DUOL vs STNE Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside
DUOL (Duolingo) is the world's largest language learning app with gamified engagement and AI-enhanced premium tiers, while STNE (StoneCo) is a Brazilian fintech providing payment processing and merchant banking to Brazil's SMB market. These companies operate in completely different sectors and geographies, making direct comparison useful primarily as a growth technology screen analysis.
DUOL vs STNE contrasts two high-growth technology businesses — Duolingo's global consumer edtech platform versus StoneCo's Brazilian merchant fintech platform, each with dominant positions in their respective markets.
STNE holds the edge across 4 of 5 key metrics in this comparison. STNE leads on both 1-year return (-39.85%) and forward P/E quality (4.29x vs 20.36x for DUOL), a relatively favorable combination of momentum and valuation. On fundamentals, DUOL is growing revenue faster (18.30%), while STNE maintains the higher operating margin (39.58%) — a classic growth-versus-profitability split. Analyst consensus implies meaningfully more upside for STNE (+50.12%) than for DUOL (-13.67%).
Human Wall Street analysts' price targets, typically implying a ~12-month view — a separate signal from this site's own AI Prediction Signal further down the page, which is a 5-/30-day machine-learning forecast based on price history alone.
- Want the world's largest language learning platform with strong brand, engagement metrics, and AI monetization upside
- Value Duolingo's massive free user base as a funnel for paid subscription conversion and advertising revenue
- See AI conversation practice (Duolingo Max) as expanding what Duolingo can offer and justifying premium subscription pricing
- Want Brazilian fintech exposure through a market leader in SMB payment processing and merchant banking
- Believe Brazil's digital payments and financial services growth runway justifies long-term investment despite currency and credit risk
- See StoneCo's integrated payment-plus-banking platform as a sustainable competitive advantage over single-product competitors
| Metric | DUOL | STNE |
|---|---|---|
| AI scorei | 32.4 | 24.0 |
| AI ranki | #2126 | #3483 |
| Latest closei | $141.90 | $9.53 |
| 1M returni | -2.83% | +0.63% |
| 6M returni | +42.46% | -13.59% |
| 1Y returni | -51.01% | -39.85% |
How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?
| Period | DUOL | STNE |
|---|---|---|
| 1Y ago | $4.9K (-51.0%) started 2025-09-18 | $7.26K (-27.4%) started 2025-09-18 |
| 5Y ago | $7.81K (-21.9%) started 2021-09-20 | $3.44K (-65.6%) started 2021-09-20 |
| 10Y ago | $10.57K (+5.7%) started 2021-07-28 | $4.44K (-55.6%) started 2018-10-25 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Metric | DUOL | STNE |
|---|---|---|
| Market capi | $7.25B | $2.33B |
| Trailing P/Ei | 18.39 | 3.77 |
| Forward P/Ei | 20.36 | 4.29 |
| Price/Salesi | N/A | N/A |
| EV/Revenuei | 5.42 | 0.82 |
| Analyst targeti | $134.29 | $15.18 |
| Target upsidei | -13.67% | +50.12% |
| Metric | DUOL | STNE |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growthi | 18.30% | 1.60% |
| Earnings growthi | -27.50% | -16.60% |
| EPS growthi | -27.50% | -16.60% |
| FCF margini | +26.22% | +52.08% |
| Operating margini | 11.68% | 39.58% |
| Profit margini | 35.88% | 24.71% |
| ROIC proxyi | 34.42% | 33.97% |
| Return on equityi | 34.42% | 33.97% |
| Dividend yieldi | N/A | N/A |
| Payout ratioi | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Dividend growth streaki | N/A | N/A |
| Betai | 0.88 | 1.62 |
| Debt/equityi | 6.11 | 187.68 |
| Current ratioi | 2.72 | 1.26 |
| Quick ratioi | 2.51 | 1.13 |
Over the past year, DUOL and STNE have moved barely in the same direction (correlation of 0.12), based on daily returns.
