i analyzed onboarding of 9 top-grossing iOS language apps; some lessons learnt

inspiration for this post came from u/Curious-Leader-9111, they're refactoring their lang learning app from a single dense onboarding screen into several one-question-per-screen steps, after funnel data showed users dropping at the very first question, i thought this kind of problem many of us could face, so i tried to look into other apps from this cateogry and find insights
i looked at 9 top-grossing language apps

tl;dr: more screens is the right call, the median top-grossing language app uses about 20 onboarding screens, and not one of them crams it into a single screen. But the number of screens isn't what stops the drop-off. Every one of these apps makes the first question a single tap that needs no typing and no personal info just "which language?". If your first question asks for anything heavier than that, splitting your screen up only moves the drop-off onto its own screen instead of removing it.

the benchmark -

onboarding screen counts, revenue-ranked:

1. Duolingo ($39M/mo) - 32 screens
2. Learna ($5M/mo) - 20 screens
3. Babbel ($3M/mo) - 22 screens
4. Praktika ($1M/mo) - 43 screens
5. Pimsleur ($1M/mo) - 12 screens
6. ELSA Speak ($600K/mo) - 18 screens
7. Pingo AI ($600K/mo) - 17 screens
8. Gizmo ($300K/mo) - 11 screens
9. BetterSpeak ($200K/mo) - 21 screens

Median ≈ 20, and none of them use a single consolidated question screen.

looked at 6 flows in detail out of the 9, 5 opened with the same question: pick a language.
pingo → language selection, screen 2 of 17
praktika → learning language, screen 3 of 43
babbel → target language, screen 4 of 22
duolingo → language selection, screen 5 of 32
betterspeak → native language, screen 6 of 21

question 1 is always the cheapest one available: one tap, no typing, about the subject and not the user. for a language app that's obviously 'which language' the point is what they don't open with: goals, level, motivation, name, email. all of those get pushed back.

praktika runs the longest flow in the set and still doesn't ask for a name until screen 7 and never asks for email during onboarding at all.

ELSA is the only flow that breaks the pattern, front-loading 4 auth screens before any personalization.

splitting into more screens only fixes the drop-off if question 1 also changes, if your first question needs thought, disclosure, or a keyboard, splitting just moves the drop-off onto that screen instead of removing it. Replace it with the cheapest, most obviously-necessary tap in your product and push everything else back.

goes without saying please take this research as reference or baseline and always dyor and eventually a/b test

u/Curious-Leader-9111 hope this helps, would like to learn from your experience once you roll out the changes to your users, nothing beats live behavior from real users
and if anyone here has actually a/b'd long vs short onboarding on similar apps (or ones mentioned :D), i'd like to know what works better -> whether the no. of screens vs what you asked first