Price: Mondly vs Duolingo
Duolingo charges nothing for its courses. Super Duolingo removes ads and limits on energy. The US App Store lists Super at $9.99 and $12.99 and at $83.99, $95.99 and $119.99 without labelling the billing period. Duolingo tests prices, so the store shows several Super items at once.
Mondly costs $15.90 a month or $74.90 a year in the US App Store. The free version gives Daily Lessons, the Hello category and one chatbot lesson. A 7-day free trial opens everything and then bills the chosen plan.
On a paid yearly plan Mondly costs less than Super Duolingo. Duolingo’s free plan opens whole courses.
Method: topic lessons or a daily game
Mondly builds lessons around 40 practical topics with pictures, audio and text. It shows examples first and rules later, adds grammar notes and conjugation tables, and repeats words with spaced review. Courses run from beginner to upper-intermediate, A1 to B2.
Duolingo builds lessons as a game. The free plan limits energy, streaks count days in a row, and leaderboards rank learners each week.
Speaking practice and AI
Mondly’s chatbot listens through speech recognition and shows what you said. One chatbot lesson is free, the rest need Premium. Mondly VR adds spoken conversations in virtual reality in 30 languages.
Duolingo Max adds Roleplay and Video Call with Lily, an AI character, for English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Portuguese. Max works only in the iOS and Android apps, and Duolingo does not publish its price on the web. Neither app offers human tutors to individual learners.
Reviews and billing complaints
Both apps hold 4.7 on the US App Store: Duolingo from 5.5 million ratings, Mondly from 33,000. Both score low on Trustpilot: Mondly 2.5 from 782 reviews, Duolingo 1.6 from 8,166. Most Mondly complaints there concern charges after the 7-day free trial and slow support.
