Medium’s New Tipping Feature Is Finally Here
If you’re a writer here on Medium, then here’s a piece of great news for you — the team behind the popular site has enabled a new tipping feature for writers!
Allow readers to send you tips through the third-party platform of your choice.
Now, instead of just clapping or leaving your thoughts in the comments, you can give a little tip to your favorite authors to show your appreciation for their work.
For the rest of the article, I will explain the following:
- How to enable the tipping feature
- What is Ko-Fi and how to use it
- How tipping works
How To Enable
- Go to your settings page.
- Scroll down to the “Audience development” section.
- There you’ll see the brand new “Tipping” option.
As you can see, the feature is still in the Beta phase. So don’t expect it to be perfect right away.
Clicking on the “Manage tipping” button, you’ll see a prompt that asks for your preferred payment platform.
Right now, Medium suggests three third-party platforms: Ko-Fi, Patreon, or Paypal (Or any organization for readers to donate on your behalf) to receive donations from readers.
I guess most people are already familiar with Patreon and Paypal. Ko-Fi however, is a little new to me. So let me use that in the rest of the story.
What Is Ko-Fi?
Ko-Fi, pronounced as in “coffee”, is a simple tip jar. It’s a place where you can give monetary support to your favorite creators.
Ko-Fi is entirely free and has a 0% fee on donations which makes it super cool. Here’s an example of a Ko-Fi page I set up today.
On the home page, click on the “Share” button to get your account’s link.
Go back to Medium and paste the link into the tipping section, then hit “Enable Tipping” as a final step.
That’s it. A message prompt will inform you that tipping is enabled on all of your stories.
I quickly confirmed that a new “Give a tip” button is now added in all of my published stories. Awesome!
How Does It Work?
When you click on the “Give a tip” button, a prompt will show up to inform you that you’ll be redirected to another page to complete the payment.
Final Thoughts
I have to say, I’m a big fan of this feature. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been reading an article and thought to myself, “I really should tip this person.” Similar to how other competitors work like Vocal.
Tipping is a great way to support the writers you enjoy reading on Medium. It also helps to encourage more great writing by showing authors that their work is appreciated.
So, what do you think about this new feature?
Reading high-quality stories every day and writing on Medium has changed my life. If you want to change your life too, join here today.
Or you can buy me a coffee here instead. Have a nice day :)
