Yes and no. You can read as many unpaywalled articles as you like, but if you want to read paywalled stories (and support the writers for their writing) you’ll need to become a member. You also need to be a member in order to put your own stories behind the paywall.
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 he 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 he the money to pay for everyone’s writing I like. Medium membership lets me make micro-donations to all the writing I enjoy.
How much can you earn from the Medium Partner Program?Medium used to publicize how much writers earned, but this stopped in December 2019. Because that information is now half a decade out of date, I’m not even going to include a screenshot of that info because it’s probably more inaccurate than helpful at this point. If you’re looking for Medium Partner Program earning reports, many writers share those openly on Medium! Check out the Medium tag page and he a scroll.
How much does Medium pay for 1,000 views?Short answer? It depends. Personally, I’ve found Medium pays around $24 per 1,000 views or around $0.024 per view. For instance, in April 2023, I got 75k views and earned $1830 from the Medium Partner Program exclusively.
But there are some complicating factors.
First, there’s the complex way Medium determines how the money gets split up. I’m oversimplifying here but in essence and to the best of my knowledge, Medium throws all the money they get from Medium members into a big pot. Then at the end of the month, they pay their bills and share the rest of that money proportionally among the writers. You earn money when Medium members engage with your story. Say you get 1% of all the engagement — reads, claps, comments, followers —of reader activity on Medium this month. Then you get 1% of that lumped pot of member money.
Next month, even though you only get half the reads, you still get the same amount. Why’s that? Because it was a quiet month all across Medium and member reader activity on your writing still accounted for 1% of all member reading activity.
But there are other factors, too. Medium says:
You only earn from Member reads. If a non-paying reader sees your story, that does not affect your earnings.
Read ratio matters. “Members-only stories will earn money when a member reads your story for 30 seconds or more, and will continue to earn more the longer they keep reading. Long, thoughtful, reads are encouraged!” Basically, if you write clickbait and a member comes onto your story but then lees quickly afterwards, that affects your earnings.
Do member readers interact with your story? “You’ll also earn more when members clap, highlight, reply, or engage with your story in other ways.” Key to note: this has to be AUTHENTIC engagement. If you beg for claps or go on a comment-for-comment spree, Medium’s Trust & Safety team could catch you and ban you. Don’t risk it.
Are you writing for your audience? “When members follow you and continue to read and interact with your stories, you will be given a follower bonus.” This means that you’re not writing generic self-help listicles (unless that’s what your audience loves from you, in which case go for it.) You’re writing stories that come from you, from your experience and knowledge, and you’re writing for the readers who love to read your stories specifically.
Are you writing to get Boosted? "Stories that are Boosted will also earn more for each read and interaction. We recommend that writers spend more time on fewer, high-quality stories to reach this bar.” As I said above, working with publications in the Boost Nomination Program is a great way to not only get more reads, but also earn more money for your writing. I personally he found that it’s much better to spend a long time crafting a story that I think fits with Boost guidelines than cranking out clickbait, even if the clickbait gets more views — because it’s clickbait. The earning incentives are lined up to work on craft, not getting fast views.
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 aren’t members, perhaps because you’re ranking highly on SEO for example, then that will he a much lower earning ratio than one that reaches only Medium members. If your story is Boosted, you’ll earn more than for non-Boosted stories. If you write stories that don’t deliver on the title’s promise, you’ll earn less.
Again, to summarize, 1,000 views on Medium can range from $0.01 to hundreds of dollars, depending on:
Overall activity on Medium that month
Whether you’re regularly getting Boosted or not
Whether you get many followers from that story, and how many of your followers read that story
If your readers stay and read the story, or if they quickly bounce after clicking into the story (specifically members; non-member behior does not impact earnings)
Whether you’re reaching member readers or non-member readers