How does Medium’s partner program work?

Common questions about Medium’s Partner Program and how to submit your story to be reviewed by its curators.

UX Collective Editors
UX Collective

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What is the Medium partner program?

Medium has recently introduced its Partner Program: a way for writers to get paid and get their stories distributed to a wider audience across the Medium platform (website, mobile app, emails, and more).

Partner Program writers are paid based on how deeply Medium members read their work. As members read longer, writers earn more. In addition, Medium distributes a portion of each member’s subscription fee to the writers they read most each month.

Is my story automatically enrolled in the program?

Nope. When you are about to publish your story on Medium, you’ll see a checkbox that gives you the option to make your story eligible for the program. The checkbox is on by default (!), and you can un-select it to keep your story open to everyone.

Checkbox allows you to choose whether to participate on Medium’s partner program or not
Checkbox allows you to choose whether to participate on Medium’s partner program or not

As publication editors, we don’t have any influence or control over whether your story is part of the program or not. It’s your choice, and your choice only.

Will my readers see a paywall?

It’s your choice, and your choice only:

  • If you opt into the program, yes. In reality, readers will be able to see a number of closed stories for free per month, before they are asked to sign up for a Medium membership ($5/mo in most markets). It’s a similar model from sites like the NY Times, The Guardian, and others. Medium will also give you, the author, a “Friend Link”, which is a specific URL you can share with your network so they can read your article regardless of having a Medium account/membership.
  • If you opt-out of the program (by un-selecting the checkbox before publishing your story), your story will remain free and open for every reader, including logged out users.

Does Medium own my content?

  • You retain ownership of all copyrights and any other intellectual property rights in your User Content. By posting content to Medium, you give them a nonexclusive license to publish it on Medium Services (website, app, emails, etc.), including anything reasonably related to publishing it (storing, displaying, reformatting, and distributing it).
  • For more on this, check Medium’s Terms of Service.

How much do writers get paid?

  • According to Medium: “Partner Program writers are paid monthly based on how much time Medium members spend reading their stories. The longer members read, the more writers earn. In addition, part of each member’s subscription is distributed in proportion to their reading time every month. So if a member spent 10% of their time reading your story, you’d receive 10% of their revenue share.”
  • Writers do not get paid based on claps anymore.
  • US$ 15,816.89 is the highest amount earned (so far) by a UX Collective writer.
  • US$ 3,523.77 is the highest amount earned (so far) by a single story on the UX Collective.
  • US$ 150 is the average earnings a popular story (one of the top stories on any given week) gets on the UX Collective.
  • Most writers make a little less than US$ 30 per story.

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