How Much Money Can You Make Writing for Medium?
By: Casey Botticello
Tags: Medium, Medium Partner Program, Writer, Writing, Writing Tips

Other Questions and Answers About Medium Author Payments and Writer Success

How Do Writers Actually Get Paid Through Medium?

Medium Partner Program Earnings are updated every day. Medium uses UTC days, meaning they include all earnings from activity during midnight UTC to 11:59 PM UTC. Earnings are then updated within a few hours.

Your earnings are deposited into your bank account by the 8th of every calendar month. Medium makes all payments through Stripe. Payments may take 5–7 business days to appear in your bank account.

Do I Need to be a Paid Subscriber to Write for Medium?

No, you do not need to be a paying member to write for Medium. Writing for Medium is free.

Can My Friends, Family and Followers Read my Paywall Restricted Content?

Yes! Authors receive Friend Links for every story that’s behind Medium’s metered paywall. You can share a Friend Link directly to friends, family, or even through any social media platform.

Medium’s Friend Link | Source: Medium Friend Link

The Friend Link that gives anyone free access to your story — even if they’re not a subscribing Medium member and have already read all their complimentary stories for the month.

Do I Need to Be a Previously Published Author or Professional Writer to Succeed on Medium?

Partner Program stories are rewarded by readers who believe writers should be compensated for the quality of their ideas, not the attention they attract for advertisers or their status as a previously published author. So, no — you do not need to be a “professional author” to succeed on Medium.

How Do I Find Publications to Submit My Content To?

I created Active Publications, a Medium publication, which contains lists of publications organized by topic, that are looking for new writers:

Do I Need to Promote my Articles Outside of Medium?

Medium won’t be the right platform to promote all types of articles. However, certain industries have really great, established audiences.

Topics that do really well on Medium include:

Entrepreneurship

Startups

Political Commentary

Cultural Critiques

Technology

Motivational/Self Improvement

Personal Essays

Even if you are not publishing articles focused on the above topics, Medium can still provide sufficient traffic. Medium’s unique monthly viewers is approaching 250 million and the site has extremely strong domain authority!

As an example, I posted a link to my Medium article on Uber Vomit Fraud on LinkedIn to see whether it would gain any traction. I was shocked to see that within a few days I had amassed 45,000 views and nearly 20,000 reads:

However, if you really want to boost your Medium article views, I would suggest sharing your article on other social media platforms and improving your Medium article SEO.

The best free tool I have found to promote Medium articles is Signal. Signal auto-tweets your articles on repeat to help you share your articles and grow your audience on your schedule.

So while it is not necessary to promote your Medium articles on other platforms, it should certainly be considered to maximize traffic.

How Can I Increase My Medium Earnings?

There are a number of strategies to increasing your Medium Partner Program earnings:

Write and publish on a daily basis — There is no substitute for hard work and consistency. If you want your new and old articles to gain views, you need to write and publish on a daily basis.

Get your stories published in Medium publications. Although not a prerequisite for success, having your article published in a major Medium publication can be a game-changer. This is especially true for new writers. If you are struggling to get published in someone else’s publications, consider creating your own.

Focus on building long term success. I’ve had articles that initially only received minimal views, which have now grown to receiving 1,000+ views per day and over 150,000 total views! Similarly, you will cultivate long term followers by focusing on creating content that is consistently useful to readers.

Keep yourself informed about Medium platform changes. I have a newsletter for Medium writers that covers Medium platform updates, and also includes useful writer tips and tricks. There are also a number of publications that cover Medium writing:

Study what other top writers have done. Many top writers have created a number of valuable and free resources to help new Medium writers. I have created a list of 59 Medium writing tips to improve article performance, which many new writers have found useful. You can also utilize Medium Blogging The Ultimate Guide to Writing on Medium, which contains answers to virtually any Medium question.

This collection of resources should be enough to get you started writing on Medium. However, if you really want to go down the Medium rabbit hole, I have put together a collection of all my Medium articles.

You can also check out my main website, www.bloggingguide.org for more tips and tricks on blogging platforms (including Medium)

Best Wishes!