If you are considering becoming a writer on Medium the first thing that you will likely want to know is whether you can actually make some real money on Medium or not.

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I mean that’s what I wanted to know before joining anyway.

But here’s the issue. Most of the earnings reports on Youtube are older and obviously Medium has changed over the last few years.

The other issue is many of these great earnings reports are from people who have been on the platform for a long time and have gained a large following. So obviously that doesn’t apply very well to beginners.

So if you are a beginner can you really make a decent amount of money from Medium.com right away?

Yes… but…

Ok so first let’s dive into the Yes part of the above.

You absolutely can make money on Medium as a beginner. Someone with a brand new account can easily start making money if they are willing to put in the work and write good-quality articles in their niche.

I started this Medium account in the middle of June. Since then I have gotten almost 1500 followers and I’m currently making $200-$250 a month. In July I made just short of $200.

So making money on Medium is certainly possible for anyone even if you are a beginner.

However, although my account on Medium was brand new and I didn’t drive any traffic to it from outside sources, I’m not a brand new blogger. I’ve been writing on my own websites for almost 3 years now and so I have a good amount of experience writing.

I still believe that someone who is brand new to blogging or writing can succeed on Medium but I personally have a lot of stories and things that I’ve learned about blogging over the past 3 years that I have been able to share.

If you are a new writer/blogger can I encourage you to write about something that you actually have experience in. Don’t just write about writing or blogging because I am. Instead, write about a topic that you love and are engaging in all of the time.

Okay, so that’s the yes part of my above answer, so now onto the but…

The issue with blogging or writing on Medium is that it can start to seem a lot more like a regular job than a blog (at least from my experience). You have to constantly be putting out content as often the content that you put out will only stay relevant and make you money for a short period of time before dropping off.

Most of the time if you write a good article it will bring in traffic for a week or two making you decent money. Then it will start to drop off.

Now it might pick up randomly if the Medium algorithm shows it again in the future but the lifespan of articles on Medium seems to be super short. What that means is if you want to keep making the same amount of money (or more money) as a beginner you have to keep putting out as much content as possible for a long time.

In August, I put out an article every single day (18 days in a row), and although those articles gave me reads and views and allowed me to make money with the Medium partner program… I ended up making about the same as I made in the previous month.

Why?

Because most of the articles that I wrote in July are no longer bringing me traffic or earnings. Most of my earnings for August are coming from articles that I’ve written in August.

Now that might not sound bad if you are new to blogging but only having a couple of weeks where an article makes money and then drops off to nothing is far from normal in blogging. Truthfully… that’s a horrible return on your time when compared to a normal blog.

Since Medium isn’t my first blogging or writing experience I know how it works in the “real world” and it is not like that at all.

I have articles on many of my sites that were written 2+ years ago that still bring me hundreds or thousands of pageviews a month. Now with time or competition coming into those terms, those articles might need to be refreshed or have additional content added to them but you can make money on normal blog posts for many years before needing to do that instead of a few weeks like Medium.

Now I know that Medium isn’t a normal blog and doesn’t require the technical setup or upfront cost that a traditional blog does. However, with Youtube videos about how to set up a blog (including my video found below), you don’t have to be super techy to create a blog anymore.

So although you can make money on Medium as a new blogger/writer it might not be the best use of your time. If you can create a blog that will give you mostly passive income for many years into the future or write on Medium which brings in income for a few weeks… which do you think is better.

I started writing on Medium purely as an experiment. To see what is and isn’t working. And to see whether writing on Medium makes sense for me to do long term.

Final Thoughts

So as a beginner can you make money on Medium.com? Absolutely!

However, it is important to know before you start that it does seem to be quite a bit of a hamster wheel with the content that you put out today bringing in most of the money on your account while the articles you wrote a few weeks or months ago don’t bring in nearly as much.

Will this change in the future as my account ages? Truthfully I have no idea.. And neither does anyone. All I can do is share my experience so far.

So far what I’ve found is Medium is a great way to get started and learn how to write or craft articles while making a bit of money but it is far from the best way to get and create long-lasting and sustainable passive income.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article. If you’d like to support me as a writer, kindly consider signing up for a membership to get unlimited access to Medium.

It only costs $5 per month and I will receive a portion of your membership fee.

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Matt R
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