Duolingo has spent the past year proving it can sell ads without breaking what makes its app work. Now it's pushing further into rewarded video with a new format that gives free users something they'd otherwise have to pay for.

The company announced Pre-Lesson Energy Sponsorship ahead of Cannes Lions, a format that places a 30-second opt-in video ad at the start of a free user's first daily lesson. Complete the view, and the app unlocks 30 minutes of unlimited Energy, the resource that powers lessons and normally depletes unless you subscribe. An annual Duolingo subscription runs more than $80.

• The format is piloting with Etsy and Universal Pictures.

"This is a new motion for Duolingo. They have never shown an ad before a user gets into a lesson," said Andrew Guendjoian, Duolingo's head of ad sales. "What we are looking to do is build an advertising product that enables the free user experience and helps people learn more, do more, and frankly, have a better experience in the app."

Building on a proven rewarded model

The announcement is the next chapter in an ad program Duolingo launched roughly a year ago, built on a user base that is large, young, and deeply active. The app has 47.7 million daily active users and 128.3 million monthly active users, and 77% of them are under 35, according to the company. It's an attentive user base that is completing lessons, maintaining streaks, and earning rewards from a platform that has made language learning feel like a game. For Duolingo's ad team, that behavioral intensity is the core pitch to marketers struggling to capture attention in an oversaturated digital environment.

Pre-Lesson Energy Sponsorship is a direct extension of what that team learned from its existing rewarded video inventory. Completion rates on those placements top 95%, and click-through rates exceed 5%, more than 50% higher than campaign averages, according to the company.

"The demand for that product far outstripped the demand for our skippable inventory," said Guendjoian, "and this became a natural extension of that to deliver a high-impact moment."

The user data backed the move. Duolingo's internal research found that 89% of learners had seen a rewarded video ad, 40% regularly choose to watch them when given the option, and 65% said the value of the reward influences whether they opt in.

"Users get control of the experience, and they get something of value for their attention," Guendjoian said.

A format the market is ready for

Exchanging attention for user control aligns with what the broader market is telling marketers.

• Some 74.4% of US marketers see rewarded advertising as best suited for enhancing user engagement, according to a July 2025 survey from EMARKETER and Discord.
• 65.0% of US marketers said ad-free time, which is essentially what Duolingo's format delivers, is the most effective reward type.

Pre-Lesson Energy Sponsorship also gives Duolingo something it hasn't had before: a first-impression takeover. The format is a forced-view 30-second placement, runnable as either a brand's own video or a native Duolingo character ad. Those character ads, which use the platform's 10 animated characters, are produced in-house through a collaborative process with brand partners, and they've demonstrated stronger click-through rates and view duration than standard video, according to Guendjoian.

"The cool thing about our character ads is we allow our partners to pixel those the same way they pixel everything else, so they can measure how the character ads perform side by side with their own video," he said.

Closing the awareness gap

Guendjoian said Duolingo renewed all six of its alpha advertising partners from the previous year, a signal the product is working beyond awareness metrics.

The bigger challenge is marketplace visibility.

"Everyone knows Duolingo," said Guendjoian. "People don't know that we have an ad offering as widely as we would like."

The brand's cultural presence, built on viral marketing and a devoted user base, has room to grow with advertiser awareness. Guendjoian said the Pre-Lesson Energy Sponsorship gives the team a flagship format to lead with as they push more aggressively into market.

"We are putting all of the minds that we had developing this delightful experience," he said, "For the industry, I think that's really exciting, because everything looks the same right now."

If the pilot data shows users extending their session length after unlocking unlimited Energy, that outcome matters well beyond ad revenue.

"That 30 minutes of unlimited energy, if we're seeing an extended session length, that's a huge win for our mission of educating people," Guendjoian said.