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Medium Partner Program

Medium’s Partner Program is for people who are interested in helping us fulfill our mission of deepening the collective wisdom of the world through personal expression, knowledge-sharing, and storytelling.

Apply now

Quality over clickbait

In a creator economy ruled by clickbait and ad impressions, Medium’s Partner Program is taking a stand for quality. As a partner, when your best stories are read by Medium members, a portion of their membership dues will be shared with you. Here are a few factors we consider in order to determine quality.

Member read time

Members-only stories will earn money when a member reads your story for 30 seconds or more, and will continue to earn more the longer they keep reading. Long, thoughtful, reads are encouraged!

Positive interactions

You’ll also earn more when members clap, highlight, reply, or engage with your story in other ways.

Follower bonus

When members follow you and continue to read and interact with your stories, you will be given a follower bonus. We encourage writers to share their stories with readers in a way that promotes community and audience building.

Boost bonus

Stories that are Boosted will also earn more for each read and interaction. We recommend that writers spend more time on fewer, high-quality stories to reach this bar.

Eligibility criteria

You’re a member.

The best way to succeed as a Partner Program author is to also participate as a reader of stories on Medium.

You’ve published a story in the last 6 months.

Staying active, publishing regularly, and being engaged with the community are important ways to help our platform flourish.

You’re located in an eligible country.

We recently expanded the number of supported countries, so now more people than ever are able to join the Partner Program.

Apply now

FAQ

We’ve updated the Partner Program to incentivize high-quality human writing. Here’s a quick summary: we’ve opened up the Partner Program to more locations, removed the 100 follower requirement, and require Medium membership to join. Earnings will be higher for stories that have repeat readers, have been Boosted, and that have a high read ratio. All stories will also earn more based on engagement signals like claps, highlights, and replies. Referral bonuses are being deprecated and new story stats will be added in so writers can better understand their story earnings breakdown.

Read more about all of the changes and our vision for the Partner Program.

To join the Partner Program, you will need to meet the following eligibility requirements:

  1. Be a Medium member
  2. Have published at least one story on Medium in the past 6 months
  3. Are located in a supported country
  4. Are 18 years of age or older

Check out the eligibility requirements and details about the Partner Program.

Earnings will be based on member read and listen time as well as member engagement signals. This includes claps, highlights, replies, and new follows. Reads and read ratios will be defined as people who read your story for 30 seconds or more divided by total views. More information on how earnings are calculated can be found here with examples featured here.

We’re deprecating the Membership Referral Program and replacing it with a Follower Bonus. Stories that are read by and have engagement with existing followers will get an extra bonus in earnings.

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 1st.
Nope, if you’re already in the Partner Program, you won’t have to do anything new to stay in the program.
Check out the Partner Program Guide! If you have any other questions, submit a Help Desk request and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!