If you’re a writer, you may want to listen up because we have a new way of making money you may have not heard of yet. Today we look at how you can make money on Medium. This is the ultimate guide.
Table of Contents
What is Medium.com?
Medium is a website where you can publish articles for free. Medium is a blogging platform, think about it as Youtube for blogs. You can create an account and start publishing your articles on Medium.com for the world to see.
What can you write on Medium.com?
You can write about anything on Medium.com but the most popular topics on Medium are the following:
- Technology (Programming especially)
- Entrepreneurship
- Self
- Politics
- Media
- Creativity
- Productivity
Who founded Medium.com?
Medium.com was founded by Evan Williams who also was the former CEO of Twitter. Medium.com was launched in 2012 and attracted many amateur bloggers, pro bloggers, and big publishers.
How does Medium make money?
You can only read 3 articles per month on Medium. Once you reached that many articles, you won’t be able to read any more articles on Medium unless you pay the $5/month fee.
You can become a Medium member for $5/month to read unlimited articles.
Can you write and publish articles on Medium without paying Medium?
Yes, you can write and publish articles on Medium for totally free. You’ll be able to create 5 tags for your articles that identify which category your article is on. Anybody who clicks on the tag would be able to see your articles. Your articles would also be available to anyone on the internet who searches them and happens to come across it.
Why would people write articles on Medium?
No cost to publish work
Medium can be an attractive option for those who like writing and want their writing to be seen in front of an audience at no cost to them. It’s completely free to write and publish articles on Medium so people who are a bit strapped on cash and don’t want to create a blog for themselves on their own platform may choose Medium to start their journey.
They aren’t tech-savvy
People who aren’t tech-savvy may also choose Medium to publish their articles because it can be hard for some people to set up and maintain their own websites.
Want an audience to pitch to
People may write articles on Medium because they simply want an audience to pitch their ideas to. Medium has a pretty large audience base so, for people who own their own business or have something they think it’s important to get out there, they may think a Medium is a good place.
It’s convenient
The good thing about Medium is that the page looks great with little effort and the text is easy to read. It is easy to set up a Medium account and even easier to share the link. For this reason, many people write on Medium. It’s just so easy to make your article looks presentable.
They want to make money
People may publish their articles on Medium because they want to make money. There are indeed some people making a living on Medium with only a handle of articles. The potential to spend only $5/month reading limitless articles on Medium while bringing in lots of money attracts a lot of writers.
It is their belief that even if they don’t end up making much money, it’s still worth it to pay the $5/month and read anything they want from Medium however many times.
You don’t need experience to write and publish on Medium
Many writing platforms may require their writers to have some credentials such as a secondary degree in English or have experience in writing to publish on their platforms but Medium doesn’t have such a requirement. You don’t need any experience to write and publish on Medium and can still get paid.
How to make money on Medium
The amount of money you earn is based on reading time. You’ll also have to join the Medium Partner Program in order to start earning money. It’s free to join the Medium Partner Program
The best way to get people to read your articles is to read theirs and comment or clap (it’s a reaction on Medium). You can sign up to be a Medium member for $5/month so you can read unlimited articles on Medium.
Can I send my articles to my family and friends to read to make money for my articles?
If you got a lot of family and friends it may seem like the logical thing to do, tell them to read your articles and you make money, simple, right? Well, not exactly. You see, the reading time only counts if the reader is a Medium member.
How it works is this:
Step 1: You write a lot of articles and publish them on Medium
Step 2: Your articles help attract more readers to Medium and in order to read more articles, they become Medium members
Step 3: Medium members read your articles and other people’s articles
Step 4: You’re paid based on how much time any person who is a member of Medium spent reading your article
How does Medium knows someone is reading or not
Medium has an algorithm put in place to know whether someone is reading your articles or not so if someone just opens the tab and does not scroll down the article at a reasonable rate to indicate that they are reading, the algorithm won’t count that as part of the reading time.
Do you need experience to be a writer on Medium?
