What is the Medium Partner Program?

The Medium Partner Program is a revenue-share system between the company Medium and its writers. When paying Medium members read a story written by a Medium Partner Program writer, a portion of their membership fee goes straight to the writer.

My opinion? The Medium Partner Program is the best revenue share program out there. No reliance on ads, like YouTube. No “creator fund” cap, like TikTok. It’s pretty transparent, unlike Instagram. And essentially, you get paid for writing about what you love, unlike Twitter.

Let’s dive in. In this article, I’ll cover:

How does the MPP work?
What are the requirements to become a Medium Partner?
How to make money on Medium?
How to get 100 followers?
Is Medium free?
How much can you earn from Medium’s Partner Program?
How much does Medium pay for 1,000 views?
How do you make money with Medium referrals?
How to join the Medium partner program from countries where Stripe is not available?

How does the Medium Partner Program work?

It works like this:

As a reader, you have the choice of becoming a paid Medium member. This unlocks access to all content on Medium, along with a few other perks such as access to the Medium Mastodon server.
You pay $5/month to Medium to read these great articles.
When you read a paywalled story, a portion of your membership fee goes directly to the author of that piece (assuming the writer is part of the MPP).

As a writer, it means you get paid when readers engage with your work. It’s not based on views, but rather based on Medium Member read time.

*Screenshot of author’s Member Read Time for* *this article*.

How to join the MPP? What are the Medium Partner requirements?

As of May 2023, there are only a few requirements to join the Medium Partner Program. I’ll list them here, as well as the rationale behind them (to the best of my knowledge).

You need 100 followers. This is to make sure that you’re not just trying to get rich quick; you’re actually here and willing to contribute to the community before you get a payout. This is similar to YouTube’s 4,000 hour watchtime + 1,000 subscriber requirements to join the YouTube Partner Program.
You need to have published a story in the last six months. Again, this makes sense. Why keep paying for authors who are no longer active on the platform?
You have to be in a country accepted by Stripe. Medium pays out through Stripe, not PayPal or Payoneer or Wise, so you need to live in a country that Stripe supports. Honestly, this is the one I find the least justification for since it predominantly ends up excluding writers from the Global South. Stripe supports writers in 46 countries. You can see the full list here.
1. It’s worth highlighting that Stripe supports India, which is a country currently not accepted in the MPP, along with ~10 other countries that Stripe supports but the MPP does not. I hope this changes soon.
Finally, accept the MPP terms and conditions and abide by the Medium rules. Basically, don’t be a dick. No spam, no harassment, no hate speech, no plagiarism.

How to make money on Medium?

Once you’re accepted into the program, you may be interested in maximizing your earnings. Unfortunately, I have a very basic, boring answer:

Write what you care about, and write what you know about.

There’s no real way to hack the system. There’s no one topic that makes the most money on Medium. There are only topics that make you the most money on Medium. I’ve got a tutorial to find YOUR topics to write about here.

Here are some general guidelines to help you earn more money through the Medium Partner Program:

Find your frequency. I post 1x/week. I have found that on Medium, quality matters more than quantity. Find a rhythm that works for you.
Edit and solicit feedback. You need to provide value to readers. Part of that is writing a solid story that has no typos, errors, or flow issues. If you’re not a great editor, I recommend you find a buddy.
Write what you are an expert in. This doesn’t mean career/education/certificate. I’m an expert in owning two Maine coon cats, for example. Dig deep. What do you know about? Find your following in that field.
Experiment with topics. Don’t niche down too soon. I’ve got a great workshop here on how to pick a niche, and how to know when you’re ready to pick a niche.
Look for publications. I am a huge fan of pubs. Especially as a beginner, Medium publications are a great way to give you a leg up. Think of them as platforms to hop on while you’re still small. Find one in your niche and publish there.
Try to get Boosted. Medium’s Boost program is new, but promising. Boosting is a handpicking process where Medium selects the very best articles to promote all over their website, on various topics. Here’s an example of what a Boosted story did for my views:

How can I get 100 followers?

This is one of the Medium Partner requirements as of May 2023. There are two ways to get to 100 followers on Medium.

Cheat. Do follow-for-follow. I don’t recommend this method because while it gets you 100 followers, those followers don’t care about you or your articles. They won’t be readers. They won’t necessarily clap or comment on your work. So you may be able to join the MPP, but you’re still not going to earn any money because your followers count for nothing.
Consistently publish good articles. Boring, but genuinely a good way to get to 100 followers. This way, you can grow a base of followers who really care about your work. That means that when you’re finally part of the MPP, you’ll hit the $10 threshold.

Is Medium free?

Yes. It is free to read up to two paywalled articles per month on Medium for free, and as many unpaywalled articles as you like.

However, I recommend joining Medium membership for two reasons.

