How Much Will Medium Pay You For 1 Million Views?
I don't think this has ever happened to any writer before on Medium.
I want us to learn a great lesson from two weird articles of mine. The first one is an article with lots of views but zero or few earnings. The second one is a short viral article with most of my earnings. Let me start with the best one.
On the 4th of December, I published an article titled, “How Long Should Sex Last in a Healthy Relationship?” Luckily (I’m using the word “luckily” because no one can predict the Medium algorithm), the content went viral. On Medium, what is your definition of viral? While you may be thinking of a piece of content with 1 million views as viral content for a website like YouTube or a typical blogging website, the case is different for Medium. A viral piece of content on Medium begins with a thousand views. It takes a lot for your content to get a thousand views, regardless of how many followers you have. I have seen a lot of top writers with over 30k followers still struggling for views on their newly published content, and this happens to big publications too. At the time of writing, this article had received 7K views and earned me a total of $352.68.
The second weird and crazy article was content I published that no one was paying attention to but all of a sudden started getting a lot of views. At first, I was happy with the hope that this would make me a lot of money just like every other article that goes viral. I was surprised to see my earnings crumble and static. I tried to check what the problem was. I realize I have been getting a lot of views from a weird source that no one understands. The source of these views was never from me or my shareable friendly link. Neither were these views from Google or any other social media platform. All I knew was that I made $1.35 from a 4K view of content.
Don’t just pray for viral content on Medium, instead pray for content that will be read by Medium paid members.
This is the only way you can be profitable or make money on Medium unless your content earns you new referred members.
How much will Medium pay you for 1 million views?
I’m still on my million-dollar topic. How much is Medium going to pay you if your content goes viral and hits a million views? I don’t think this has ever happened to any writer before, but let’s judge it from what happened to my two shared articles above.
If you manage to hit a million views and all your views and reading time come from medium-paid members, then you are a lucky gem. If your content gets a million views on the other hand but didn’t come from a Medium paid member, then say no to your earnings. Don’t be surprised to see 1 million views with $10.25 earnings.
From my little mathematics knowledge and calculations, if 7.2k views made me $352.68, maybe a million views will make you $20,415.107. If my calculation is wrong, please feel free to correct me in the comment below.
I wish Medium could start showing ads for non-paying members. This way, writers can also earn from their reading contributions.
Thank you and remain blessed.