No, you don’t need any experience to start writing and publishing on Medium. You also don’t need any experience to join their Medium Partner’s Program or be a Medium member.
Can you write about anything on Medium?
Yes, you can write about anything you want on Medium. You also don’t need to stick to a specific topic to write about. Although, sometimes people may subscribe to you because they like the specific type of articles you write.
You can subscribe to other people on Medium. It works just like how you would subscribe to someone on Youtube. No extra charge and you don’t get paid when someone subscribes to you on Medium.
What should you write about?
You can write about anything that interests you although there are certain topics that are more popular on Medium such as life stories, programming tips, technology, self-improvement, relationship, politics, media, productivity, etc.
Here’s some more stuff you can write about:
- Life-changing experience
- Industry knowledge in a field you work in
- Relationships
- Self-improvement
- Fiction stories
- Poetry
How much money can you make on Medium as a writer?
Before you start thinking that you’ll make a lot of money on Medium, let me do a reality check for you. Only approximately 5% of writers on Medium make more than $100 per month on Medium. This means that 95% of writers on Medium make less than $100 per month through Medium. You’re most likely going to be a part of that 95% of people who don’t make more than $100 per month on Medium.
However, there are some writers who are able to make over $25,000 per month on Medium. That is $300,000 per year!
You’ll see a lot of great writers who struggle to gain momentum on Medium because even if you write great pieces if no one reads it and react to it, you won’t get anywhere.
Medium has a huge community and is very socially driven. This means that if you just write articles and you don’t interact with other writers and their work, it’d be unlikely to gain any traction.
That said, it’s always going to be helpful for you to write consistently and publish lots of high-quality content so you increase your chance of being that 5% of people who make more than $100 per month on Medium.
How quickly can you start earning on Medium?
Your articles (articles are called stories on Medium) can start to earn you money right away from the moment that it’s published. Yes, you can self-publish your stories for free on Medium.
You won’t get the money right away, however, because the payment will be made to you once a month and takes 3–7 days to get to your account. They’ll release the earnings to you on the 8th of every month.
How to get more people to read your Medium articles
You can get more people to read your articles on Medium in different ways.
Self-promote
Remember, you can only make money if a Medium member reads your article. It doesn’t matter how many of your friends and family read your articles, if they don’t have a Medium membership, they won’t be able to help you make more money. You’ll have to self-promote to other people who are medium members.
If your friends and family members are Medium members, you can self-promote your articles to them to earn some money.
Comment and interact with other writers’ articles
Another way you can get more eyeballs on your articles is to get your name out there. Interact with other writers. Read their articles and give insightful encouraging comments. Give them some claps. Allow people to know that you exist through your interaction with their content. You may even build fans this way. These are the fans that will read your articles and react to it every time you publish one.
Get your article curated by Medium
Medium has a team that reviews the articles submitted to them. They pick the best articles and show the article to people who are following a certain topic on Medium. You can select up to 5 tags when you submit your story and if you get selected, you can see your article on the homepage of Medium under the selected topic.
Get your story published by a publication on Medium
Publications are like magazines that are available on Medium. You can even start your own publication for free on Medium.
You can get your story seen by more people if you publish them under a publication that has a strong following list. You’ll have to submit your story for review to be selected by a publication.
The publications are either run by individuals or an entire company and if selected, your article would be published under their publication. Not all publications are created equal. Some publications don’t have many followers and so it’s hard to get it seen by anybody, you may as well just publish it yourself. You can always check the number of followers they have before you request to be a writer for the publication.
Once you’re accepted by a publication as a writer, you can submit the articles you’ve written to the publication. The way that you’d get accepted by a publication is to submit some of your articles as samples to them.
Can you unpublish your articles?
Yes, you can unpublish your articles anytime you wish even after you submitted them to a publication. The articles that have been published under a publication can also be unpublished by you anytime you wish with no penalty.
Can you put affiliate links in your Medium articles?
Yes, you can put affiliate links in the stories you publish on Medium. However, it should not be spammy. The affiliate links can only be placed there if there’s a reason for them to. You can’t just write an article about dogs and place affiliate links to buy a motorcycle.
