Babbel subscription – learning languages via app

Profile:

• Company name: Lesson Nine GmbH
• Industry: Education
  
• Formation:  2007
• Founders:  Markus Witte, Lorenz Heine, Thomas Holl, Toine Diepstraten
• Location: Berlin
• Number of employees: 439 (2018)
  
• Turnover: €106.4 million (2018)
• Investors: not specified
  
• Total funding amount: not known
• Subscription-based model since: Start
• Offering structure: Online app with Babbel subscription to learn languages
  
• Product cost:

  Per selected language in Babbel subscription:

  1 month 9,95€/month (monthly billing)

  3 months 6,65€/month (quarterly billing)

  6 months 5,55€/month (half-yearly billing)

  12 months 4,95€/month (annual billing)

Languages via app – the Babbel learning platform has been offering its users this option since 2007. Its promise: Speak your new language the way you’ve always wanted to. Millions of users are convinced by the method. Numerous awards attest to the course of Lesson Nine GmbH. The company was named the most innovative company in the education sector in 2016, for example. The Babbel subscription is not limited to learning via web and app. Since 2019, the subscription company has also been offering language travel with its “Babbel Travel” product and cooperates with more than 200 language schools in over 30 countries.

 

Success with the Babbel App

Lesson Nine GmbH was founded in August 2007. The language app Babbel went online as a free beta version in January 2008. Investors at the beginning were Kizoo Technology Ventures and IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft as well as an EU fund. In 2013, Babbel bought the US company PlaySay from San Francisco and received further financing from Reed Elsevier Ventures. Meanwhile, the Babbel subscription has one million paying customers, making it the world’s most successful language learning app. Babbel’s offices are in Berlin and New York and a total of 750 employees from over 50 nations work on the success of the learning platform. 

The Babbel Languages Subscription 

Registration on the e-learning platform is free of charge. Currently 14 languages are offered: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Indonesian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. The first lesson of each language course can be tested free of charge. For full access, fees then apply, which can be taken out in the subscription for 1,3, 6 or 12 months. It is also possible to subscribe to Babbel for multiple languages. According to Babbel, you can learn the basics of a language well in about three weeks if you practice a little every day. 

Access is possible both via the website and via the Babbel app for smartphone, tablet and Apple Watch. You can access your booked online language course at any time from all registered devices and continue learning at any time. The individual learning units are so short (10 to 15 minutes) that they can be easily integrated into everyday life. 

In addition, Babbel offers the online Babbel Magazine free of charge with valuable tips and tricks.

Learn languages at a professional level with Babbel Subscription

The courses and learning content are individually created by a professional team of linguists and teachers. Babbel places particular emphasis on the specific prerequisites that the respective learners bring with them. When teaching grammar and vocabulary, the similarities between the user’s learning language and native language are taken into account. To this end, the audio examples and dialogues are spoken and recorded by real native speakers. The integrated speech recognition system also allows users to improve their pronunciation themselves. All four language skills – reading, writing, listening comprehension and speaking – are taught.

The learning effectiveness of the Babbel app has already been confirmed several times in studies. The success is also reflected in the fact that most users learn with the app for more than twelve months. The short lessons and useful topics ensure that learners remain motivated.  

Babbel’s goal: making language learning easy

Since 2019, Babbel has been expanding its offer to make language learning easy with an online portal for language travel. Customers can book complete packages consisting of language courses and accommodation on Babbel Travel. The independent language schools optionally offer additional sports or cultural activities on site. All customers receive a six-month language subscription for the Babbel app to help them prepare for and follow up on their language travel.

With this step, Babbel is further expanding its position as the first point of contact for language learners, thus creating the link between the app and language travel.

Babbel continues to grow

The Berlin language learning service was again able to make good gains in 2018. Turnover rose from around 84 to 106.4 million euros. “On the whole, Babbel is benefiting from the increasing importance of subscription-based business models in the online sector, which is also reflected in our growth rate: In the past financial year, we achieved revenue growth of 27% compared to the same period of the previous year,” the company informs in its annual financial statements for 2018.