Hey Asmita, thanks so much for reading and responding! I agree 100% that $20/hr is not a standard. Indeed, the vast majority of Medium writers make a lot less, and a minority make a lot more.

One new tech writer on Medium I’m familiar with has gotten 250K views in three months and probably made as much money here as I have. He also has nearly a 100% curation rate despite breaking multiple rules including extensive CTAs and not attributing photos. I’d imagine he makes a lot more than $20/hr because of his niche.

Meanwhile talented writers like Itxy Lopez have relatively few followers and reads despite publishing 400 articles in a year (and frequent triple curation). I would bet she makes much less than $20/hr.

You are actually completely right and I totally agree with you: it all comes down to title on Medium, misleading or not. Any article with a title featuring a big brand (or well-known concept) will do much better than anything else.

My point is I absolutely can make $20/hr if I only write articles about Medium. This article proves exactly that. I’ve also written many tech articles that have made me that much, because demand is so high.

However, if I write about anything I want, the payoff is much less, even though my writing skills would greatly improve. Several of my recent personal essays have paid much less than $20/hr.

That’s been my experience in publishing over 100 articles here, and I hope it helps you.