# Converly Aiolum story: https://aiolum.com/story/converly/ · added 2026-10-27 · updated 2026-10-27 **In short.** Converly (iPhone app for spoken role-play conversations with AI tutors in 25 languages, France (not stated directly: the privacy policy names France's data regulator, the CNIL, and the most App Store ratings come from France)): US$2.4K MRR verified through RevenueCat, October 2026. Evidence grade A: disclosed by a company or a filing, or verified by a payment processor. Team: 1 named founder, Rémi Cassan, who sells the app under their own name and is the data controller in its privacy policy; headcount not published. Launched 17 June 2025; still running, revenue flat. iPhone app for spoken role-play conversations with AI tutors in 25 languages · France (not stated directly: the privacy policy names France's data regulator, the CNIL, and the most App Store ratings come from France) · AI-native · solo founder · still running, revenue flat · group: Learning and study - Outcome: US$2.4K MRR verified through RevenueCat, October 2026 (evidence grade of the headline number: A; headline in US dollars: 28596) - Launch: 17 June 2025; months from launch to the outcome: 16 - Team: 1 named founder, Rémi Cassan, who sells the app under their own name and is the data controller in its privacy policy; headcount not published - Outside funding: None reported - Main factor: Packaging - Meters, 1 to 4: evidence strength 3, copyable pattern 2, capital needed 1 - Tags: AI-native, Solo founder, Bootstrapped, Running, B2C, Education **The product.** An iPhone and iPad app in which a learner practices a foreign language by acting out a situation, called a scenario, with an AI that speaks like a native speaker. The learner picks a scenario from a list or writes a new one. The learner speaks or types, and the AI answers by voice, corrects mistakes and adapts to the learner's level. A list of popular scenarios guides beginners, and the app reviews useful words afterwards. It covers 25 languages, from French and Japanese to Hindi and Vietnamese. Some scenarios and features need a subscription; the App Store lists ten price options, from US$6.99 a week to US$89.99 for 12 months. **Why it worked.** Learners who study alone rarely get to speak, and a conversation partner who never gets tired and can play any role fills that gap. The founder packaged the AI conversation as role-play scenarios, which tell a beginner what to say and give each session a goal, and offered it in 25 languages from one app. Most ratings come from France, then the United States, Mexico and Brazil. Evidence grades: A = disclosed by a public company, a filing or a payment processor, or verified by one; B = two or more independent reports agree, or a journalist confirmed it; C = a founder claim that no one else verified; D = reported, not verified: one founder claim or a third-party estimate with no second source; calc = computed on this page from graded facts. ## Summary Converly is a language-learning app built around role-play: the learner and the AI each take a part in an everyday situation, such as a customer and a waiter, and hold a conversation in the language the learner studies. The App Store page says the AI "feels like a native speaker" and "adapts to your pace and skill level", and that "All scenarios are possible!", because the learner can also write a new situation. The app's privacy policy, updated on 9 October 2026, names the providers. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, "generates conversational responses, corrections, and synthesized speech", that is, the replies and the voice that reads them aloud. Apple's speech recognition service, which turns spoken audio into text, transcribes what the learner says. The App Store lists Remi Cassan as developer and seller, the copyright line reads "Rémi Cassan", and the privacy policy names Rémi Cassan as the data controller, the person legally responsible for the users' data. The app was released on 17 June 2025, and the developer account has one other app, a scale-guessing game. On 1 October 2026 the app had monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the subscription income that repeats every month, of US$2,383 from 171 active subscriptions, and US$2,345 of revenue in the last 28 days. At that MRR the app earns about US$28,600 a year. These figures are grade A. They come from whatsthe.app, a marketplace for mobile apps that reads them from RevenueCat, a service that records App Store subscription payments for app makers, and that writes "All data is verified through RevenueCat". No second source gives a dated figure, and the MRR is only about 19% above this site's floor of US$2,000 a month. The page also shows four earlier companies that sold English or language practice with human teachers, or free online courses, and failed. ## Pricing Converly prices on the US App Store in October 2026, from the in-app purchase list (grade B) | Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit | |---|---|---|---| | 12-month plan | 7.50 | | US$89.99 for 12 months | | Yearly Special Offer | 5.83 | | US$69.99 a year | | Yearly Premium | 4.17 | | US$49.99 a year | | 3-month plan | | | US$44.99 for 3 months | | 3-Month Discount | | | US$29.99 for 3 months | | Free Trial Monthly | | 17.99 | monthly plan with a free trial | | Monthly Premium | | 