There’s so much great writing on Medium. Just this week, I read so many useful stories, including the late adopter’s guide to Notion (guilty), a fascinating story on how the vast majority of Princeton theses have a colon which I used for research on an article, and a hilarious take on those “Dinner in 15 minutes” blog posts that always end up taking three hours. That, to me, is easily worth $5 a month.
It’s nice to support writers. I pay for a few newsletters from writers I adore, like Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day. But I don’t have the money to pay for everyone’s writing I like. Medium membership lets me make micro-donations to all the writing I enjoy.

Shameless pitch: if you’re interested in becoming a paying Medium member, you can sign up using my link. Not only do you get the two benefits I mentioned above, but it also means I earn a small commission at no cost to you. It’s a nice way of saying thanks 😊

How much can you earn from the Medium Partner Program?

Medium used to publicize how much writers earned. Regrettably, this stopped in December 2020. I know that in December 2020, roughly 10% of Medium Partners made over $100 a month, and around 50% made any amount of money.

The most I’ve ever seen anyone earn on the Medium Partner Program is $21,650 in a single month.

Personally, I earn around $2,000 per month. I write between 3-6 blog posts per month. Some months are worse, merely like $1,500, while some months bring me over the $5,000/month border.

How much does Medium pay for 1,000 views?

Short answer? Medium pays around $24 per 1,000 views or around $0.024 per view. Last month, I got 75k views and earned $1830 from the partner program exclusively.

But there are some complicating factors.

First, there’s the complex way Medium determines how the money gets split up. Imagine you’re a Medium member and you read one story per month. Once Medium takes its cut, a full 100% of whatever’s left goes to the author of the single story you read that month.

Now imagine you read five stories. That money is divided up between five authors. Read 100, and now your money is stretched very thin indeed.

That’s why there’s a lot of variation in how much 1,000 views is worth on Medium. If you’re getting 1,000 views from readers who read a LOT on Medium, then that’s going to be a small amount. Compare that with 1,000 views from people who come on Medium once a month, and suddenly you’re looking at a lot of money.

And it’s not just views, either — it’s also read time. So if a reader reads 5 minutes of your ten-minute article, but 10 minutes of someone else’s article, then you’ll get half as much as the other author gets.

Here are a few examples, just to illustrate my point.

image showing a range of earnings for 1000 views on Medium, ranging from $32 on the low end to $50 on the high end. — *You can see the worth of 1000 views on Medium varies a lot.*

Then, there’s also a second source of income from the partner program: referrals. Let’s talk about Medium Referrals.

How do you make money with Medium referrals?

About two years ago, Medium launched the ability to refer Medium members. That means that when you sign up to become a paying Medium member through my special link, https://zulie.medium.com/memberships, I take home $2.17 from that $5 every month. (You don’t pay any extra money — it’s just that the money goes to me directly instead of Medium.)

That’s why, through the partner program, I earned $1,830. But add to that the $453.30 I made from referred members, and you get my April Medium partner income of $2283.30.

Medium member referrals stack, and they go on as long as that person is part of the program. That adds up fast.

*Good months and bad months, but still so nice to have a semi-reliable source of income.*

And I don’t promote my link very much. I include it at the bottom of every Medium story I write, like this.

That’s nonetheless enough to generate around $400-$500 per month, just in referrals. Every view represents an opportunity to get a referred member, and with them, $2.17 in monthly recurring income. It’s one of the most generous affiliate programs I’ve ever seen, as it’s 50% of what Medium takes after processing fees.

How to join the Medium partner program from countries where Stripe is not available?

There is no safe and foolproof way that I’ve found. Some members have a friend or relative that lives in a Stripe-allowed country, and they link up that bank account to get the earnings that way, but that’s it.

It’s also worth noting that trying to get a hacky workaround runs the risk of violating Stripe’s terms and conditions.

That all being said, I still think it’s worth writing on Medium even if your country is not currently monetizable. You can totally sign up, start writing, build a portfolio and start getting followers now.

You won't be paid by Medium directly YET. I admit I think this is an unfair policy that predominantly affects the global South. I hope Medium and Stripe change their policies soon.

In the meantime, there are other ways to earn money. You can use Medium to drive people to your own blog, use affiliate links, or attract clients. Furthermore, eventually, I hope, Medium/Stripe will monetize additional countries. If that's the case, you'll be established when that happens.

I am always trying to find a workaround as it affects a lot of people, and I really believe that everyone deserves to be compensated for their writing, but as of yet, I have not found any good workarounds.

Final thoughts on the Medium Partner Program

YouTube pays me around $6-7 per thousand views, and I’m not getting paid by viewers — I’m getting paid by advertisers to host ads on my content.

My website pays me around $10 for 1,000 views, and again, through ad placement rather than direct reader monetization. Instagram paid some through their creator fund, as did TikTok, but those were very, very low earnings indeed —

Medium is the best partner program around. I genuinely believe it’s a revolutionary way to help writers earn money by sharing their thoughts with an audience. The incentive scheme is to write good content that resonates with readers — not chase clicks, not write ad-friendly content, and not try for sponsorships. It’s pure quality.