Top 10 most-followed & active publications on Medium

7 min readApr 17, 2021

There are a few useful websites that rank Medium’s leading publications.

Ranking publications is great but many of those pubs now remain inactive as they no longer accept submissions from writers.

We wanted to bring together a continuously updated list of Medium’s most-followed and active publications that also accept submissions from new writers.

We’ll be revising this list every month to make sure it is up to date. A few highlights on what has been happening on top of that list recently:

Matter (1,035,196 followers) remains inactive since December 12, 2016.
FreeCodeCamp (583,111 followers) left Medium.
The Mission (526,570 followers) no longer publishes regularly.
HackerNoon (452,949 followers) is soon leaving Medium.
Personal Growth (423,997 followers) & Startup Grind (378,597 followers) either have removed public submission links or do not publish regularly anymore.

Here are Medium’s Top 10 most-followed & active publications in 2019:

1. The Startup — 452,478 followers

Growing: 361 followers per day
Publication url: https://medium.com/swlh
How to submit your story to The Startup: https://medium.com/swlh/when-one-upvote-is-worth-a-thousand-visitors-3e8ed27bcd3e
Topics we love: technology, entrepreneurship, productivity, life lessons
Highlights: We are finally beginning to grow our team so we can help more writers reach our audience. We accept unpublished drafts only and prioritize Medium Partner Program stories over free ones. You can find everything you need to know on our submission guidelines here.

2. Better Humans — 304,574 followers

Growing: 212 followers per day
Publication url: https://medium.com/better-humans
How to submit your story to Better Humans: https://medium.com/better-humans/write-for-better-humans-4c6c9884fc08
Topics they love: personal expertise — here’s their style guide.
Highlights: Better Humans only publishes articles by writers who have personal experience with the advice they’re giving in their articles. They don’t accept thought-pieces, philosophy, or news. Every writer for Better Humans is paid — they pay a flat fee — usually $500 — for professional-quality articles, when they are published.

3. UX Collective — 262,434 followers

Growing: 217 followers per day
Publication url: https://uxdesign.cc/
How to submit your story to UX Collective: https://uxdesign.cc/submit-your-article-to-uxdesign-cc-abea95d3a1ba
Topics they love: user experience design, usability, interaction design, prototyping, product design
Highlights: It’s the largest design publication on Medium. To submit a story, you can email them at hello@uxdesign.cc with a link to your Medium draft or published article along with a one-sentence description. They don’t accept articles in other formats.

4. Towards Data Science — 215,152 followers

Growing: 437 followers per day
Publication url: https://towardsdatascience.com/
How to submit your story to Towards Data Science: https://towardsdatascience.com/contribute/home
Topics they love: data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other adjacent scientific fields such as cognitive science
Highlights: Towards Data Science is one of the fastest growing publications on Medium. To become a writer, you can send your article (they prefer to receive a link to a Medium draft) here: publication@towardsdatascience.com.

5. UX Planet — 199,758 followers

Growing: 172 followers per day
Publication url: https://uxplanet.org/
How to submit your story to UX Planet: https://uxplanet.org/how-to-publish-your-content-on-ux-planet-fd9dc99756db
Topics they love: user experience, user interface design, usability, interaction design, prototyping, product design
Highlights: You can send your draft or link to the published article to info@uxplanet.org via email, with a short description (one-two sentences) of what your article is about.

6. The Writing Cooperative — 156,985 followers

Growing: 133 followers per day
Publication url: https://writingcooperative.com/
How to submit your story to The Writing Cooperative: https://writingcooperative.com/the-writing-cooperative-submission-requirements-364b0fea36cd
Topics they love: writing, editing, publishing, creativity
Highlights: The Writing Cooperative is a community of people who help each other write better. They publish articles that help writers improve their craft. New writers can request to contribute by filling out their Writer Request Form.

7. P.S. I Love You — 125,913 followers

Growing: 109 followers per day
Publication url: https://psiloveyou.xyz/
How to submit your story to PS. I Love You: https://psiloveyou.xyz/p-s-i-love-you-submissions-guidelines-9a7974fe532
Topics they love: your piece to be, on some level, about love
Highlights: If you’re a new writer, you can send a link to your draft (along with an introduction, your Medium username, and links to previously published works) to dmoore4now@gmail.com.

8. Human Parts — 99,353 followers

Growing: 77.8 followers per day
Publication url: https://humanparts.medium.com/
How to submit your story to Human Parts: https://humanparts.medium.com/about
Topics they love: your piece to be, on some level, about love
Highlights: Human Parts is one of Medium’s in-house publications. You can pitch your story to one of their editors and get paid for your commissioned story.

9. Slackjaw — 88,711 followers

Growing: 46 followers per day
Publication url: https://medium.com/slackjaw
How to submit your story to Slackjaw: https://medium.com/slackjaw/guidelines-for-slackjaw-submissions-f720ea4e1dfe
Topics they love: humor
Highlights: Slackjaw is probably one of the best humor publications out there. To submit a piece to Slackjaw, you can email slackjawsubmissions@gmail.com with a private link to your Medium draft.

10. The Ascent — 61,045 followers

Growing: 81 followers per day
Publication url: https://theascent.pub/
How to submit a story to The Ascent: https://www.notion.so/Ascent-Submission-Guidelines-08ce7f0d33044d6a8dd9b2d7533ffe84
Topics they love: life lessons, first-hand accounts, and personal experiences
Highlights: A community of storytellers documenting the journey to success. They publish both free and paid stories.

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