12.99 | monthly plan | | Monthly Fallback Offer | | 8.99 | lower monthly price | | Free Trial Weekly | | | US$6.99 a week, with a free trial | | Free 3-day trial | | | US$69.99 after a 3-day trial; period not named | The App Store lists ten in-app purchases under the names shown here and does not say which buyer sees which price. Names such as "Fallback Offer", "Special Offer" and "Discount" suggest prices shown to some users only, for example after they close the first payment screen. "Free 3-day trial" at US$69.99 does not name its period. Calculated per month: US$89.99 for 12 months is US$7.50; US$69.99 a year is US$5.83; US$49.99 a year is US$4.17; US$44.99 for 3 months is US$15.00; US$29.99 for 3 months is US$10.00; US$6.99 a week is about US$30.29. ## How much revenue does Converly make? The numbers, graded US$2,383 of monthly recurring revenue on 1 October 2026, 16 months after the App Store release, read from RevenueCat | Fact | Value | Grade | Note | Sources | |---|---|---|---|---| | Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), 1 October 2026 | US$2,383 from 171 active subscriptions | A | whatsthe.app: "All data is verified through RevenueCat. Last updated: Oct 1, 2026". Calculated: US$13.94 per subscription per month, and US$28,596 a year at that rate; whatsthe.app shows an ARR of US$28,593. | [1] | | Revenue in the last 28 days, to 1 October 2026 | US$2,345 | A | whatsthe.app, from RevenueCat. Calculated: US$28,140 a year at that rate. | [1] | | Change in the last 28 days | MRR down 0.4%, subscriptions unchanged | A | whatsthe.app growth figures for the 28 days to 1 October 2026. No source gives monthly revenue for earlier months. | [1] | | Trials and customers, 28 days to 1 October 2026 | 106 active trials, 5,849 active customers, 3,926 new customers, about 3,900 downloads | A | whatsthe.app, from RevenueCat. Calculated: 171 paid subscriptions out of 5,849 active customers is 2.9%, and 171 out of 277 subscriptions with trials is 61.7%, the two shares that whatsthe.app shows as subscription penetration and paid subscriber share. | [1] | | Release on the App Store | 17 June 2025 | B | whatsthe.app gives the worldwide release date. The App Store version history shows the last 25 versions, from 1.3.1 on 10 July 2025 to 2.0.1 on 12 October 2026. | [1, 2] | | Founder and seller | Rémi Cassan, developer account in their own name | B | The App Store lists "Remi Cassan" as developer and seller, with "Copyright © Rémi Cassan". The privacy policy: "The data controller for Converly is: Rémi Cassan". whatsthe.app shows the owner as "Remi". | [2, 4, 1] | | Other apps on the developer account | Guess Size - Scale Game | B | App Store developer page; a game in which the player guesses the real-world size of objects. | [3] | | Team at the October 2026 figure | 1 named person; headcount not published | C | No source names another person or gives a headcount. The App Store description and the privacy policy write in the plural ("we're building", "We rely on a small number of providers"). | [2, 4] | | Funding | none reported | C | No source mentions investors. | [1, 2] | | AI providers | OpenAI for replies, corrections and the spoken voice; Apple for speech recognition | C | Privacy policy: OpenAI "generates conversational responses, corrections, and synthesized speech", reached "through our own secure server"; "audio may be sent to Apple's speech recognition service to be transcribed". No source names the OpenAI model. | [4] | | User data | no accounts; conversations stored on the phone | C | Privacy policy: "Converly does not require an account", and conversation history and progress "are stored locally on your device, in encrypted form". Usage data goes to Amplitude, an analytics service, hosted in the European Union. | [4] | | Languages | 25 languages to practice; app interface in 6 languages | B | App Store description lists French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Malay. The interface is in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. | [2] | | App Store ratings | 158 ratings in the US with an average of 4.3; 887 ratings in 16 countries with an average of 4.5 | B | US App Store page, 27 October 2026, and whatsthe.app's count by country on 1 October 2026: France 302, United States 148, Mexico 119, Brazil 84, Canada 54. Calculated: France gives 34.0% of all ratings. The age rating is 4+; the privacy policy says the app "is not directed at children under 13". | [2, 1, 4] | | Updates | 25 versions in 15 months; none from 26 August 2025 to 9 January 2026 | B | App Store version history. Version 1.6.0 on 18 April 2026 added "A new method to make learning a language even easier"; version 2.0.0 on 25 September 2026 says "Amélioration de l'app" (translation: improvement of the app). | [2] | | Time from store release to the October 2026 figure | 16 months | calc | Calculated: June 2025 to October 2026. | [1] | How to read this table: a grade A value was read from the app's RevenueCat account by whatsthe.app. A grade B value is a record that Apple shows on the App Store. A grade C value comes from the app's own privacy policy or support page. A "calc" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. ## When did Converly launch, and how did it grow? Timeline From an App Store release in June 2025 to about US$2,400 of monthly recurring revenue