How Much Is A Reader’s Time Worth In The Medium Partner Program?

The answer might surprise you.

Medium made some big changes in October. You can read more about these changes here.

One of the main changes includes how writers get paid based on how much time a viewer spends on each post.

And Medium has rolled out some interesting new statistics to show you how much you get paid based on the amount of time readers spent with your article.

A Simple Example For You

During the month of November — just over the past few days — Medium members has spent close to two hours on this article.

Here’s where I found this information if you’d like to check your own stories.

First, go to the Medium Partner Program page.

Then click on View Stats below one of your stories. You’ll find more info there.

I’ve made $4.07 so far on this story, and readers have spent 1 hour and 58 minutes with this story.

So on this one, readers are worth 3 cents a minute or $2.07 per hour.

Another story shows I’ve made $3.60 from 1 hour and 42 minutes of reading.

That shows 2.11 cents per hour. So, roughly $2.00 an hour appears to be right, or 3 cents a minute.

At the top of the post is a lifetime summary which shows some useful information. Views and average reading time stand out to me the most.

The average reading time is just that. We already know online readers are skimmers.

This specific post is a 4-minute read, and the average reading time is only 50 seconds. I could still go back and optimize this post to make it better.

Update: This post was originally written in 2019. Now in 2022, the numbers have dropped much, much more. Here is a snapshot of the 2022 numbers.

This was my most popular post in December of 2021.

So looking at this post on the surface, why would my pay be so much lower with the read time being over 3 and a half minutes? Let’s dig deeper.

My overall reading time is four hours and 16 minutes. Which is much longer than the post example that generated 3.16 and had a read time of 1 hour and 42 minutes.

So it means that the key metric to look at is specifically read time. I actually made 5 cents per minute of read time. (Which really surprised me!)

Perhaps, Medium isn’t paying readers much, much less? Maybe they changed the definition of what is a view vs. what is read time? Sadly, we will likely never know.

Views don’t matter. Interaction doesn’t matter. What really matters is read time.

How This All Affects Your Writing

As Medium continues to grow, I can’t help but think the earnings will go down — unless there is a massive influx of new paying Medium members or members start paying more to use Medium. Even then, that would likely be a short-term thing as the volume of writers continues to grow.

So, what can you do about all this?

Right now, more than ever, you need to take your writing to the next level.

Pull out all the stops. And don’t hold back. Whether your making more money or less money with these changes, we really don’t know what the future holds.

Link to more of your own content that is engaging and relevant to the post. I have two relevant links in this post here. You want readers to read your content as much as possible. That’s the key.

The writers who are crushing it and making twice as much on this new reading-based payment system have a TON OF CONTENT. So it really is best to try to make more content.

That’s something to keep in mind.

Above all else, keep writing. There is an active audience of readers on Medium that want for your very best work. Now is the time to give it to them. Happy writing!

Want to build up your writing habit? Join my free 5-Day Write First Challenge here.

Jim Woods is a bestselling author, freelance writer, and writing coach. His work has been featured in Fast Company, Life Hacker, Goinswriter, The Write Practice, and many other publications.