Some Thoughts About The Latest Medium Partner Program update: Starting June 1, 2026
Great to see Medium reward editors for stories they edit.
The official update you can read here.
We were expecting an update like this a while ago; it finally arrived. (Used to think about what if I start paying editors when the earnings were still in the good old days)
The first thing you need to know is that this will be taking place for a small group of publications starting June 1.
It will be called Editor Partner Program, I assume. If you want to know more about why this update, you’ll have to read or ask Medium.
I’m just here to share some of my thoughts and what action I might be taking on the publication.
I guess, this will be the beta phase of this program with their internal network of publications that they feel that has meet their requirements.
Based on the 4 requirements, we are only concerned about how they select publications to meet requirement #3, and if there is any other requirement that they have not disclosed.
I put a comment on the original article that Medium published about the update, and I hope they can get a kind of response.
The other important factor is when this update takes place, and things to know about it if you want to apply for it in July.
The first question would be how it impacts the writer and editor’s earnings.
Based on what Medium said, writers will receive 100% of their earnings, and the editor/assigned editor will receive a 25% earnings bonus based on the writer’s story earnings. (There’s no comment on how long or if there are any limits/caps.) We’ll find out more in late June, I guess.
What will our publications be doing for the upcoming update in July?
Depending on what Medium replies to my comment, we will start to be more strict on what kind of stories we’ll be publishing for this and next month.
Overall, it should not change much, yet I have seen some spam submissions when we have the “open to all” writers option. I have also started to block those accounts from submitting to our publications.
#3 Publications that are discerning about what stories they accept.
We’ll try to focus on this requirement, yet with not much clarity on the Medium side, we can only try to publish more stories that we think Medium is looking for.
Good luck to you and every editor who helped us build where we are today.
Thanks for Reading
This story was originally published on [Medium] and is cross-posted here for a wider audience.
I was happy to see this update, but you will just have to wait and see how this shakes out.
At least they are finally thinking about the editors.