Partner Program writers can earn based on Medium members activity on eligible stories. In this article you can learn more about your payouts and how Medium calculates them.
We’re always working to improve our model as we learn. Currently, we calculate earnings based on these components:
1. How long members spend reading or listening to your story
As Medium members spend more time reading or listening to your story, you will earn more. Member reads and Member read ratios are defined as paying members who read your story for 30 seconds or more divided by total views. Reading and listening times are combined to generate the "member reading time" metric.
2. Engagement points
This is calculated based on member reading/listening time, the number of people who clapped, highlighted, and responded to your story.
3. Boost bonus
A multiplier of engagement points when the story is Boosted.
4. Member read ratio adjustment
The % of members who read your story for 30 seconds or more on the given day will adjust the value of all the points earned either up or down.
Earnings are updated every day. We use the UTC timezone, meaning we include all earnings from activity during midnight UTC to 11:59 PM UTC.
Different examples of how stories can earn can be found here.
How reading time is calculated
We calculate reading time based on the amount of time that a viewer spends actively reading on the page. We consider the viewer’s scrolling and activity, and then determine how long the viewer spent reading the story. We take care to differentiate between gaps in scroll activity versus long periods of time during which the viewer stepped away for a coffee break. Your earnings are calculated based on a mix of factors, not a calculation based on word or time count.
As of August 1, 2023, we define the read ratio as people who read your story for 30 seconds or more divided by total views.
How listening time is calculated
We calculate earnings from listen time the same way that we calculate earnings from read time. Earnings from listen time are automatically incorporated into your earnings and will be represented as part of “Member reading time” on your stats detail page. However, since we can’t account for pauses in scrolling – which allows us to measure periods when a listener may have stepped away – a maximum of two full listens per member is applied toward earnings from listen time.
Membership Referral Program
We’re sunsetting the Membership Referral Program. All member referrals made up until September 1, 2023 will continue to be honored indefinitely. We will keep your custom referral pages up so that they don’t break your links in stories, but we will stop generating new referrals for members who sign up after September 1, 2023. More information can be found here.
Boost and Partner Program Earnings
Getting Boosted results in both a distribution and earnings bonus. The Partner Program is designed to reward your most meaningful, original, and memorable stories. When you are in the Partner Program, members-only stories that get Boosted will earn at a higher rate, in addition to receiving the usual distribution bonus. Read more about our Boost criteria here.
Acceptable Use
Non-genuine engagement is considered a misuse of the Partner Program, and any account engaging in this behavior will be suspended without notification or the option to appeal.
We do not allow these behaviours:
- Creating multiple accounts to engage with yourself, and generate earnings
- Using responses to drive attention to your stories, with the intention of creating reciprocal earnings
- Writing responses, clapping, following, or highlighting solely to generate earnings points.
- Exclusively using AI-generated content to earn money for stories and responses in the Partner Program
Questions
Yes, we treat reads from a Friend Link the same as reads not from a Friend Link. Members who read your story through the Friend Link will still contribute to your earnings
Yes. As long as your stories are eligible to earn through the Partner Program, it doesn’t matter whether the stories are in a publication or not.
For most Stripe users, there is no minimum payout amount. However, there are some exceptions:
- EUR bank accounts have a minimum payout of 1.00 EUR
- GBP bank accounts have a minimum payout of 1.00 GBP
- CHF bank accounts have a minimum payout of 25.00 CHF
- NOK, DKK, and SEK bank accounts have a minimum payout of 20.00kr
- MXN bank accounts have a minimum payout of 10.00 MXN
Visit this article from Stripe for the full list.
If you are enrolled in the Partner Program with approved tax documents, then your stories are eligible to earn during periods of time when they are public and set to earn as part of Medium’s paywall.
- If a story earns money and then later is modified to be ineligible to earn for legitimate reasons (e.g., you choose to unlist the story), then you will still receive those prior earnings at the end of the month.* Your story will not accrue additional earnings for the time period during which it is ineligible to earn.
- If a story earns money and then later is modified to be ineligible to earn for illegitimate reasons (e.g., the story violates our Terms), then we reserve the right to withhold payment.
* Provided you are still in good standing with Medium, have approved tax documents, etc. Earnings estimates are non-binding.