in October 2026. Each entry carries its grade. - **17 June 2025** (grade B [1]): Converly is released worldwide on the App Store. - **10 July to 26 August 2025** (grade B [2]): Seven updates. From 30 July the release notes say "Over 25 languages to learn" and "New, even more fun scenarios to discover". - **26 August 2025 to 9 January 2026** (grade B [2]): No updates for four and a half months. - **January to March 2026** (grade B [2]): Seven updates from 9 January to 14 March, six of them bug fixes; version 1.5.1 on 29 January brings new App Store screenshots. - **18 April 2026** (grade B [2]): Version 1.6.0: "A new method to make learning a language even easier". Version 1.6.1 on 25 April adds "New features to help learn faster". - **July and August 2026** (grade B [2]): Six bug-fix updates. - **25 September 2026** (grade B [2]): Version 2.0.0, with the release note in French. - **1 October 2026** (grade A [1]): whatsthe.app reads MRR of US$2,383 from 171 active subscriptions, 106 active trials and US$2,345 of revenue in 28 days from RevenueCat. - **9 October 2026** (grade C [4]): The privacy policy is updated and names OpenAI, Apple, Amplitude and RevenueCat as providers. - **12 October 2026** (grade B [2]): Version 2.0.1, a bug fix. ## Why did Converly work? ### A conversation with a goal An open chat with an AI leaves a beginner without anything to say. A scenario gives the learner a role, a place and a task, and the AI plays the other person. The App Store page lists popular scenarios for guided practice and lets the learner write new ones. ### One app for 25 languages The same scenarios work in every language that the model speaks, so one developer can offer French, Japanese, Hindi and 22 more languages without writing a course for each. The ratings come from 16 countries, with France first. ### Rented models, local data OpenAI writes the replies, corrects the learner and produces the voice; Apple's speech recognition transcribes the learner's speech. The app has no accounts and keeps conversations on the phone, and the privacy policy says that requests reach OpenAI "through our own secure server" and that the developer keeps no "server-side user profiles". ### Many prices for the same subscription The App Store lists ten purchase options, from US$6.99 a week to US$89.99 for 12 months, including a "Monthly Fallback Offer" at US$8.99. On 1 October 2026, 106 of the 277 subscriptions were still in a free trial. ## How it was built These details come from the app's privacy policy (grade C) and the App Store records (grade B). No source describes the code or the cost of the models. - An iPhone and iPad app that also runs on Macs with Apple chips; the App Store lists audio data and other user content as collected and not linked to the user. - OpenAI generates the conversation replies, the corrections and the synthesized speech; requests go through the developer's own server, so the API keys are not inside the app. - Apple's speech recognition service transcribes the learner's speech. - RevenueCat manages the App Store subscriptions; Amplitude records usage in the European Union. - No user accounts: conversation history, progress and preferences are stored on the phone in encrypted form. - Support runs through a contact form on a Webflow site, and the privacy policy is a Notion page. Sources: [4, 2, 5] ## Who tried this before Converly, and why did they fail? Four companies in the Loot Drop database sold language practice with human teachers, in classrooms or by video, or free online language courses, and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified. The failed startups come from Loot Drop (https://www.loot-drop.io/), a free database of dead startups, retold here in our own words; Loot Drop describes its entries as AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so they carry no evidence grade. ### VIPKid (2013 to 2021; funding US$1.1B; cause: Legal/Regulatory) - Promise: One-on-one online English lessons for Chinese children with North American teachers over video. - Why it died: China's 2021 rules banned foreign tutors and curriculum for school subjects, which ended its business model, according to the database. Every lesson needed a paid teacher. - Record: https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2522-vipkid ### DaDaABC (2013 to 2021; funding US$863M; cause: Legal/Regulatory) - Promise: One-on-one video lessons that connected Chinese children with native English tutors. - Why it died: The 2021 rules on for-profit tutoring made the business model illegal in China, according to the database. - Record: https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2551-dadaabc ### Meten EdtechX (2006 to 2024; funding US$600M; cause: Unit Economics) - Promise: Face-to-face English schools for Chinese professionals, at a high premium over apps. - Why it died: The cost of finding each student and running the schools was higher than what students paid; COVID and new rules ended it, according to the database. - Record: https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2353-meten-edtechx ### Hujiang (2001 to 2021; funding US$187M; cause: Unit Economics) - Promise: A large online platform for language learning and school courses, free to start. - Why it died: Most of its millions of registered users never paid, and those who paid did not