Who can use this feature?
This feature is only available to writers enrolled in the Medium Partner Program with active referrals. Please note that we are sunsetting the Membership Referral Program. All member referrals created until September 1st, 2023 will continue to be honored indefinitely. We will keep your custom referral pages up so that they don’t break any links in stories, but we will stop generating new referrals for members who sign up after September 1st.
Referral earnings are recurring as long as the reader’s membership plan remains active, and will be in addition to Partner Program earnings.
Here is the current Referred Membership earnings calculation as of July 2023.
| Annual | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|
| Membership price | $50.00 | $5.00 |
| Payment processing percentage fee (2.9%) | $1.45 | $0.15 |
| Payment processing flat fee ($0.30) | $0.30 | $0.30 |
| Net of payment fees | $48.25 | $4.55 |
| Split (50%) | $24.12 | $2.27 |
| Per month for 1 referred member | $2.01 | $2.27 |
| Per month for 100 referred members | $201.00 | $227.00 |
There are two ways you can earn via referrals.
First, every Partner Program writer has a personalized referral landing page where readers can become a paying member for unlimited access to your writing, plus the rest of Medium. Each reader who converts through your page will count as a referred member for you, meaning you'll receive half of their membership fee as long as they are a paying member. You can promote this page however you’d like: Share it on social platforms, link to it on post pages, or include it on your profile. Directing readers to this page is completely optional. Please keep in mind that wherever you drop your referral link or ask people to subscribe to support you, the surrounding language (or a note before the link) needs to disclose that if the reader uses your link to sign-up, then you’ll receive a portion of their membership fees. The Federal Trade Commission requires this disclosure. Here is a helpful FTC FAQ.
Accessing your membership referrals page
- On your homepage, click on your profile picture.
- Click Settings from the menu.
- In the Publishing tab, click Share your membership referral page.
- Copy your membership referral page link and share.
- In the app, tap your profile picture on the bottom bar.
- Tap Settings in the top-right corner.
- Tap Account and payment.
- In the Publishing tab, tap Share your membership referral page.
- Copy your membership referral page link and share.
Second, when a non-paying reader subscribes to your email, they'll be given the option to become a Medium member, which would count toward your referral earnings. Whether you actively encourage readers to become email subscribers, or they subscribe on their own, we'll automatically ask if they’d like to become a member.
You can track the number of Referred Memberships you've converted and retained in your audience stats.
Please note: The data process that updates your referral count runs daily, so there may be lag between referral notifications and your audience page reflecting any referrals.
For more details on how Referred Memberships work see the common questions below, or check out our updated Partner Program Terms.
Customizing your message
Write a personalized referral message to drive membership sign-ups. It’ll show up in places like your membership referrals page.
- On your homepage, click on your profile picture.
- Click Settings from the menu.
- In the Publishing tab, click Customize your membership message.
- Click Preview at any time to see how your message will display.
- In the app, tap your profile picture on the bottom bar.
- Tap Settings in the top-right corner.
- Tap Account and payment.
- In the Publishing tab, click Customize your membership message.
- Click Preview at any time to see how your message will display.
Common questions
We’re ending the referral bonus program and replacing it (in spirit) with a new follower bonus, more here. The primary reason for this change is simple: it didn’t work the way we’d anticipated (as a way of drawing new readers to Medium), and it made writing and reading on Medium harder, not easier. At the end of the day, very few people actually became members through these links. So we are repurposing the budget used for referrals to incentivize authors to write for their followers.