“We figured out how to get people to pay — a smaller number — but now we're looking at how do we expand this to many many more people including people using it for free. Our paid penetration is 17% versus Duolingo's 8% — which means we can probably have a lot more people using the product for free.”

Prove Willingness to Pay First, Then Build the Freemium Funnel Around It

Opal deliberately reversed the typical freemium trajectory: instead of building free usage first and monetizing later, they proved payment willingness before opening the funnel wider. With 17% paid penetration and a clear conversion baseline, the move to freemium is a deliberate growth expansion from a profitable position — not a leap of faith.