Perspective
Substack or Medium — Where Can I Earn More Money?
Ah! The age-old question — Substack or Medium — Which is the better platform for me!? Well, not really age-old, but, you get the gist.
The rise of online publishing platforms in the last few years has changed the definition of how content is created and consumed.
Medium and Substack, currently, are two of the biggest online publishing platforms on the internet where you can earn money for your troubles.
There’s also Vocal, Newsbreak, even Quora with their launch of Quora plus and a few others, but that’s for another time.
In this article, let’s focus on the Substack vs Medium rivalry. Which one is the better option for you? Which one should you choose to pour down your thoughts into words and why?
Let’s take a quick look at both of them:
What is Medium?
If you are on Medium, you would already know that it is a content publishing platform where you can write on any niche you want and earn some Dinero (as long as you follow the guidelines, of course).
Or, better yet, why follow a particular niche? You can write about almost anything and you will have an audience willing to eat up your content.
Just pour down your deepest emotions (and your affiliate links) into an article, and someone will throw in a few claps here and there.
How to earn money on Medium?
With the update of the recent Partner Program, here’s how you can be eligible to earn money from Medium:
- You should have at least 100 followers to be eligible for the Partner Program.
- You should have published at least one story in the last 6 months. Comments don’t count.
- You should reside in a country where Stripe is available — Stripe Beta doesn’t count. Sincere apologies, friends and writers from India!
If you fulfill the above guidelines, all you need to do now is write. You can also submit your writings to the publications of your choosing, it’s up to them if they want to publish them or not (As a rule of thumb, the bigger they are, the cockier they get).
Or else, you can just publish it yourself. Your call.
Now, how the process of money-making works is:
- The bigger the publication, the more chances for you to get maximum eyes on your articles (Which isn’t always true, but it usually is).
- The more eyes on your articles, the more time the audience will spend on your post.
- The more time they spend on your post, the more money you make through the Medium Partner Program.
Oh, and another thing. If the secret guys sitting behind the desk in the Medium’s office find your article particularly saucy, they might just curate it.
Theoretically, it means that your article will be distributed voraciously (I’ve always wanted to use this word) across the platform, thus garnering more views, reading time, high amounts of Dinero in your pocket, etc.
And before you ask, no one knows why a particular article gets curated over others. And we aren’t supposed to ask, either. It works on a ‘need to know’ basis.
What is Substack?
Substack is more of a newsletter platform compared to Medium. Let me explain:
When you join Substack, you are asked to create a publication or a blog. They will provide you with a domain name and everything, just like Medium.
Once you do that, you are free to write about whatever topics or niche you desire, again, just like Medium.
But, that’s where the similarities stop.
How to earn money on Substack?
The Substack earning model is completely different from that of Medium:
- There aren’t any eligibility criteria. On substack, you don’t earn money by the number of views or by the time spent by an audience on your posts.
- It is basically an email newsletter platform, meaning, you first need an audience to subscribe to your publication.
- Once you have a considerable number of subscribers, you can choose to put your content behind a paywall and charge your subscribers as low as $5/month.
- Substack will charge 10% of what you earn from your subscribers every month which doesn’t include the 2–4% of Credit Card fees, amongst other things.
- Theoretically, if you have 20 paying subscribers who pay $5 per month, you will earn around $87–88 give or take a few cents.
Why you should choose Substack over Medium?
It’s pretty simple, really. Take a look at these points:
- If you already have a pretty heavy e-mail list, it makes sense to join Substack.
Theoretically, you can write whatever you want (they give you way more freedom compared to Medium when it comes to controversial topics), and put your content behind a paywall.
Generally, 3–5% of your free e-mail list switch to paying subscribers. Take from that what you will. - Another thing that I noticed is that your newsletter has way more open rates when you send it through Substack.
I used to send my newsletter through SendinBlue, and I had an open rate of around 50%. With Substack, it was a whopping 80%!
It could be that the newsletter sent through substack arrives in the primary folders instead of being marked as spam.
Substack must be pretty high on Google rankings when it comes to that! - If you ever decide to move on from Substack, well, you can take your free and paid subscribers and just do so. There’s no hassle. You would still have your audience, just choose a different platform. So, in theory, you lose nothing.
- They are still relatively new on the market and are still growing substantially every year.
In fact, they just raised $65m in March 2021 and are reportedly valued at around $650m. They are on the rise and will continue to be so.
Why you should choose Medium over Substack?
Again, take a look at these points and make up your own mind:
- If you are a relatively new writer with no subscribers or email list, it makes sense to start on Medium.
In fact, why would you join a platform like Substack and toil hard for a year or so with little to no reward when there is a way better option at your disposal? This brings me to my next point. - You earn money on Medium basically by the number of views and the time spent on your articles. As a starter, you can easily write a decent article and fulfill those conditions.
It might not be enough to quit your day job, but you could turn it into a pretty good side hustle in no time. - Medium has pretty good SEO and a brilliant Domain Ranking on Google. It means that your article has a very good chance of going viral and generating organic traffic.
On Substack, you will generate little to no organic traction. Basically, you will have to depend on the internal traffic. - You can write about any niche and still generate considerable views on Medium. The readers here are like sharks, ready to consume anything and everything worthwhile. Take advantage of that.
At Substack, you have to be pretty niche-specific, unless you already have an email list. - Substack is a better newsletter platform, for now, but Medium has started working on that aspect too, and their latest update is a step towards that.
CONCLUSION — Is it Medium or Substack?
I personally prefer Medium because I don’t have a big enough email list to move to Substack, and I prefer to cover a lot of different niches. I don’t want to start from scratch either, so, there you go!
Moreover, at Medium, I get to interact with fellow writers every day, something that’s missing on Substack.
Overall, it really depends on your taste and the amount of time you have on your hands. You can choose either one of them or both. Your call.
Hopefully, this article will help you make up your mind! If you are kind enough, do sign up for my newsletters if you can! Cheers.