Don’t go overboard with stuffing affiliate links everywhere on your article as it can be penalized.
You’ll have to disclose the fact that it is an affiliate link in your article.
You’re also allowed to promote your own work, goods, or services to your own website.
If you want to place an image that functions as an ad for a third-party company, you aren’t allowed to do so. You simply can’t place any ads on your Medium articles.
How about third-party advertising and sponsorships? No, you aren’t allowed to write articles promoting other company’s services, products, or brands with Medium.
Can you make a full-time income from Medium?
It is possible to earn a full-time income on Medium but the percentage of writers who are able to do so on Medium isn’t high. Only 5–10% of writers make more than $100/month from Medium.
Of that 5 – 10 %, there aren’t that many making more than $1000 per month on Medium let alone $3000.
However, there are some writers making a five-figure on Medium every year. The potential is certainly there.
Something to keep in mind is that many writers on Medium don’t make anything from Medium because they publish a few articles and then that was it. They don’t publish anymore. So out of 100 people who write and publish on Medium, we don’t know how many are serious about making money on Medium and how many actually try hard to get there.
How this woman made $141 for an hour’s work from her article on Medium
Shelby Church has done pretty well for herself on Medium. One of the articles she wrote called “I Tried The $1,500 At Home Fitness Mirror For My Quarantine Workouts” made her $141 for an hour’s work. She submitted her article to a publication called OneZero (managed by Medium) and got accepted. Her article was immediately published. She got around 10.4k views on her article and the total earning was $141.84. After a few days, the income from the article dropped to a few dollars a day but it was still money and overall it does add up to $141.84 in about 3 weeks’ time.
What this tells us is that you can indeed make money on Medium. Maybe not consistently but if you can create content that targets a specific publication you may be able to make quite a bit of money for just an hour or two’s work.
Go look at publications that you’re interested in, see what articles they have on there, find out what article you can write that they’d be interested in, and start writing. This may be the best strategy than writing about whatever comes to your mind and hoping it fits what the publication wants.
If you want to make quite a bit of money for an hour’s work with an article on Medium, write for the publication. Try to get accepted by a publication with lots of following. OneZero had roughly 157k following at the time when they accepted her story.
Pros of publishing content on Medium
There are many reasons why people choose to publish their articles on Medium instead of any other place. Let’s look at those reasons.
It’s the easiest way to become a blogger
For people who want to become a blogger, Medium is one of the best platforms to do it. You can make your articles look great effortlessly.
Promote your own blog or brand for free
If you’re a blogger and you have your own blog elsewhere, you can link your content to Medium and have it seen as an article on Medium. You can also write articles to raise awareness of your brand in the niche and drive traffic to your own site.
Opportunity to network with other writers in your niche
You can easily find other writers in your own niche through a simple search on Medium or by blogging under the corresponding tag on Medium. This can open up new opportunities to collaborate and work together either on Medium or off Medium.
You don’t need to be tech-savvy to publish on Medium
Many people who want to be a blogger run into the trouble of setting up their own site on WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace. Some people just aren’t tech-savvy. The good thing is that Medium is very easy to set up and once you set it up, you don’t have to tinker with the code.
Cons of publishing content on Medium
Lack of control
Since you’re blogging on someone else’s platform, you have little control. You can only publish up to 3 articles within 24 hours. If it’s the next day already but 24 hours haven’t passed since you published your last article, you can’t publish any more stories until that 24 hours is up.
The audience also isn’t yours. These are paying members of Medium and aren’t your personal followers. If you have your own website, you can access people who subscribed to your mailing list easier. You can see their email address and contact them directly if you wish to. With Medium, the only thing you know about your followers is tied to and restricted to their Medium account.
You also can’t change your profile page much beyond what is available in the setting. If it’s your own site, you’d have a lot more freedom in how you want your website to look and function. Want to place an ad on your website to make money? You can! But with Medium, you’d be restricted to what their policy is set to.
