MEDIUM SAYS

Medium Partner Program Update: November 2025

Over the next six months, we’ll be making small, monthly updates to the Medium Partner Program and announcing them at the beginning of each month.

This month’s change rewards paywalled stories that attract readers from outside Medium — through social media shares, search traffic, or direct links. We’re shifting 5% of total payouts toward stories that bring in external traffic, especially when that traffic leads to new Medium members.

Why we’re making this change Writers often ask why the Partner Program doesn’t pay for external traffic. Sharing your work on social media, attracting visitors from search, and sending stories directly to readers are all behaviors we want to encourage. This update adds a new incentive to reward writers who share their stories beyond Medium and help introduce new readers to the platform.

What you can do To take advantage of this change, you can:

• Share your stories on social media.
• Use Medium’s SEO settings to optimize for search traffic.
• Post your work in community spaces like Reddit.
• Send your stories directly to people you know.

Check out these Medium resources to help you get started:

• How (and why) to share your Medium story
• How to use Medium SEO settings to reach more readers
• About SEO and Medium
• How to use Medium stats to find and understand your readers

About these updates Since launching in 2017, the Medium Partner Program has been an experiment in building a reader-funded model that values substance over attention. One subscription gives readers access to all stories, while writers earn based on engagement from Medium members.

We know the program has worked well for some writers but not all. These upcoming updates are designed to make it a better fit for more writers and to increase transparency about how the program works.

Look out for monthly announcements and emails outlining each new change. Next month, we’ll share an update focused on how search traffic will be rewarded.

We’re excited to keep improving the Partner Program and strengthening our partnership with writers and readers.