Finance education app
The Duolingo for finance: why Basis is the best app to learn finance
Duolingo showed that five minutes a day, a streak and a little friendly competition can teach millions of people a language. Basis applies the same method to finance and investing, and then goes further, with a daily market game built on real financial history and a curriculum that reaches the depth of an analyst interview.
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Is there a Duolingo for finance?
Yes. Basis is a finance education app that uses the methods behind Duolingo, including five-minute lessons, streaks, XP, a daily goal, weekly leaderboards and spaced review, to teach finance and investing, from what a share is to how analysts value a company.
People have searched for a "Duolingo for finance" for years because the subject suffers from the problem language learning once had. The material is widely available in textbooks, video courses and articles, but most learners lose momentum within a few weeks. What they lack is not information but a format that makes daily progress feel small, rewarding and cumulative, which is precisely what Duolingo solved for languages and what Basis sets out to solve for finance.
Why the Duolingo method works for finance
Finance is, in one important respect, more suited to the Duolingo method than languages are. Its concepts are tightly stacked: free cash flow makes no sense without the income statement, a DCF makes no sense without free cash flow and the cost of capital, and the yield curve makes no sense without bonds and interest rates. A learner who misses one layer struggles with everything above it, so a format that moves forward in small, sequenced steps and returns to earlier material before it fades is unusually valuable.
The second reason is consistency. Research on learning has long shown that spaced, repeated practice produces more durable memory than occasional intensive study, and a daily habit is the most practical way to achieve that spacing. Streaks, daily goals and leaderboards are not decoration; they are the mechanism that keeps a learner returning on the days when motivation is low, which is when most self-directed study ends.
Basis and Duolingo, feature by feature
The table below sets out how each element of the Duolingo approach appears in Basis, and what it has been adapted to do for finance.
| Duolingo approach | How it appears in Basis |
|---|---|
| Bite-sized lessons | Five-minute lessons that teach a single concept, then test it with a short quiz and plain-English explanations |
| XP and a daily goal | 10 XP for every correct answer, with a daily goal of 10, 20 or 30 XP that you choose |
| Streaks and streak freezes | A daily streak, with up to three freezes earned at seven-day milestones to protect a missed day |
| Leagues and leaderboards | A weekly XP leaderboard and a weekly P&L leaderboard for The Floor, both resetting every Monday |
| Placement test | An onboarding quiz that places you at the right level and reorders tracks around your interests |
| Practice and review | Spaced review of earlier lessons, track quizzes, an acronym drill and finance-knowledge questions |
| Friends and following | Friends, plus societies with their own leaderboards for university finance clubs and study groups |
| A mascot | Bax the fox, who celebrates progress and notices when a streak is at risk |
| Levels | A career ladder from Intern to Analyst, Associate, Vice President and Managing Director |
Seven ways Basis goes further than a Duolingo for finance
Copying a habit loop is the easy part. The arguments below explain why Basis is, in our view, the best finance education app for anyone who wants real understanding rather than a collection of definitions.
Every lesson teaches before it tests
Many quiz-based apps ask questions first and explain afterwards, which works for vocabulary but not for ideas such as duration, enterprise value or the Greeks. Every Basis lesson opens with teaching sections that cover everything its questions will ask, and the content is checked so that no question tests something the lesson has not explained.
The Floor: learn investing by making real decisions
The Floor is a daily market game in which you run a $100,000 virtual book through five decisions, each drawn from a real episode of market history, from the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management to the UK gilt crisis and the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. Before each call you choose how much to stake, between 5% and 50% of your book, so you learn position sizing and risk management as well as direction. When the session closes, you see what actually happened and why.
A curriculum that reaches professional depth
Basis covers 11 tracks and nearly 100 lessons: markets and instruments, corporate finance, macroeconomics and monetary policy, investment management, fixed income, credit, derivatives, financial statement analysis, private equity and ESG. Beginners start with what a share is; by the later tracks the subjects include DCF valuation, LBO mechanics, convexity and option Greeks.
A path into a finance career
The optional Career Accelerator turns the same daily format into preparation for investment banking, private equity and other front-office interviews. Its 21 lessons cover how the three statements link, valuation, DCF, LBOs, M&A, leveraged finance, restructuring and a full mock interview round, with a repeatable drill of 84 technical questions.
Fair competition that measures judgement
Every user in the world receives the same five Floor decisions on a given day, and results are verified on the server rather than trusted from the phone. A place on the weekly leaderboard therefore reflects the quality of your decisions, not luck or the number of hours played.