No custom domain name
You can’t create a custom domain name with Medium. Your profile address would look something like the following: www.username.medium.com On the other hand, if you build your own website with your own domain name, your web address would look something like the following: www.HelloMoneyTree.com
See the difference? You don’t own your profile page if you build your brand on Medium. It’s not really yours even though the username does indicate that it’s you. It’s kind of like renting a house. Sure, you live there but the house isn’t really yours.
Limited in ways to monetize your content
You can’t place ads on Medium and you can’t directly sell stuff on Medium like you could if it was your own website and your own custom domain name. The only way for you to make any money from Medium is to attract readers to your stories and you get a small piece of the pie at the end of the month.
Hard to make money on Medium
Despite the fact that many people do make money on Medium, only approximately 5% of people make anything above $100. It’s quite difficult to make any money through Medium. It’s also hard to scale up and you are limited in how you can monetize your content as it isn’t your own site.
Many articles you put out will slowly fade from view as newer articles take precedence. You’ll have to continually push out high-quality content and even when you do so, the amount of money you can make with Medium isn’t too much. Your older content will get less and less traffic with time unlike if it was your own site, your older content won’t be buried by the algorithm. In fact, with more time, the content on your own blog will get seen by more eyeballs typically.
You shouldn’t expect to make any money at all with your first few articles on Medium as it takes time for people to find you, trust you, interact with you in their own stories, and start interacting with you in your own stories. Sometimes you get people reading and interacting with your stories without you initiating first but that’s rare and the number of people who do that won’t be enough to make you any good money in your first months.
The amount of effort you put into producing articles to put on Medium is better spent on your own blog if you really want to make a lot of money. Medium should only be used if you don’t plan on making more than $100/month from your writing.
Should you use Medium or WordPress?
If you just see blogging as a hobby and don’t plan on taking it to the next level, you should stick with Medium. With Medium, it is free to publish your work and it’s a relatively cheap way to develop a sense of community with others in the niche. You won’t make much money with Medium but since that isn’t your end goal, that would be fine.
If your end goal is to make money, choose WordPress. We call WordPress a blogging platform but what it really is, is an open-source content management system where you can get free or paid themes to install on your website so your website looks good. It’s totally yours to control. You can choose to publish however many articles you wish in a single day, you can place ads on your website, you can put any links you want in your articles, you can sell anything you want in your articles, etc. You’re the boss of your website when you use WordPress.
There are much more ways to monetize your content when you choose WordPress. Medium rubs you of your ways to make money as it really limits your monetization strategy.
If you do build up a following on Medium, those people aren’t really accessible to you. If you had built up a following on your own website instead, you can send your subscribers emails and sell them stuff, it’s just not possible to do that with Medium.
Bottom line, if you want to be a professional blogger and make a living blogging, starting your own blog is your best bet. Don’t do it on Medium.
It’ll cost you roughly $300 to start your own blog on your own platform but it’ll be a worth it investment later down the road.
Blogging is the cheapest business you can start with the greatest return.
How do I get started blogging with WordPress?
If you want to blog on WordPress and make money on your own website, you’ll first have to pick a hosting company. I recommend BlueHost. Use this link for a discount. At the moment, they offer a free 1-year domain with any hosting plan. Hurry up before the offer expires.
Afterthought
Medium is great for people who want to blog for fun and even those who want to make some extra cash but you shouldn’t expect to earn much writing on Medium as 95% of people who write on Medium don’t make more than $100/month.
You’ll have to continuously put out content for Medium to make some money on Medium. If you think you got what it takes, go for it.
That said, the big money in blogging is made on your own platform, not on Medium or any other platform other than your own. You’ll have to set up your own domain name and pick a hosting company to host your website if you want to make lots of money blogging.
Is it possible to make good money with Medium? It’s possible but due to many monetizing restrictions in place, I wouldn’t count on that too much.
Realistically, you can expect to make some beer money with Medium if you put in the work so if you’re only looking for an extra $50 per month, Medium may be a good option for you.
3 comments