Lower drawdown and smaller single-period drops generally indicate a smoother ride, though they do not guarantee lower future risk.
| Period | Metric | DUOL | STNE |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Y | Growthi | -51.01% | -39.85% |
| CAGRi | -51.04% | -39.88% | |
| Volatilityi | 63.22% | 48.97% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | -0.87 | -0.88 | |
| Sortino ratioi | -1.11 | -1.13 | |
| Max drawdowni | 74.07% | 43.27% | |
| Current drawdowni | 59.14% | 40.72% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 53.95% | 24.03% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 57.71% | 26.45% | |
| Max daily dropi | 25.49% | 19.38% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 28.24% | 19.61% | |
| 5Y | Growthi | -21.90% | -71.48% |
| CAGRi | -4.83% | -22.22% | |
| Volatilityi | 65.76% | 64.70% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.18 | -0.13 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.27 | -0.19 | |
| Max drawdowni | 83.35% | 82.10% | |
| Current drawdowni | 73.76% | 71.48% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 38.71% | 66.48% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 45.96% | 67.55% | |
| Max daily dropi | 25.49% | 34.62% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 31.98% | 45.67% | |
| 10Y | Growthi | +5.69% | -63.20% |
| CAGRi | +1.08% | -11.89% | |
| Volatilityi | 66.05% | 66.59% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.28 | 0.07 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.41 | 0.11 | |
| Max drawdowni | 83.35% | 92.31% | |
| Current drawdowni | 73.76% | 87.74% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 37.78% | 62.01% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 45.32% | 70.07% | |
| Max daily dropi | 25.49% | 34.62% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 31.98% | 45.67% |
| Category | DUOL | STNE |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Duolingo, Inc. | StoneCo Ltd. |
| Sector | Technology | Technology |
| Industry | Software - Application | Software - Infrastructure |
| Core business | Duolingo is the world's most downloaded educational app, offering gamified language learning lessons in 40+ languages through a freemium model with a premium Duolingo Plus subscription removing ads and adding features, monetizing a community of hundreds of millions of learners. | StoneCo is a leading Brazilian financial technology company providing payment processing, banking services (lending, prepaid cards), and business management software to small and medium-sized merchants in Brazil. |
| Investor focus | Investors track Duolingo's daily active users (DAUs), subscriber conversion rate and paid subscriber count, ARPU growth, and AI-driven product development (Duolingo Max) as the premium tier adding conversation practice with AI. | Investors track StoneCo's active payment client growth, revenue per client, credit portfolio quality (particularly after 2021 credit losses), and the integration of its banking and software services as it builds a comprehensive merchant financial services platform. |
- World's largest language learning platform with extraordinary brand recognition — Duolingo's owl mascot has become a pop culture icon driving organic user growth
- Highly engaging gamified learning creates habitual daily use that generates advertising and subscription revenue
- AI and LLMs (Duolingo Max) enable conversational practice at scale without human tutors, dramatically expanding what Duolingo can offer premium subscribers
- Strong market position in Brazilian payment processing serving the massive SMB segment that larger financial institutions historically underserved
- Banking services (working capital loans, deposit accounts) expand the revenue opportunity per merchant customer significantly beyond payment processing fees
- Brazil's large, underpenetrated financial services market provides significant growth runway as digital payments and merchant banking expand
- The core freemium model provides language awareness but not fluency — Duolingo is best for beginners and casual learners, with limitations for serious language acquisition goals
- Competition from AI conversation tools (ChatGPT voice mode, AI tutors) that provide more sophisticated conversation practice than app-based learning
- Monetizing a large base of free users through advertising faces challenges given learner sessions are often short
- StoneCo experienced significant credit losses in 2021 from its SMB lending book as COVID-era economic stress hurt merchant clients — managing credit quality is an ongoing priority
- Competition from Cielo, PagSeguro (PagBank), and banks expanding digital merchant services in Brazil
- Brazilian economic and currency volatility affects both merchant activity levels and StoneCo's financial performance when reported in USD
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