Have You Enabled Medium’s New Tipping Feature on Your Articles Yet?
Still in beta form, you can set up your tip jar today.
Scrolling through my Medium feed this morning, I discovered many writers are talking about the new tipping feature that has recently been added to Medium.
Starting now, you can head over to your settings page and see Tipping under Audience Development.
Similar to Vocal Media, Medium readers can now do more than clap for a story to show their support. If you find a story you love, and a writer you want to thank, you can send a tip.
But before you can receive tips yourself, you will need to add a form of payment.
How to set up your tipping feature
- Go to Settings
- Click Audience Development
- Click on Manage Tipping
You can see in the image above, I’ve enabled tipping by using my Ko-Fi URL.
What payment platforms can you use?
Medium will let you link your “preferred payment platform.” Medium suggests the following:
Medium makes suggestions, but they allow you to add any link here, including an organization for readers to donate to on your behalf.
Another thing, you can edit your link at any time. It would be possible to switch your tips to go to a charity organization for a limited amount of time if you were trying to raise money for a certain cause.
You don’t need Stripe for tips
This is good news for writers in countries that cannot get paid by Medium from the Partner Program because their country doesn’t allow Stripe payments.
Writers from countries not supported by Stripe and unable to enroll in the Partner Program can, at least, set up their account to accept tips.
Setting up my account for tips was easy
After linking my newly created Ko-Fi account to the Tipping Feature, I saw the following message.
And sure enough, after checking one of my older stories, I can see the tipping feature is enabled.
And there you have it. It’s easy and takes just a few minutes to set yourself up to receive tips on Medium.
What do you think of the new tipping feature?
The stories I’ve seen so far have been mainly in favor of tipping. However, I did read a different take from Abena Talks.
In her article, Abena said, “high achieving writers need bonuses from Medium itself, not readers. After all, the readers pay a monthly fee as it is.”
I agree with Abena that bonuses for high achievers should not be replaced by asking readers to tip. After all, as Abena pointed out, Medium readers pay $5 per month, and there is also the referral program.
However, I have received a few tips from my writing on Vocal, and while it wasn’t enough to make a difference in my income, I really appreciated it, and it made me feel supported. But it shouldn’t replace payments from Medium. And finally, the Partner Program should be open to all, not just the select countries that support Stripe.
What do you think about this new feature? Do you love it or hate it? Are you going to set up your Medium tip jar?
To unlock unlimited stories, you can become a Medium member for $5 per month. If you sign up with my referral link, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