cover the cost of acquiring them, according to the database. - Record: https://www.loot-drop.io/startup/2556-hujiang ## What changed VIPKid, DaDaABC and Meten EdtechX sold speaking practice with paid teachers, and together they raised more than US$2.5 billion. Each conversation needed a teacher's time, and the teachers had to speak the learner's target language, so each company covered mainly one language and one market. Hujiang went the other way, with free courses for millions of users, and most of those users never paid. Converly replaces the teacher with a rented model. The same app runs conversations in 25 languages, one person sells it, and the AI that plays the other person is rented from OpenAI instead of paid by the hour like a teacher. The limit of the method is visible in its numbers: on 1 October 2026 only 2.9% of the app's active customers paid, and many other apps on the App Store sell AI conversation practice too. ## Can one person copy Converly now? **Verdict: Yes, with modest results to expect.** One person built and runs an app that uses OpenAI for the conversation and Apple for speech recognition, with no user accounts and no user profiles on a server. The result is a small, steady income, about US$2,400 a month, in a category with many competitors. The work that the sources show is constant small updates and many price options, not a new technology. 1. Package an AI conversation as scenarios with a role and a goal, so that a beginner knows what to say. 2. Offer every language the model speaks, and translate the interface into the languages of your largest markets. 3. Keep user data on the phone and call the model through your own small server, so that the API keys stay out of the app. 4. Test several prices and offers in the App Store, and record payments in a service such as RevenueCat to see which ones convert. **What is still open.** Scenario practice for one profession in one language, for example nurses who must pass a language test to work abroad, or for one exam's speaking section, where learners pay more for a narrow goal. ## What could go wrong for Converly? - **A small margin above the floor.** The MRR of US$2,383 on 1 October 2026 is about 19% above this site's floor of US$2,000 a month, and it fell 0.4% in the 28 days before. The figure comes from one source, whatsthe.app, which reads it from RevenueCat; no source gives the revenue of earlier months. - **Many prices that the buyer does not see together.** The App Store lists ten purchase options for the same subscription, from US$6.99 a week to US$89.99 for 12 months, with names such as "Monthly Fallback Offer" and "Yearly Special Offer". The sources do not say which users see which price. - **Dependence on OpenAI.** OpenAI generates the replies, the corrections and the voice. A price change or an outage at OpenAI changes the app's costs or stops it. The privacy policy says OpenAI keeps conversation content for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring and does not use it to train its models. - **User-written scenarios in an app rated 4+.** The App Store page says "All scenarios are possible!" because users can write their own situations, and the app is rated 4+, while the privacy policy says it "is not directed at children under 13". No source describes limits on what a user-written scenario may contain. - **Many apps sell the same practice.** The App Store page recommends ten similar apps, among them LingoLooper, ISSEN - Voice Tutor, Vocha and Talkio Now. All of them can rent the same models. ## Sources 1. whatsthe.app listing: Converly, read 27 October 2026 — https://www.whatsthe.app/converly (grade A). Read in full, including the data embedded in the page. Revenue, MRR, subscriptions, trials, customers and downloads are "verified through RevenueCat", last updated 1 October 2026; the release date, the owner name and the ratings by country are shown by the listing. The site's robots.txt allows this path. 2. Apple App Store: Converly - Language Learning, US storefront, read 27 October 2026 — https://apps.apple.com/us/app/converly-language-learning/id6745767154 (grade B). Read in full, including the version history in the page data: description, languages, ratings, age rating, privacy section, seller, copyright line, in-app purchases and similar apps. 3. Apple App Store: developer page of Remi Cassan, read 27 October 2026 — https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/remi-cassan/id1813775798 (grade B). Read in full. The account lists two apps, Converly and Guess Size - Scale Game. 4. Converly privacy policy, last updated 9 October 2026 — https://capable-silicon-6f3.notion.site/Politique-de-confidentialit-1f10725bd9c7809eb7ece6b1960d1819 (grade C). Read in full through Notion's public page-data endpoint, because the page text loads by script; the host's robots.txt allows all paths. Linked from the App Store page. Source for the AI providers, the analytics service, the data storage, the children clause and the data controller. 5. Converly support page — https://converly-assistance.webflow.io/ (grade C). Read in full. Linked from the App Store page as Support; a contact form only. The host's robots.txt is empty. 6. Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startups — https://www.loot-drop.io/ (grade C). Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.