I’m going to explain the ins and outs of Medium shortly, so don’t worry if some of the references in this section don’t make sense yet. I just want to give you a bit of background about my relationship with Medium.

I started using Medium years ago.

From a reader's perspective, I liked the quality of content on there and the way you could curate your feed so you only got shown stuff of interest.

From a writer’s perspective, I loved that you could import a story from somewhere else, and it would add canonical links so search engines would prioritise the original version. It meant I could share my company blog posts and LinkedIn articles on a second platform without worrying about SEO issues.

Unfortunately, I made some changes to my website blog templates, and for some reason, it meant the posts no longer fed through to Medium properly.

Since I could no longer import stories with a couple of clicks, I stopped using Medium as a marketing tool, and eventually stopped using it at all.

Then last year I was on a networking call and a lady mentioned how she was making a living writing on Medium. She said she loved that you could write about a whole range of topics and didn’t have to limit yourself to a niche.

It inspired me to revisit Medium.

I did a bit of research, then set up a new account in my own name with a view to writing non-business-related content and maybe making a bit of money in the process.

I paid for a year's membership, wrote a couple of stories, then joined the Partner Program. Then I wrote a story for a friend's publication.

A couple of days later, I noticed I had earnings showing in my dashboard - $2.53. Not life-changing, but it was a start, and it fuelled my motivation.

I spent the next couple of days coming up with ideas for stories, researching publications I could approach, and writing draft articles.

Then I checked my dashboard again and noticed a note saying my Partner Program status had been revoked.

I hadn't had an email or any notifications - just the word "revoked" next to my status. I clicked the ‘learn more’ and got a generic message listing terms I may have breached. Apparently, revocation was final and could not be appealed.

I knew it must be a glitch. I hadn't breached any terms, so I emailed them asking them to look into it, but I didn’t get a response.

In the meantime, I decided I needed an alternative because even if Medium did reinstate me, I couldn't trust that it wouldn't happen again.

So I started looking at other platforms that focused on written content.

Eventually, I shortlisted three platforms - Substack, Ghost and Beehiiv. I wanted to know which was best, so I decided to try all three. And that was the start of this whole experiment.

But it wasn’t the end of my Medium saga.

After numerous emails, I finally got a response from Medium. The decision was final. My partner program status was revoked.

Then, a few weeks later (purely by luck), someone I knew was talking to an actual person from Medium about something completely unrelated. She kindly mentioned my situation, and they looked into it. A couple of hours later, I got an email from Medium.

After additional review, we’ve decided to unsuspend your account.

No explanation and no apology. They did admit to the person who flagged it for me that it was their error, but they withheld that admission from me.

I was still mad with them. I think their service is crappy, and it will be a long time before I trust them again.

But before the revocation happened, I’d written a story I wanted to submit to a particular publication. Since I’d already done the work, it seemed silly not to submit it. That story got boosted and earned me $44.

As I was now writing for three other platforms, I didn’t have time to write stories purely for Medium, but I decided I would go back to importing stories from other places. It was a two-minute job, so it was barely any extra effort.

I wasn’t expecting to make any money from them. I was just hoping to attract a few new subscribers to my publications. The first few I imported made a couple of cents. Then, completely randomly, one of my posts got boosted. So far, it’s made me $36.31 (and still going).

That story is an anomaly. Most of the stories I import make $0.10 or less. But for a couple of minutes' work each month, it’s worth doing. After all, there’s always a chance another one could get randomly boosted.

Although this experiment was all about testing out different platforms, I didn’t include Medium. Firstly, because when I launched the experiment, I was still revoked, but secondly, because it’s different to the other platforms.

According to Medium’s about section:

Medium is a home for human stories and ideas. Here, anyone can share knowledge and wisdom with the world—without having to build a mailing list or a following first. The internet is noisy and chaotic; Medium is quiet yet full of insight. It’s simple, beautiful, collaborative, and helps you find the right readers for whatever you have to say.

Essentially, it’s a place where you can write stories about anything - life, business, hobbies, special interests, personal experiences, fiction or non-fiction.

Writing for Medium is free, and there are loads of stories you can read for free. There are no ads, and they don’t sell your data. It is supposed to be a place purely for readers and writers.

You can pay for a Medium membership ($5 per month or $50 per year) or become a ‘friend of Medium’ ($15 per month or $150 per year). This means you can read stories that have been put behind a paywall, and the writers of those stories get a few pennies.

This is what makes it quite different from the other platforms. You aren’t paying to subscribe to each individual writer’s content. You pay one fee to essentially subscribe to all the content on there.

On Substack, the minimum a writer can set their paid subscription fee to is $5 a month or $50 for a year.

This means that as a reader, you could subscribe to ten paywalled publications for one month or one publication for a year for your $50. Whereas on Medium, your $50 gets you access to hundreds of different writers for a year.

You can browse content by topic and follow authors or publications you like, so your feed is full of stuff you will actually be interested in.