Built for learning together
University finance societies, investment clubs and study groups can create their own group with a private leaderboard and compete against other groups, which turns individual study into a shared activity and gives societies a ready-made way to train new members.
Free, private and available on the web
The full core curriculum, The Floor, practice modes and leaderboards are free, with no advertisements and no account needed to begin. Lessons and the daily market game also run in the browser at basisfinance.app, with progress shared with the app once you sign in.
Try a decision from The Floor
This is one of the 52 decisions in The Floor. Choose an answer, decide how much of the $100,000 book to stake, and see how the call would have played out.
A new UK government announces large unfunded tax cuts and long-dated gilt yields jump at record speed. UK pension funds running LDI strategies hold leveraged gilt positions that use gilts as collateral, and falling prices are triggering collateral calls they can only meet by selling more gilts.
What kind of dynamic is this, and how does it usually end?
When the asset being sold is the collateral behind the position, falling prices force sales that push prices down further. After the September 2022 mini-budget, 30-year gilt yields rose more than 100 basis points in days, and on 28 September the Bank of England announced emergency gilt purchases to halt the spiral.
In the app, a session is five decisions like this one, the last two harder than the first three, with a bonus for three correct calls in a row and a margin call if your book falls below $25,000.
How Basis compares with other ways to learn finance
The best way to learn finance depends on your goal, but the criteria that matter most are consistent: a structured path, teaching before testing, practice on real markets, enough depth to be useful professionally, and a format you will actually keep using.
| Criterion | Basis | Video course platforms | Investing apps' learn sections | Generic quiz apps | Videos and articles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Structured path from basics to depth | Yes | Yes | Basics only | Varies | No |
| Teaches before testing | Yes | Yes | Partly | Rarely | No testing |
| Practice on real market history | Daily | Case studies | Rarely | No | No |
| Position sizing and risk practice | Yes | Rarely | Real money | No | No |
| Daily habit mechanics | Yes | Rarely | Some | Some | No |
| Interview preparation | Pro track | Often | No | Varies | Scattered |
| Time per session | 5 minutes | 20–60 minutes | 5–10 minutes | 5 minutes | Varies |
| Cost | Free core | Usually paid | Free | Free or paid | Free |
Assessments describe typical products in each category rather than any individual provider.
Video courses remain the most thorough option for learners who can set aside an hour at a time, and Basis works well alongside them. For most people, however, the obstacle is not the quality of the material but the consistency of the habit, and that is where a Duolingo-style finance app has the advantage.
Who Basis is for
- Complete beginners who want to understand markets, read financial news with confidence and learn how investing works.
- Students of finance, economics and business who want a daily companion to their modules; some learners use it as pre-reading before lectures.
- Aspiring investors who want to practise judgement and risk management before committing real money.
- Front-office applicants preparing for technical questions in investment banking, private equity and asset management interviews.
- Finance societies and investment clubs looking for a shared way to train members and run friendly competitions.
What learners say
"The app makes learning finance easy by making it fun, interactive and enjoyable. It really reduces friction and keeps you coming back every day and makes it a habit."
"I am currently using Basis for the first time as a pre-reading companion before lectures because it helps me to understand the content featured in the app."
"Even starting from scratch, you progress quickly without ever feeling lost. The content is educational, interesting, and motivating all at once."
What Basis is not
Basis is a finance education app, not a brokerage or an investment adviser. The Floor uses a virtual book, so no real money is involved, and nothing in the app is a recommendation to buy or sell any investment. Basis is currently available in English, on iPhone and iPad through the App Store, and on any device through the web app.
How to start
- Download Basis free from the App Store, or open the web app in your browser.
- Answer three short onboarding questions so Basis can place you at the right level.
- Set a daily goal of 10, 20 or 30 XP and complete your first five-minute lesson.
- Play today's session on The Floor and see how your calls compare with everyone else's.
If you would rather plan your learning first, our complete roadmap for learning finance sets out what to learn and in what order, and the Basis library explains each core concept in plain English.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Duolingo for finance?
Is Basis free?
Can Basis teach me how to invest?
Is Basis available on Android?
Is Basis affiliated with Duolingo?
What is the best app to learn finance?
Can Basis help with investment banking interviews?
Duolingo is a trademark of Duolingo, Inc. Basis is independent and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Duolingo.
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