Medium Partner Program is finally open to global (including Taiwan) writers!

Medium Partner Program is finally open to global (including Taiwan) writers!

Everyone can join the Medium Partner Program to earn revenue by writing articles.

Photo by Steve Johnson

Murmur

The original intention of running Medium was not to make money but to enjoy sharing with everyone, sharing technical difficulties encountered, hoping to help developers facing the same problems take a shorter path, or based on my research, I can also learn new knowledge from it; in addition, there are few Traditional Chinese writers, hoping to inspire others and create a culture of mutual learning.

So I have always been indifferent to whether articles can make a profit. Whether there is profit or not, if there is, I can use the earnings to experiment, purchase more services or experiences, and then rewrite them into articles to share with everyone, creating a rolling cycle.

Since 2018, when I started writing articles on Medium, I knew that Medium had a Partner Program. However, in 2018, 2019, 2020… year after year, the Medium Partner Program policy has not been updated, and it has always been limited to a few regions for writers (I remember only Singapore and Japan in Asia) to join and earn; writers from regions other than those mentioned above need to go through troublesome methods to earn, such as using a VPN to access allowed regions + needing an account or phone number from that region, which I briefly researched before and found it too cumbersome and unsafe.

As a result, many creators have switched to other platforms, such as Matters, Fangzi, or self-hosted ad revenue, and in recent years, Medium has indeed lost many Chinese creators.

Medium Partner Program

It wasn’t until recently in August 2024 that I accidentally saw an invitation to join the Partner Program in the banner on Medium’s backend (I thought, What? Taiwan is not open for joining again), and after clicking to see, I was surprised to find that it is now fully open, and almost all regions’ creators can join the Partner Program to earn revenue through their own articles.

But it’s a bit funny to say that before you can make money by joining the Medium Partner Program, you need to first spend money to join as a Medium Member paid subscriber (minimum $4 USD per month).

August 7, 2024, Official Medium Blog Announcement

List of added countries:

Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brunei, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Madagascar, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan , Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam

Medium Custom Domain Feature

Recently, Medium has been adding more and more features. Another feature that was once open and then closed, the Custom Domain feature, has recently been reopened.

Return of Medium Custom Domain Feature

You can refer to my previous article “Return of Medium Custom Domain Feature” to register your own domain and bind it to Medium.

• Effect: https://blog.zhgchg.li

The Custom Domain feature also requires you to join as a Medium Member paid subscriber to use.

Funding Methods & Tax Issues

• Funding Method: Direct funding through Stripe, Stripe is similar to Paypal but with lower fees and more focus on payment services.
• Tax Issues: Non-U.S. citizens only need to fill out a declaration form.

Thoughts on Some Paywall Paid Articles

• After an article is put behind a Paywall and becomes a paid article, users must log in and become a Medium Member paid subscriber to read the full content. Some previously circulated unlimited reading plugins are no longer effective.
• My high-traffic, well-SEO’d articles are mostly unboxing and travel notes; however, they are mostly passersby, not even regular members, let alone Medium Members. They come in, take a look, and leave, so these types of articles are not suitable for Paywall.
• Technical articles are intended to share information freely and publicly, and I don’t think my content is worth paying for. Also, since the traffic is low and mostly industry insiders, there is not much motivation to put them behind a Paywall. Or provide free links for friends who are not Medium Members to view.
• For traffic/revenue effects, you can refer to the data shared by senior Tenz Shih in the early stages of joining the Medium Partner Program.
• I have selected several technical articles with good traffic and content to put behind a Paywall to test the effect (providing a free link in the first paragraph so that non-account holders/payers can also view), and I will update the results for everyone to refer to later.
• Previously, I had already migrated to self-hosting + Google Adsense, using tools I developed to transfer “ Migrate from Medium to Self-Hosted Website Painlessly” but at that time, I did not consider paid articles, so I need to adjust the script again QQ.

Detailed tutorials begin.