For people who like reading, it’s actually a really good site. There is some crap on there, but there are also a lot of very good writers and interesting stories.

Writing on Medium is completely free. You set up an account and off you go. It’s so easy to navigate.

You can also import a story (which is what I mentioned earlier) by simply adding the link to the original story. Medium will then pull it all through for you.

Everything you write is under your name, but you can also set up different publications so you can sort your content by topic. This means readers can follow a specific publication rather than all your content (ideal if you write about a range of different subjects).

You can also submit stories to other people’s publications. Some publications have huge followings, so this is the best way to get your stories in front of more people (and make money if that’s what you want to do).

However, some publications will only accept submissions from writers who are part of the partner program (because otherwise they can’t make any money from them). And to be part of the partner program, you have to be a Medium member.

Unlike other platforms, you don’t have a site for your content. Your stories are all just listed under your profile. You can add images and links to your stories, but there’s very little you can do design-wise.

It really is just a place to share stories, whereas the other platforms give you far more features and opportunities to build something of your own.

People can follow you if they like your content and want to see more from you. They can also “clap” for your story (similar to giving it a like) and leave comments. They can also highlight parts of your story that they like (and you will see which bits have been highlighted).

Unfortunately, having followers doesn’t equate to more views of your stories (or more money). I have more followers on Medium than I have subscribers on other platforms, but my stories sometimes only get a couple of views.

As well as following you, readers can subscribe to receive email notifications when you share a new story. Unfortunately, you can’t write those emails or include any additional content, and you don’t get any information about open rates. You can’t even view the email addresses of those who have subscribed.

You can choose whether to send a notification or not each time you publish a story, but that is the extent of control you have over it, so Medium is no good if you want an email list you can engage with.

If you want to paywall your stories, you need to be a Medium member ($50 per year) and join the Partner Program (which involves filling in tax docs and setting up Stripe). You can then decide which stories you want to paywall.

The reason a lot of writers prefer Medium to Substack is that you don’t have to generate paid subs to make money. You put your story behind a paywall, and Medium distributes it for you. The more paying members that read it, the more you earn.

The downside is you have no way of knowing how much you’ll earn from one month to the next.

And, unfortunately, nobody seems to understand how the algorithm works, and they made some big changes earlier in the year, which (apparently) decimated earnings. That was before I started earning from it, so I can’t comment, but it seems to have upset a few users.

From what I have seen and heard it is actually very hard to make decent money from Medium. I think a few writers made enough from it to live on before the recent changes, but very few make a living from it now. And many writers on Medium don’t even make enough to cover their subscription fee.

So if you’re looking at writing as a serious source of revenue, Medium probably isn’t the right place. That said, if you’re a good writer, do your research and write for the right publications, you could make a little bit of extra money to supplement your income.

Rather than trying to explain in my own words what getting boosted means, here’s what Medium says about it.

“Getting Boosted results in both a distribution and earnings bonus. The Partner Program is designed to reward your most meaningful, original, and memorable stories. When you are in the Partner Program, members-only stories that get Boosted will earn at a higher rate, in addition to receiving the usual distribution bonus.

Our human curation team reviews stories seven days a week to identify stories to Boost across the Medium homepage, emails, apps, and more. A Boosted story has a greater distribution to more readers, helping writers and publications gain more visibility and audience. 

We review stories submitted by our community of publication editors participating in the Boost Nomination Program, as well as stories we discover through our own internal curation tools.”

What is good about this is that it is not a pay-to-play feature, and boosts are not determined by algorithms. People who are part of the boost programme can nominate stories they think are worthy, but the Medium team have the final say.

I’ve had two stories boosted. One was nominated by the owner of the publication I submitted it to. The other was boosted completely at random. This is apparently unusual, as given the amount of content on there, the curators are less likely to just stumble across your story. Most boosted stories are stories that have been nominated by members of the boost program.

I’ll openly admit I don’t use Medium to its full potential. I only have two or three stories that were written purely for Medium - the rest are all imported from my other publications.

That said, doing this has earned me enough to cover my Medium membership fee for the year.

But if you want to make serious money from Medium, you’re better off writing high-quality stories and submitting them to relevant publications. Ideally, you want publications that are part of the boost programme because boosted posts make far more money.

The first story I had boosted was about women and beer and was submitted to a food and drink publication.

If I had more time, I would definitely write more stories about topics that don’t fit into any of my publications. Unfortunately, writing for four publications as well as running my business means I don’t have quite as much time as I’d like to write for pleasure at the moment.

But if you just want to write and have no interest in setting up a blog, website, or email list, Medium is a good option. You could even make a few pennies.

If you have any questions about using Medium, drop me an email

If you’d like to receive my weekly email updates and monthly results, hit subscribe, and I’ll be in your inbox every Friday.

P.S. I also have a free 14-day email course to help you improve your sales copy and marketing content. You can find out more and sign up here.