The Editor Partner Program lets editors of qualifying Medium publications earn from the stories they edit.
As an editor, you earn 25% of a writer's monthly earnings for every paywalled story you claim in your publication. This doesn't affect the writer's pay — their story earns the same amount regardless.
Who can participate
You can see if your publication is eligible by going to the Editor Partner Program dashboard under “Manage publication.” You can also navigate directly to the URL: Medium.com/[your-publication-name]/manage/editor-partner-program.
If your publication is eligible, the publication owner can enroll the publication so that any editors are able to earn when they assign themselves to stories in the submissions queue of that publication.
General criteria
- The publication owner must be enrolled in the Partner Program.
- The publication must have the “open to all” submission mode, meaning that any writer who follows the publication can submit stories. Read more about submission methods here.
Monthly requirements
- The paywalled stories in the publication must earn at least $200 dollars collectively. This means the editor or editors in that publication would earn at least $50. This requirement is to include publications that have already demonstrated they can build an audience, while also ensuring that editors will have a base level of earnings from the program.
- The publication must publish at least one story and no more than 300 stories. This is to focus on active publications that are discerning about the stories they publish.
- The publication must publish a story from at least two writers.
- Maintain overall story distribution levels. We know this one may cause stress among editors, but please be reassured that we’re looking for good-fit partners, rather than looking for reasons to not include pubs. We want as many publications as possible in the program! Publications that consistently publish stories that fall into General Distribution or Boost levels will meet this criteria easily, while publications that consistently publish stories that qualify for Network Distribution (think: AI slop, NSFW stories, Medium meta) might want to tighten their acceptance criteria for inclusion. You can read much more information about our distribution levels here.
- You must be operating in good faith. For example, if a publication qualifies, but we see one editor with multiple Medium accounts they control and are using to unfairly earn from the program, that publication obviously wouldn’t qualify.
What’s the difference between general and monthly criteria?
We’ve separated the criteria into “general” and “monthly” to look more broadly at trends rather than individual good or bad months. If you take a break or have a quiet month, it won’t impact your publication’s eligibility.
To qualify, a publication must meet the monthly requirements for three out of six months, and the general criteria must always apply.
For example, if you meet all the criteria and you published 100 stories from January to June, and in July you publish 301, you won’t be removed from the program because you still qualify for more than three of the past six months.
However, if you meet the criteria but want to turn off open submissions, you’ll need to unenroll from the Editor Partner Program to do so.
Owners of qualifying publications receive an email at the start of the month once they qualify. Owners can enroll their publication by pressing "Enroll" on the Editor Partner Program tab under "Manage publication.
How earning works
You earn on a story by claiming it in your publication's submissions queue. If no editor claims a story before it's published, no editor earns for that story.
You earn as long as the story is paywalled and published in your publication. If the writer moves the story to another publication, earnings stop.
Editing your own stories does not qualify for earnings. This includes assigning stories to any editor accounts over which you have full or partial control.
Tracking your earnings
Your publication's earnings dashboard updates daily with cumulative earnings for the month.