I've been writing on Medium for six years. I've seen the platform in its boom years — when stories about "I made five thousand dollars last month on Medium!" were everywhere — and I've seen the slow, complicated decline that followed. I've had months where Medium paid me well, and months where it felt like screaming into a void.

So when someone asks me "is Medium worth it in 2026?" I have an actual answer, not just a shrug. Here it is. (You can see my articles on Medium if you want proof I still use the platform.)

What Medium used to be

In 2019 and 2020, Medium was genuinely exciting for writers. The Partner Program paid reasonably well, curation was working, and new writers could break through with a single good story. Some writers were earning thousands of dollars per month from Medium alone. It felt like a real economic opportunity for anyone willing to write consistently.

The key mechanic was simple: Medium members paid a five-dollar monthly fee, and Medium distributed that money to writers based on reading time from those members. Write something members wanted to read, and you got paid.

The problem was that more writers joined, the quality bar lowered as people started gaming the system, and Medium kept tweaking the distribution algorithm in ways that made earnings less predictable. By 2022 and 2023, the golden era was largely over.

How Medium works in 2026

Medium made a significant change to the Partner Program in late 2024: they started rewarding external traffic more heavily. Articles that bring readers from Google and social media now earn more than articles that stay within the Medium ecosystem.

This is a meaningful shift. It means that SEO-optimized articles — the kind that rank on Google — are now more valuable on Medium than ever. It's no longer just about writing for Medium's internal algorithm. If you know how to drive organic traffic, Medium will pay you more for it.

The full breakdown of how the model works is in my Medium Partner Program guide, but the short version is: SEO now matters on Medium a lot more than it used to.

Realistic earnings in 2026

Let me give you the numbers that most writers won't tell you.

The median Medium writer earns very little. Most articles get between one and five dollars. A typical active writer publishing two to four articles per month earns between twenty and two hundred dollars per month. That's a wide range, but the bottom half is where most people land.

The upper tail exists. Some writers do earn five hundred, one thousand, or more per month from Medium. But those writers have typically been at it for years, have found topics that consistently attract member readers, and treat it like a craft rather than a side hustle.

The uncomfortable truth: if your primary goal is income, Medium alone is not a business model. It's a supplement at best.

What Medium is genuinely good for as an income source in 2026 is the combination of content distribution and the marginal revenue it generates on articles you'd be writing anyway. If you're already writing, republishing on Medium with canonical links costs you almost no extra time and generates some additional revenue. That's a good use of the platform. For the exact dollar figures, see what Medium pays per 1,000 views.

What Medium is still genuinely good for

Medium's value in 2026 isn't primarily about money. It's about three things:

Discovery. Medium still has a large, active reader base. If you publish something that resonates — especially in tech, productivity, creativity, or business — it can reach thousands of readers who would never have found you otherwise. That's real value for a writer building an audience.

Domain authority and SEO. Medium's domain authority is among the highest on the internet. Articles published on Medium can rank on Google faster and for more competitive keywords than articles published on a personal blog with no history. If you publish on Medium with canonical links pointing to your own site, you get a high-authority backlink. That helps your own site rank better.

Credibility signal. For many readers, being published on Medium still carries a mild credibility signal. For writers who are early in their careers, having a Medium presence adds a layer of legitimacy that a personal blog alone doesn't always provide.

When Medium is NOT worth your time

Medium is not worth your primary effort if:

  • You're writing in a niche that doesn't perform on Medium — very technical, very local, very academic
  • You want to build an audience you actually own — Medium followers are not your email list
  • You're writing primarily for the income and don't have patience for years of slow compounding growth
  • You're hoping for the viral moment that changes everything — those are rarer than they've ever been

The writers who waste the most time on Medium are the ones who publish three times a week, check their stats obsessively, and never build anything outside of Medium. If Medium's algorithm changes or the platform closes, they have nothing to show for it.

Compare that to a writer who uses Medium as one distribution channel among several, has a growing Substack list, and treats Medium as a marketing tool rather than a business. That writer is in a much stronger position.

The honest verdict

Is Medium worth it in 2026? Conditionally, yes.

It's worth it as a distribution channel. It's worth it as an SEO amplifier. It's worth it as a place to reach new readers who might not find you otherwise.

It's not worth it as your primary income source. It's not worth it as a substitute for building your own list. And it's not worth it if you're going to pour all your creative energy into a platform you don't own and can be kicked off of with no warning.

The smartest use of Medium in 2026 is as a complementary platform. Publish your best work on a platform you control — your own blog or Substack. Then republish on Medium with a canonical link. You get the discoverability without sacrificing the ownership. I lay out the full workflow in my Medium Growth Guide.

Six years in, that's what I do. And it still works.

Conclusion

Medium changed. It's not the platform it was in 2019. But it's also not useless — it's just different. Writers who adapt their strategy to what Medium is now, rather than mourning what it used to be, can still get a lot out of it.

If you want to understand exactly how the Medium Partner Program works today and what it pays, I broke it all down here: Medium Partner Program guide. For getting more out of the platform through search traffic, see my SEO tips for Medium writers.

And if you're considering Substack as an alternative — or an addition — to Medium, my full Substack vs Medium comparison covers everything you need to make that decision.

A writer is nothing without a reader. If you found this helpful, consider becoming my dear email friend. Nothing would make me happier.