Medium pays for what paying members do, which is narrower than traffic
Medium’s help center says Partner Program writers earn based on Medium member activity on eligible paywalled stories. It adds that the earnings model is updated periodically and that the article reflects the current method.
That is different from being paid for page views. A story can be widely read and earn little if the readers are not paying members. This article offers a short check to run before you put a story behind the paywall: reader, source, promise, and fit.
It is editorial synthesis from six Medium Help Center pages. It is not a Medium feature, and it does not estimate what any story will earn.
Start with who the reader is
The scenario examples page walks through what counts. A logged-out reader or a logged-in non-member who reads for 30 seconds or more is recorded as a non-member read, and no earnings accrue in those ordinary scenarios. The Friend of Medium sharing exception is described below. Claps, highlights and replies from non-members appear in your stats but do not contribute to earnings.
A paying member who leaves before 30 seconds is a member view with no earnings. A member who actively reads or listens for at least 30 seconds, excluding idle time, is a member read, and their reading time contributes. The page adds that each type of engagement, a clap, a highlight and a reply, adds engagement points the first time it occurs, however many times it is repeated.
The earnings page also describes a one-time amount when a non-member becomes a paying member to read your paywalled story, excluded if the member cancels shortly after joining. That is separate from member reading time and should not be counted on.
Know how the source of a read changes what it is worth
The earnings page says member reads from outside Medium earn a 5% bonus, that stories members find through search engines draw from an additional share of the Partner Program budget at a higher rate, and that member reads from email notifications to your subscribers earn at a higher rate than reads from the Medium app or feed. It suggests sharing stories externally, optimizing SEO settings and enabling email notifications when you publish.
The bonuses apply to member reads, so a link shared widely to people who are not members does not earn through those bonuses. The page does not give the size of the search or email rates or an arithmetic formula for stacking them, so do not invent those calculations.
For a hypothetical example, imagine an independent educator who publishes a tutorial and shares the link on social media and selects Medium’s publish-time option to notify subscribers by email. Ordinary social referrals from non-members do not earn, while a subscriber who is a paying member and actively reads or listens for at least 30 seconds from that Medium notification does, at a higher rate than a read from the feed.
Make sure the story delivers on its title
The earnings page describes a final adjustment based on the member read ratio: member reads of 30 seconds or more divided by total member views. Stories with a below-average ratio are adjusted down and stories above average are adjusted up, which Medium says helps account for stories that attract clicks without delivering on the title or preview.
The page says this is not about scrolling to the end and does not penalize longer stories with longer estimated reading times. It measures whether members who open a story actively read or listen for at least 30 seconds; leaving an idle tab open is not enough.
In practice, that makes the title and the opening a promise the next 30 seconds have to keep. The earlier article on Medium topics and the reader promise covers that link between the promise and the reader.
Check the distribution rules, including what they say about AI
Medium’s Distribution Guidelines, updated June 29, 2026, describe three categories: Network Distribution as the baseline, General Distribution matched to reader interests, and Boost for especially high-quality stories. The earnings page says Boosted stories earn engagement points at a higher rate and that non-boosted stories now receive a larger share than before.
The guidelines list AI-generated content under low-value content that does not qualify for General Distribution, and describe the Boost characteristics as including a story that is human-created and does not appear to be generated by an AI or text-generating tool. The separate AI content policy also governs paywall eligibility. Medium defines AI-generated writing as text mostly made by AI with little or no improvement, fact-checking or editing. Such writing cannot be behind a Partner Program paywall, disclosed or not; Medium may remove the paywall or revoke enrollment. Generated text requires disclosure and generated images need caption disclosure. Its FAQ exempts outlining, grammar, spelling and fact-verification assistance from disclosure; it gives no numeric editing threshold or eligibility guarantee.
If you use AI tools in your drafting, those lines are worth reading against your own process. The earlier article on AI voice preservation for creators covers keeping your own voice and judgment in AI-assisted work, which is an editorial choice and not a Medium rule.
Know the eligibility and sharing details, and keep a short record
Eligibility is per story. The overview page says you choose whether each story is eligible to earn, and that eligible stories are placed behind the paywall, with non-members seeing a preview. The earnings page says a story earns only while it is public and set to earn, and that Medium may withhold payment if a story is made ineligible because of a policy violation.
The Friend Links page says authors get a Friend Link for every paywalled story that gives free access, and that reads by non-members through links shared by the author or an editor do not generate revenue. The same page and the earnings page say paying members who open the story through such a link still contribute. The Friend Links page also distinguishes links shared by a Friend of Medium member: non-member engagement through those links can earn. That exception is not the same as an author or editor sharing their own Friend Link, or the separate one-time membership conversion amount.
If you plan your content with a creator tool such as Launchvibes, add the story’s promise and where its readers will come from to the idea before you check the story’s eligibility and decide whether to paywall it; using an AI writing tool does not itself establish paywall eligibility. Keep a short record of what you made eligible, the sources you shared to, and the date you read the pages, since Medium says the model is updated periodically.