Medium Partner Program Enrollment Process

1. Complete Stripe Account Registration (Opening)

• https://dashboard.stripe.com/register?locale=zh-Hans
• I registered a long time ago, so I will skip the registration process.

2. Ensure you are a Medium Member paid subscriber.

First, make sure you have a Medium Member or Medium Friend membership.

• If not, you need to subscribe and join first.

3. Go to the Medium Partner Program page to apply for membership.

• Select your country, as almost all countries are currently supported. It is assumed that countries supporting Stripe payments are open.

• Ensure you meet all three conditions:
  1. Already a paying Medium Member ✅
  2. Have published at least one article in the past six months ✅
  3. Located in the allowed region Taiwan ✅
• Click:
  1. Confirm you are over 18 years old
  2. Agree to the terms of use

Click “Enroll now” to proceed to the next step.

4. Complete the Medium x Stripe binding.

• Enter your email address.

• Enter your phone number.

• Business type: I selected “Individual or Sole Proprietorship.”

• Verify your personal details: Enter personal information, which can be entered in Chinese here.

Add a withdrawal account:

• Account holder name: Enter the bank account name you want to receive payments - in English (name).
• SWIFT / BIC code: Enter the SWIFT code of the bank account you want to receive payments, which can be checked here.
• Account number: Enter the bank account number you want to receive payments.

I used a Cathay Foreign Currency Account here, directly check the foreign currency account information in the app and fill it in. (You can change it in the settings later; it seems to verify correctness when making a transfer.)

• Review and submit: Click “Agree and Submit” after confirming the data is correct.

After successful submission, you will be redirected back to Medium to continue setting up tax information.

5. Complete tax declaration.

Below is an example for a personal account with no U.S. identity.

• Enter your personal information (in English).
• Address: Can be translated through Chunghwa Post

• Select Tax Form: For non-U.S. individuals without any U.S. identity, choose the first option “W-8BEN — for non-US individuals.”

• Continue filling out relevant personal information (in English).

• Identification of Beneficial Owner (Continued)
• In this step, simply check “I can’t claim treaty benefits, so I’m not required to provide a Tax ID Number” and click “Continue”.

• Claim of Treaty Benefits (Part II)
• Click “Continue” for the next step directly
• Click “Confirm” to confirm

• Review After confirming the data is correct, click “Continue” for the next step

Certification (Part III):

• Check all boxes, select “I am signing for myself.”, enter your English name, today’s date, contact email.
• Finally, click “Submit Form” to submit the entire form.

Done!

After submission, you will be redirected to the Payout settings page. If everything is ✅, it means you have successfully joined!

Add the article to Paywall to start earning

Note that joining Medium Partner does not automatically generate earnings. The article must be added to Paywall to receive revenue.

• Article editing -> “Manage paywall setting”

• Check “Paywall your story” -> “Save”
• Articles participating in revenue sharing will have a ⭐️.

This is how this article will generate revenue.

Free Viewing Link

• If you want to allow friends to view the full article for free, select “Copy Friend Link” from Share. They can view the complete article for free through this link, but you won’t earn revenue.

View Performance Reports

https://medium.com/me/partner/dashboard

Medium Partner Dashboard or Story Stats will show your Earnings.

The detailed article report will also show how many paying members have viewed it.

Results of this Article

This article was added to Paywall from the beginning (now removed), sharing the results of one month.

$0.90

Earnings

201

Views

82

Reads

41%

Read ratio

Note that only Reads (paying users staying to read for over 30 seconds) generate revenue. The allocated amount is not fixed and seems to depend on views, claps, shares, etc. My numbers are not high, so each Read is distributed around $0.01 to $0.07.

These data are for reference.

Medium Custom Domain Promotion

• Medium Custom Domain Feature Returns
• You can follow the steps in the above article to register your own domain and link it to Medium. Effect: From https://medium.com/@zhgchgli -> https://blog.zhgchg.li

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to contact me.

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本文中文版本

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This article was first published in Traditional Chinese on Medium ➡️ View Here