The main way of making money from Medium is to join the Medium Partner Program and start submitting to ‘publications’. It’s worth subscribing too.

Anyone can read a limited amount of the content on Medium, but for unlimited access beyond the paywall, you have to be a member yourself. Subscribing is how Medium makes the money it can pass on to writers. (Medium is ad-free.) This costs $5 per month or $60 per year, so my first target every year is to cover that. 

Writers earn money by getting subscribers to engage with their articles. Medium provides detailed stats on all your stories, including views, reads, read ratio and claps (likes). These signals help your content get seen or translate directly into cash. Here’s Medium’s guide to stats.

Technically you can earn money without becoming a Member. But by subscribing you get access to all the content, so you can see what works, and you can grow your base more effectively by clapping for and responding to other people’s content.

Joining the MPP

This is the main way to make money. You need to be 18+, have a Medium account with 100+ followers and a Stripe account for payouts. Full details here.

My best ever month’s payout was December 2024 ($256.86) and my worst December 2019 ($0.15). Much depends on how active you are, and how much reach you get for any particular article. Balances over $10 are paid out every month.

Publications

Publications help you reach bigger audiences. The Startup, which focuses on building businesses, has 770k followers, and Personal Growth – ‘Practical wisdom for life’ – has c500k. My best results have come via Human Parts, with 324k followers and a focus on personal stories. Check out top publications here.

To submit to a publication, use this in-depth list with direct links to submission guidelines. You’re usually asked to express your interest by email or commenting on a submission article. You may be asked for a draft link to an article. You’ll then be added as a writer.

The draft thing is very important. If you accidentally publish it directly, even if you quickly unpublish it, some publications may not accept it because Medium frowns on duplication within the site. So instead of hitting the big green Publish button, select ‘Add to publication’ from the menu just to its left (look for the three dots). If you’ve been approved to submit, the publication’s name will now come up in your list of titles.

Editors can send you private notes on pieces you submit, notifying acceptance or rejection, or requesting edits. Always check their style/formatting guidelines, which all differ slightly.

The bigger the publication, the harder to get a piece accepted. But publications that welcome newer writers include Write A Catalyst, Illumination and New Writers Welcome.

What to write about? Perennially popular topics include entrepreneurship, tech, wellbeing, mental health and life hacks. Vulnerability, authenticity, originality and expert insight all do well. Check out this piece on popular Medium topics and niches or this one on the 100 most popular tags.

Once a piece is published, you can go back and edit pieces any time, even post-publication, for example adding links to new articles or a CTA for your new book. You can share it on social media, email it to non-member friends (who won’t be able to read it behind the paywall) and reply to any responses it generates. It’s good form to respond to comments, and to comment on other people’s stories when you can.

Piece not accepted? Simply submit it to another publication. Once it’s out there somewhere, it can go on earning for you. Evergreen topics can deliver strong SEO value too.

Boosts and Top Writer Status

The pieces that have done best for me have received the magic Boost, when Medium’s editors select a story they really like and promote it further across the site and/or in email newsletters. More background here, and here’s Medium’s own list of publications that can help you get boosted.

Another way to increase engagement – something I’ve still not managed – is to get named as a Top Writer in a particular category. This is a matter of strategic tagging and writing consistently engaging content in a specific area. More here.

Writing on Medium is addictive. It’s always fun to check in and see the latest stats and responses, and plan the next submission.

As well as a side hustle, Medium can be useful for writers in lots of other ways. I use it as a resource for researching ideas and information. I can also group articles together as Lists eg Hermit-crab fictions or Copywriting & content skills or Rejection and writing resilience and show them to editors who want to see examples of my work.
 

BIO – ’s latest novel is Thank You For The Days (Bloodhound Books). He also writes widely on Medium.