fourth quarter. The forecast now also includes the rest of that bonus.
| Measure | Q4 2026 forecast | Full year 2026 forecast | Full year forecast in August |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bookings | $382 million | $1,296 million | $1,285 million |
| Bookings growth from a year earlier | 13% | 12% | 10.9% |
| Revenue | $322 million | $1,221 million | $1,207 million |
| Revenue growth from a year earlier | 14% | 18% | 16.3% |
| Adjusted EBITDA | $84 million | $323 million | $320 million |
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | 26.1% | 26.5% | 26.5% |
Source: Duolingo third quarter 2026 shareholder letter, November 3, 2026; the August forecast is from the second quarter 2026 shareholder letter, August 5, 2026. The forecast assumes exchange rates as of October 30, 2026. The 2026 targets set at the start of the year were 10% to 12% bookings growth and 15% to 18% revenue growth.
Is Duolingo profitable?
Yes. Duolingo made a profit of $27.2 million in the quarter. That is far below a year ago, because the year-ago quarter included a large one-time tax benefit.
Net income was $27.2 million, or 54 cents a diluted share, against $292.2 million a year earlier. The earlier figure included a one-time tax benefit of $222.7 million.
Income from operations, the profit from running the business, was $24.2 million, against $35.2 million a year earlier. Spending on research and development, sales and administration rose.
Cash and short-term investments rose to $1.4 billion at the end of September. The balance sheet lists no loans or bonds among its liabilities. Duolingo has never paid a cash dividend and does not plan to pay one soon, its annual report for 2025 says.
Fully diluted shares, which also count the shares that options and other stock awards could add, were 50.8 million at the end of September.
Duolingo bought back $6.4 million of its own shares in the quarter. By October 30, it had spent $82.0 million under its $400 million buyback program. The company says those buybacks offset all the dilution from 2024 and 2025. Dilution is the shrinking of each share's slice of the company when new shares are issued.
What to watch
- Whether daily user growth in the fourth quarter reaches the 25% bonus goal: Duolingo's fourth quarter results, which it plans to report in February 2027 with its 2027 outlook.
- What happens to Max family plans: a later Duolingo announcement, which the company says will come in 2027.
Our numbers
These figures are our calculations from the sources linked in this article.
- 6.2 million more daily users: 64.9 million in the third quarter of 2026 minus 58.7 million in the second quarter.
- 2.8 million more daily users in the same months of 2025: 50.5 million in the third quarter minus 47.7 million in the second.
- About $4.87 of bookings for each daily user: $316.1 million of bookings divided by 64.9 million daily users, against $281.9 million and 50.5 million, or about $5.58, a year earlier.
Daily user counts are quarterly averages that Duolingo rounds to a tenth of a million.
Frequently asked questions
How many people use Duolingo every day?
Duolingo averaged 64.9 million daily active users from July to September 2026, up 29% from a year earlier. It averaged 153.1 million monthly active users in the same quarter.
Is Duolingo Max being discontinued?
Yes. Duolingo will stop selling new Max subscriptions in November 2026. Individual Max subscribers move to a Super family plan at the same price, and unlimited Video Call is coming to all Super subscribers by the end of 2026.
Did Duolingo beat its guidance?
Yes. Third quarter bookings of $316.1 million beat the company's August forecast of about $307 million. Duolingo also raised its 2026 forecast to bookings of $1,296 million and revenue of $1,221 million.
How much money does Duolingo make?
Duolingo had revenue of $309.0 million in the third quarter of 2026, up 14% from a year earlier. Its net income was $27.2 million.
When is the Duolingo earnings call?
Duolingo held a live video webcast on its third quarter results at 5:00 p.m. ET on November 3, 2026, at investors.duolingo.com. The company says a replay is posted there two hours after the webcast ends.
Sources
- Duolingo Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results, StockTitan
- Duolingo third quarter 2026 shareholder letter, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.2, SEC
- Duolingo Form 8-K, November 3, 2026, SEC
- Duolingo second quarter 2026 shareholder letter, SEC
- Duolingo fourth quarter 2025 shareholder letter, SEC
- Duolingo third quarter 2024 shareholder letter, SEC
- Duolingo annual report for 2025, Form 10-K, SEC
- Duolingo (DUOL) stock price, StockTitan
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