TL;DR: The Easy Summary
Thomas Smith, a professional photographer and writer who has been writing on Medium for over 5 years since 2019. He shares key insights about Medium, a subscription-based writing platform where users pay $5/month to access content. In March 2024, he earned over $2,000 from a single article on Medium about AI. He highlights Medium’s benefits such as earning potential, engaged audience, building expertise/brand, newsletter signups, and high domain authority. He explains how to get started on Medium, topics that perform well (e.g. technology, marketing, self-improvement), writing guidelines, getting articles ‘boosted’ for wider distribution, joining publications, and the partner program to earn money. He emphasizes the importance of creating high-quality, human-written content on Medium.
Introduction to Medium
Medium is a subscription-based website where users pay $5 per month to access high-quality, human-written content without ads. It has over 1 million paid subscribers and generates around $5-7 million in monthly revenue, which is distributed to writers based on reader engagement. Medium has a high domain rating (DR-94) and often outranks other websites in search results.
Earning Potential on Medium
The author shares their earnings from the previous month, demonstrating the significant earning potential on Medium, particularly for articles on popular topics like technology, AI, marketing, and self-improvement. Well-researched, high-quality articles that provide practical value and personal experiences can earn thousands of dollars, with the potential for even higher earnings if an article goes viral.
Writing on Medium
Medium offers a clean, minimalistic writing interface focused on text content with limited formatting options. Writers can publish their own articles or syndicate content from their existing blogs while maintaining proper canonical links. The platform values human-written, high-quality content and prohibits AI-generated or spammy content.
Getting Exposure on Medium
Medium’s algorithm recommends articles to users based on their interests, and articles can gain significant exposure through boosting by Medium’s curators. Engaging with readers, sharing on social media, and joining relevant publications can also increase an article’s reach. Publications with moderators can nominate articles for boosting, providing additional exposure opportunities.
Joining the Medium Partner Program
Writers can apply to join the Medium Partner Program and earn money based on reader engagement with their articles. The application process is simple, and writers can start earning from the beginning, even if the amounts are small initially. Consistent, high-quality content and building an audience over time can lead to substantial earnings.
The Importance of Publications
Publications on Medium are collections of articles with their own audiences. Joining relevant publications, especially those with moderators who can nominate articles for boosting, can provide significant exposure for writers, particularly those new to the platform. Publications often have submission guidelines and editors to help writers improve their content.
Conclusion
Medium offers a unique platform for writers to connect with engaged readers, build expertise, and earn money through high-quality, human-written content. Its focus on long-form, valuable content and its distribution and monetization model make it an attractive option for writers, either as a standalone platform or as a complement to an existing blog or website.
My Take: What This Means for Solo Publishers
Thomas Smith’s numbers are real, but let’s be straight about what Medium actually is for most solo publishers: a distribution channel, not a primary income stream. The partner program has faced pauses and access restrictions, and even at full throttle, earnings per thousand reads are highly variable. Chasing Medium income as your main monetization play is a mistake. Using Medium’s DR-94 to rank for competitive keywords you couldn’t touch on your own domain? That’s a different conversation entirely.
The move for affiliate publishers is using Medium as a parasite SEO vehicle — writing articles that target high-volume, commercial-intent keywords with affiliate links embedded, then letting Medium’s domain authority do the ranking heavy lifting. A piece on Medium that ranks in the top five for a product comparison term costs nothing in link building. That’s a legitimate play even when partner program earnings are negligible.
The second underrated angle is republishing existing blog content to Medium with canonical links pointing back to your site. You get Medium’s distribution to its subscriber base, potential exposure via Google Discover (Thomas Smith has a separate playbook on that worth reading alongside this one), and zero SEO cannibalization. If you’ve got a catalog of solid human-written posts collecting dust, this is one of the easier wins inside a broader traffic diversification strategy.
For photographers specifically: Medium’s audience skews toward educated, curious readers who pay for content. That’s a better affiliate conversion demo than most social platforms. Product reviews, gear comparisons, and tutorial-style content can pull affiliate commission alongside any partner earnings. Just don’t treat Medium as a substitute for building owned digital assets — use rented land for exposure, make sure your owned properties capture the actual long-term value. The parasite SEO playbook covers this balance well.
Bottom line: join the partner program when it’s open, republish your best content with canonical links, and use Medium’s domain authority to rank terms your own site can’t crack yet. The $2,000-in-a-month stories are real but exceptional. The SEO and distribution benefits are consistent and available to anyone willing to publish regularly. That’s what makes it worth the time.
Action Items
- Create an account on Medium and put in some basic information.
- Look through the list of topics on Medium and find one that you like to write about or have existing human-written, good quality content on.
- Write an article on Medium with a title, one featured image, and the text content.
- Apply for the Medium Partner Program to start earning from your articles.
- Find relevant publications in your niche, reach out to the editors, and try to get your stories published in those publications to access their audiences.
- Engage with readers by responding to comments and questions on your articles.
- Share your Medium articles on other social platforms and in your newsletter to promote them.
- Build up your following on Medium over time by consistently writing good content that ties into popular interest areas.
Sources: Thomas Smith, “Mastering Medium for Writers and Photographers” (Medium, 2024); Medium Partner Program documentation; thesideblogger.com, “A Guide to Writing on Medium in 2025.” Related reading on RankingHacks: How to Use Medium to Rank Quickly for Competitive Keywords; Unique Organic Traffic Strategies: The Diversification Playbook; Unlocking Google Discover: Thomas Smith’s Proven Strategies.