Is writing on Medium still worth it in 2025? (full earnings review)
With all the buzz surrounding the Substack over the past year, it begs an important question: Is publishing on the former top spot for online writers - the blog site Medium.com - still worth it in 2025?
In this piece, I’m going to:
Run you through my earnings for the first half of the year
Then we’ll discuss some of the changes that have occurred on the platform since the start of 2025 (some of which might impact your decision to start on Medium or Substack)
Finally, I’ll go over the pros and cons of writing on Medium and give you my final verdict
What I earn on Medium in 2025
From what I can gather, I am likely one of the highest-earning writers on Medium in 2025.
This didn’t come quickly or easily.
I’ve published close to 600 articles, and August will mark 3 full years on the platform.
In that time, I’ve managed to accumulate 36,000 subscribers.
It also required sticking with it throughout periods of massive earnings upheaval, which caused a lot of folks with higher profiles and higher earnings than me to quit in a huff.
But by sticking it out and never getting locked into one type of content, I’ve managed to create a pretty nice side business for myself there.
Here’s what I’ve earned writing on Medium.com over the past 10 months:
So based on those numbers, you might suspect that the answer to the question I pose in the headline of this post (“Is Medium worth it in 2025?”) is a resounding YES!
Well, not so fast.
Let’s talk about the pros and cons of the platform first, because it certainly isn’t for everyone.
The 2 main advantages of writing on Medium
In my opinion, there are 2 main advantages that make Medium the ultimate starter platform for people interested in joining the content game.
Medium advantage 1: Low bar for entry
Whereas on, say, YouTube, you need some specialized knowledge around filming and/or editing videos, recording equipment, software, and any number of other things, all you really need to get started on Medium is a Chromebook and an internet connection.
Write. Publish. Fini.
Medium advantage 2: You can start getting paid right away
This point is extremely important.
Most people quickly quit their entrepreneurial endeavors because they don’t see immediate success or payoff.
They put in hours and hours of free work in total obscurity, then surrender within days or weeks to the 1 phrase that has sunk countless potential millionaire entrepreneurs: “This is dumb.”
Whereas it can take years to build a significant audience on, say, Substack and just as long to get monetized on YouTube (it took me 11 months), you can start earning on Medium on Day 1.
This is extremely important because it has the potential to motivate you to keep working during the early-stage grind of building a business.
The 1 biggest drawback of Medium
I addressed this in a post a couple of weeks ago.
Here’s what I wrote:
“One of the major benefits of Substack is this: You know how many subscribers you have, you know how much you charge for a subscription, and you know what Substack takes as a cut.
“Ergo, you know your income will be smooth and steady as long as you stay consistent.
“Contrast that with Medium, which has now developed something of a reputation for sudden, catastrophic pay cuts for writers.
“Although Medium always says it hasn’t changed the proportion of money it pays out to writers each time this happens, they are constantly tinkering with their pay algo - and that can have devastating consequences.
“The first time it happened since I’ve been there was when they flipped over to the new Medium Partner Program in August of 2023.
“The site suddenly decided to start paying mostly for the number of comments a story would generate - as opposed to more fair measures like read time and retention - and this devastated many of the site’s top writers (I saw a 70% pay cut overnight, for example).
“The second time it happened was this past December/January, when I saw my RPM (revenue per 1,000 views), fall from over $30 down to $15, and, on one crushing day in particular, $8.
I explained all of that in this video in the winter:
“I almost quit Medium that day.
“Fortunately, the powers that be realized the main problems in each case and slowly but surely rectified them.”
The biggest advantage Substack has over Medium - and I’ll admit it’s a doozy - is income certainty.
The real trick to succeeding on Medium
The real trick to succeeding on Medium is to be consistent, yes, but perhaps more importantly: be versatile.
Let me leave you with a couple of cautionary tales before you decide whether or not to take the leap on Medium … or any content platform, honestly.
A lots of big-name writers quit the site because they all wrote the same type of articles day after day, even after it stopped working.
In fact, one writer in particular basically re-wrote the same “how to make money writing on the side” article every day for over a year.
And it did work!
… for a while.
Their work was being aggressively pushed out by the algorithm, they were earning many thousands per month, and “make money online” content pretty much flooded everyone’s feed all day, every day.
But if there’s one constant on Medium, it’s change.
Management (and with it, content priorities) changed, and the algorithm has changed more times than I can remember.
Those who remained nimble also experienced those setbacks, but they bounced back fairly quickly.
Those who kept doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result (what’s the definition of insanity again?) lamented their poor numbers and eventually quit.
Take me, for example.
When I started out on Medium, I wrote almost exclusively about my quest to quit alcohol.
Then, as I found success, I started to write about (what else?) how to make money on Medium.
Eventually, I shifted to more general health topics, which did huge numbers at the time.
Now I write primarily about business and the economy, with some relationship content thrown in.
What will I be writing next week?
Who knows.
Whatever the people want and the algo rewards me for, I’ll give it to ‘em.
But the key is to constantly try new things, review your own content, and stay in tune with what is and isn’t working.
Now, before you crack on Medium for that kind of inconsistency, know that it’s something that happens all the time on every platform.
When I started out writing on Medium in 2022, the hottest name on YouTube was a guy named Josh Mayo.
At the height of his popularity, he was earning over half a million dollars a year from YouTube and associated affiliate marketing as his videos regularly drew in hundreds of thousands of views in a very lucrative niche at the time.
But as with the writer who wrote the same article every day, people eventually got tired of it, interests changed, and the algos changed with them.
I checked out Mayo’s channel recently and, as recently as two years ago, he was posting videos with titles like “4 Side Hustles That No One is Talking About ($900+ per day) that were doing numbers like 5 million views, 3.3 million views, and 1.4 million views.
Well, here’s what his last 6 videos have gotten:
That’s not terrible, but it’s a far cry from 5 million, which may be why he has only posted once in the last few months.
The thing to remember here is, even if you reach great heights, whether it be YouTube, Medium or anywhere else, it’s important to remember that nothing stays static for long in the content game.
You definitely want to strike while the iron’s hot, but you also don’t want to eventually fashion that iron into a cage that keeps you trapped into one single strategy or topic.
Publish Every Day project update: Day 647
I’m trying to see if I can make enough money to quit commuter life within a year by publishing every day on various platforms and putting my earnings into passive income investments.
How much I need to retire: $250 CAD per day
What I earned this week (daily average): $135.65 (Medium) + $0.12 (YouTube) + $2.64 (Amazon Associates) + $0.10 (stock dividends) = $138.51 total
What I’ve published over the past week:
Medium
Substack
The very post you’re reading right now
I’m supercharging my Publish Every Day project so I can retire soon
YouTube
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Yes, James! People complain about how their Medium income went down, but they're not willing to try something different. You have to switch it up. I know that's not good if you're building a brand around a certain niche, but it's good if you just want to write and make some money.
Well done on your earnings! Thanks for letting us see what's possible. I'm not too close to that yet, but I know it can be done!
This is really useful, thank you. I have been writing on medium for around eight months and was always told not to diversify. This has inspired me to do just that !