Medium Earnings / Medium Writing Tips

How Much Do Individual Medium Articles Earn?

An in depth look at real examples of Medium Partner Program story earnings

I have previously written about Medium Partner Program Earnings. I update my main article about Medium writer earnings, every month, with new Partner Program data:

However, while focusing on how much Medium writers earn per month is a useful metric, another, and perhaps even more useful, metric for new writers, is:

How much do individual Medium articles earn?

My previous earnings article attempted to answer the question of how much Medium authors were earning per month, whereas this article is focused specifically on article-specific Medium Partner Program earnings.

The reason for this shift in focus?

Medium has evolved so much over time that looking at monthly earnings may not be the best way to reverse-engineer success as a new writer.

With top authors increasingly posting more frequently, evaluating the earning potential of a single Medium article, is vital information.

That is why I decided to do an in depth study of publicly available Medium earnings screenshots. While it is impossible to verify the authenticity of these screenshots, I do spend a lot of time examining Medium data, and the screenshots included are accurate to the best of my knowledge.

I broke the data down by year to help differentiate Partner Program earnings over time. That is, an article that earned $100 in 2017 would likely not have performed the same in 2019, given the increase in competition and the vastly different payment systems.

In addition to breaking the data down by year, I also divided the year’s articles into categories based on earnings. The hope is that this will make it easier to look through the data and gauge the relevance of any particular article.

For all the articles, I included:

• earnings screenshots;
• a link to the corresponding article;
• and additional data when provided.

I tried to find as many unique posts on earnings as possible and assemble them in one place. Hopefully this will also save you some time Googling queries about Medium article earnings.

However, I’m sure there are posts I’ve overlooked. If you know of some good posts with earnings data broken down by article or want to contribute your own, feel free to leave a comment with an image or leave me a private note. Also if you are the author of any of these posts and want to provide updated earnings, please let me know (as I’m sure some of these articles have earned much more over their lifetime, than when they were first posted)!

Notes About 2017 Medium Articles

• 2017 is the first year which includes Partner Program earnings.

• There were a number of $100 bonus checks paid out to “quality articles” but I tried to exclude these articles, as many did not earn much beyond the $100 bonus, skewing the total received from reader interaction under the Partner Program.

Sample Article

Sample Article

Sample Article

Note: The Medium Partner Program began in September 2017. As you can see from the chart below, the top earning articles were barely over $1,000 at the time:

As a result, while there were certainly a few articles that earned over $1,000, nobody posted proof from this period verifying their earnings. However, Medium's Partner Program was much more straightforward in the first few months (when looking at earnings) and there were only a limited number of writers initially invited to write, narrowing down the pool of articles significantly.

The article (or one of the articles) that earned the most in late 2017 was almost certainly:

This article had the most claps in 2017 by a wide margin:

It also led to a popular Ted Talk:

And a best selling book:

New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future

As you will see, I find multiple example of articles earning over $1,000 in 2018 and 2019. So while I cannot say definitively that this is an article that earned over $1,000 in 2017 (as the author did not post his article earnings), I am 99% sure it did or is at least representative of the type of article that would.

Notes About 2018 Medium Articles

• This is the first full year of data available for the Medium Partner Program.

• Most of the Medium guides/tips you read today are based on content and success writers found in the first 6 months of this year (a good reason to look for up to date content).

• Medium replaces the Recommend button with claps/applause. Claps then become the sole metric upon which earnings are calculated.

Sample Article

Sample Article

Sample Articles

Sample Articles

Notes About 2019 Medium Articles

• Medium switched how it calculated Partner Program earnings in October:

• Medium changed its earnings dashboard/stats to reflect the newly measured member reading time:

Sample Articles

Sample Article

Sample Articles

Sample Articles

Observations and Trends From Individual Medium Article Earnings

• While there was certainly a lower bar for viral content in the earlier years of Medium writing, the number of high earning articles does appear to have increased over time. This is likely due to both the rapid growth of Medium's member base and the shift to a clap based model (which a small but prominent group of writers seemed to have mastered).
• The First Mover Advantage (FMA) is quite pronounced on Medium. Many of the current top authors were relatively early adopters of the platform. However, the path to multiple high earning articles (i.e. over $500) seems to cater to writers who have mastered the art of getting published by Medium's in house publications.
• Without a more detailed set of data on Partner Program earnings it is hard to determine, but I would venture that while the average earnings per active writer has only grown modestly, the earnings of the upper 2%-5%, have increased dramatically. People in this group can now consistently rely on Medium for part of their assorted “gig economy” income, or in some cases, rely on Medium for their entire income. However, this elite group if bifurcated — with one group of writers relying upon their large base of followers/relationships with Medium editors to secure big paydays on sporadic but viral articles, and the other group churning out lower earning content but at a much faster rate, to compensate for their smaller following and the changing payment system.

These two groups also emerged when I previously examined the post frequency of top writers:

Will this pattern continue forward?

That is hard to say.

But the move to member reading time will likely drive an increase in longer and more niche content.

While email lists were always important, driving views of a small (but devoted) group of followers, would seem like the prudent strategy for new writers. This could also lead to a resurgence of niche Medium publications, depending upon whether Medium makes some necessary upgrades to them.

A special thanks to the following authors whose posts made this possible:

Steve Campbell, Luke Trayser, Devon Price, James Bridle, Jessie Lewis, Nat Eliason, Ayodeji Awosika, Danny Forest, Casey Botticello, Daniel Bourke, Zulie Rane, Rajesh Vairapandian, Shannon Ashley, David Gilbertson, Kerry Needs

— Casey Botticello

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Casey Botticello is an internet entrepreneur and the founder of Blogging Guide, an online community of writers with an award-winning newsletter. He is also the creator of the popular Medium Writing Course and the Substack Newsletter Course.

Casey previously worked at several tech startups, a lobbying & strategic communications firm, and has created several businesses of his own. He is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania, where he received his B.A. in Urban Studies.

You can connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, follow his Medium publications, Digital Marketing Lab and Medium Blogging Guide, or reach out to him directly on his personal website.