You Need to Cancel and Resubscribe to Medium

A simple way to support your favorite content creators

Photo by Nicholas Green on Unsplash

Starting in August 2021, Medium introduced a new membership renewal program. Simply put, if somebody becomes a paid subscriber through your membership link, then you get rewarded. It’s an affiliate link—nothing special.

Medium had made many changes to its partner program in 2021 so I didn’t pay much attention and waited to see how things work out. I received my first referral member in September and saw a cool $2.27 in my monthly earnings.

In October, I received my second membership referral and to my surprise, when I checked my dashboard I was earning an extra $4.54 this month…this isn’t a one-time bonus!

I took this opportunity to actually look up the rules for the referral program and here is a table of how you can earn.

Now, I know I’m a few months late so this is probably old news to everybody, but what about the title of this article?

As a paid subscriber myself, I wondered where my referral bonus was going. After searching around the dashboard a bit, I opened a support ticket to ask.

To my surprise, Medium informed me that I am not supporting any content creator with a referral bonus because the program is not retro-active.

I’m not trying to swindle anybody so I did not ask where my $2.27 goes, but I want to support the content creators I appreciate so I asked how I can participate in the referral program.

There’s only one way, to subscribe through a member’s referral link.

So, for me the decision is simple. I immediately canceled my Medium subscription and set a calendar reminder to resubscribe through one of my favorite content creator’s referral link on the day it lapses.

As a recipient of a referral bonus I can tell you that it’s a feels-good moment seeing somebody subscribed through your link. Support a content creator you want to directly show appreciation to and use their referral link!

I hope you liked this article! Subscribe to be notified when I publish new articles or even better, consider supporting me by joining the Medium community as a paid subscriber.