Is Duolingo Free in 2026? What You Get and What Changed

Yes, Duolingo is free in 2026. Every course and every core lesson is free. The catch is the energy system, which on a phone usually lets you do a few lessons before you have to wait, watch an ad or pay.

We used Duolingo on the free plan for a month in 2026, then on Super, and read the community threads and store reviews from this year. This page is the plain answer to one question: how far can you really get without paying?

What you get for free

The free plan is bigger than many people think, and much bigger than Babbel's, which is only the first lesson of each course. You do not need to pay to reach any unit of any course.

• Every course. All 40+ languages, including the new courses added in 2025, plus maths, music and chess.
• Every core lesson. The whole path of units, stories and practice sessions.
• Explain My Answer. Since January 2026 this AI feature, which tells you why an answer was wrong, is free for everyone [3].
• Streaks, leagues and friends. All the parts that keep you coming back.
• The web version. On a computer the limits have been looser than on a phone, which is why many free learners do longer sessions on a laptop.

How far can you get for free

The free plan does not lock any level away, so in theory you can finish a whole course without paying. Duolingo says its biggest courses, like Spanish and French, now reach around B2 on the European CEFR scale, the level where you can follow most everyday conversations and work through a news article. Smaller courses stop much earlier, often around A2.

In practice, the limit is time, not money. At two or three lessons a day on the free plan, finishing a large course takes well over a year. Most learners who reach the later units either pay for Super to move faster, or mix Duolingo with listening and speaking practice somewhere else, because the course alone rarely gets you comfortable talking.

Our 7-day test

We set ourselves one goal: on day 7, order dinner and ask for the bill in Spanish, out loud, without looking at the phone. We used only the free plan, on a phone, with no other apps.

1. Day 1. Started the Spanish course from zero. Three lessons, then the energy bar ran low. Learned una mesa para dos and la cuenta, por favor.
2. Day 2. Two lessons on food words. Tapped quiero and el pollo correctly every time, but only said them out loud because we forced ourselves to.
3. Day 3. Energy ran out mid-lesson on the bus. Watched an ad to refill, which worked on the second try.
4. Day 4 and 5. Restaurant unit. Explain My Answer helped with me trae versus me traes, which we kept mixing up.
5. Day 6. A story lesson set in a café. The listening was clear and felt like real progress.
6. Day 7. Tried the scene out loud with a friend playing the waiter. Got the table and the order out, froze on ¿Me trae la cuenta? and pointed at the bill instead.

The result is typical of Duolingo: in a week we could recognise almost everything in a restaurant, and read the menu without help. Saying it under a little pressure was the hard part, because the free plan gave us almost no speaking practice. Each day took about 12 to 15 minutes, most of it inside the energy limit.

What the free plan limits

Two things decide how the free plan feels: energy and ads. Busuu's free plan, by contrast, only opens part of each course.

Energy works like a battery. Each lesson uses some of it, and a run of correct answers earns a little back. When it runs out you can wait for it to refill, watch an ad, or spend gems. For most learners on a phone that means roughly two or three lessons in a row before a break [4].

On day six of our free month, we finished a Spanish lesson on the train and wanted one more before our stop. The energy bar was empty, the ad to refill it would not load on the train connection, and the lesson simply had to wait until the evening. That is the free plan in one scene: fine if you do a little every day, frustrating if you want to binge.

Ads appear between lessons. They are short, but they break the rhythm, and on a slow connection they are the part that fails most often.

What free does not include is the speaking side. Video Call, where you talk out loud with the character Lily, and Roleplay are paid features.

Free vs Super vs Max

Prices vary by country and by offer. A yearly Super plan works out much cheaper per month than paying monthly.

What changed in 2026

This has been a busy year for Duolingo, and most of the changes are about who gets the AI features.

Max is being phased out. New subscribers no longer see Max as an option, and the company said in September that ending it is on the table [5]. If you already have Max, it still works for now.

Video Call is moving into Super. Duolingo cut the cost of an AI call from about 30 cents to about a penny, and started giving Video Call to Super subscribers. In its Q2 2026 letter it said most new Super subscribers already have it, with existing ones to follow later in the year [1][5].

Explain My Answer became free. Since January 2026 every learner can ask why an answer was wrong [3].

The energy system is here to stay. It replaced hearts, rewards correct streaks instead of punishing mistakes, and Duolingo says it is lifting daily use and paid sign-ups [1].

The AI-first debate has not gone away. In 2025 Duolingo launched 148 courses made with generative AI and said it would lean on AI over contractors. Some learners still bring this up when they talk about course quality [6].

What learners are saying

The mood around Duolingo in 2026 is mixed, and it splits along one line: people who use it as a daily habit are mostly happy, people who want to speak are mostly not.

On the positive side, learners keep praising the streak system for getting them to open the app every single day, and many say the free plan is enough to build a base in a new language. Explain My Answer becoming free was widely welcomed.

The most common complaint is energy. In a Duolingo community poll of more than 11,000 users, nearly half said they actively dislike the system [4]. People describe spending more time managing energy than learning, and ads that fail to load when they need a refill.

The second complaint is the gap between tapping and talking. A long streak does not mean you can hold a conversation, and many learners say they only noticed this when they tried to speak for the first time. Video Call moving into Super helps, but it is still short practice inside a course that is mostly tapping.

Is Super worth it?

Super is worth it if you already open Duolingo every day and the energy bar is what stops you. For about the price of a coffee a month on a yearly plan, you get unlimited lessons, no ads and, increasingly, Video Call.

It is not worth it if your real goal is to speak. Super makes Duolingo smoother, but it does not change what Duolingo is: short, tap-first lessons. If speaking is what you are missing, spend the money on an app built around it instead.

How to get the most from free

• Do a little every day. The free plan suits two or three lessons a day, which is also a healthy pace.
• Use the computer for longer sessions. The web version has been more generous than the phone app.
• Build energy with streaks. Correct answers in a row give energy back, so easier review lessons keep you going longer.
• Say every answer out loud. Even without Video Call, reading each sentence aloud turns tapping into speaking practice.

Where Slova fits

If you like learning a little every day but want to actually speak, Slova is worth a look. It builds your lessons around why you are learning, whether that is a job, a move abroad or something you love like anime or football, and every lesson can be done out loud with our AI tutors. The new words from everything you do land in one list and come back for review, so nothing gets lost between sessions.

Conclusion

Duolingo is still free in 2026, and the free plan is still one of the best ways to start a language. You get every course and every lesson, with energy and ads as the price. Super removes those limits and is slowly adding AI speaking practice, while Max is on its way out. If you mainly want a daily habit, free is enough, and cheaper than a paid course like Rosetta Stone. If you want to speak, you will need more than Duolingo alone. Curious about a cheaper app that explains the rules first? See our Airlearn review.

Frequently asked questions

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