Medium vs Ghost: Which is best? | Medium vs Ghost comparison for blogging

So many people are wondering: Medium or Ghost.org?
Let's set the scene: You're a blogger. You want to pick the right platform, the one that's going to help you build your blogging empire. You don't want to waste your time. You want to succeed.
So which blogging platform do you pick to start your fledgling empire: Medium or Ghost?
In this video debating Medium vs Ghost, we go through:
Medium vs Ghost: Definitions
Medium vs Ghost: Pros and cons of each
Medium vs Ghost: The best platform for a writer
Medium vs Ghost: My personal opinion
If you've been wondering which platform, Medium vs Ghost, to start growing your blog, this video will show you the right answer - for YOU.
Get my FREE 5-day Medium Starter Kit to start making money by writing about what you love:
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Let me know in the comments what you thought! I answer every question.
FAQ:
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- I do consulting. Book me here: zuliewrites.com/consultations
- I can edit your article. Buy an edit here: zuliewrites.com/for-writers
This video is about:
substack vs medium vs ghost, ghost vs wix, ghost blog, ghost vs Wordpress, ghost vs substack, ghost vs wordpress 2021, ghost vs wordpress reddit,
ghost.org reviews, ghost vs medium, medium versus ghost

[@ZulieWrites]

A lot of folks asking about the Medium earnings "cap" I mention - it was not a great choice of words on my part. There's no actual cap. Nobody at Medium is like "Oh, she's making 4,999, let's make sure she doesn't hit 5,000." What I meant: there are a few folks making $1,000, $5,000, maybe even one or two people making $10,000 writing on Medium. But that is *vanishingly rare* and I don't know _anyone_ who makes any more than 10,000 a month. While legally or logistically or whatever, there's nothing stopping you from writing 10,000 viral stories a month and earning $100,000/month writing on Medium, that just doesn't happen. It is *very* hard to scale, and each step up the earnings scale is harder - meaning to get from $10 to $100 per month is doable, $100 to $1,000 is tough, $1,000 to $10,000 very nearly impossible. In practical terms, most folks will find they can earn more than $100 or maybe even a few thousand on Medium. But they will find it nearly impossible to grow at a steady rate beyond that.

[@Freshlightmoneyonline]

Ok, I didn't find it difficult to go from $100 to $1000. I think after $4000 it gets more difficult. It's a massive game of luck. One guy earned $19,000 from one article recently. Luck plays a huge part.

[@spencerj6557]

I’ve come to understand medium could be great for one of multiple streams of income. It’s leveraging content to gain consistent reads and permanent viewership that’s hard. I’d love permanent readers that look forward to each article. Similar to how big KZbinrs get consistent views each turnout

[@LEObondTraveller]

Interesting. I wonder how your KZbin friend was able to make 6K on what I think was her first or second article? I must watch her vid again.

[@pgasnow]

On the one hand, I've been on Medium for a bit over a month and I've had an absolute blast so far. On the other hand, I love ghost stories and saying "yeah i blog on GHOST" just sounds incredible hmmm ...

[@ZulieWrites]

LOL, good point!

[@dgeorgev]

I've watched several of your videos recently. Thank you for your time to share what you have learned. I appreciate it.

[@ZulieWrites]

You are very welcome! So glad to hear you enjoy my videos!

[@CarolanRoss]

Your content has helped me SO much Zulie. MUCHOS Gracias!

[@thomasdean2472]

As usual, great information. Thanks! Loved the bloopers.

[@ZulieWrites]

So glad to hear that! Thanks for watching!

[@user-uf1ke2gp9t]

You're my new go-to. Thank you for your work.

[@HolyFacts]

thank you for saving me a ton of time, thanks for sharing and subscribed !

[@AzharHussain-ou8tr]

Your every video is wonderful and most inspiring for me.. thank you very much Zulie my mentor..

[@don1lee]

Hi Zulie, good presentation as always. For now, I'm going to stick with Medium but I may check out Ghost later. I think the biggest challenge for most writers is that there are so many different platforms in the market, and sometimes it's hard to determine which is the best one to use.

[@luiswebdesigner]

Thank u very much for this vídeo!!!! I really needed to hear that!

[@ZulieWrites]

Glad it was helpful!

[@dcm_comunicacao]

Thanks for this amazing video!

[@donkeybetz5567]

You are amazing! Thank you!

[@user-ik8dz9et5l]

Thank you Zulie!

[@markcosby7129]

Great video!!! Zulie... I started with Medium because I had no previously knowledge of Ghost, however, I know now thanks to you...

[@ZulieWrites]

Wonderful! You got this!

[@markcosby7129]

Awesome!! Thank you. New to medium so I NEED ALL the help I can take in!!! Lol…

[@aliblogger3051]

Wow! Amazing Content I liked it. First time on your Channel and I have Subscribed to it and I am so happy to reach out to your channel because your Content is so good and I can learn a lot of things from it.

[@ZulieWrites]

Thank you so much!!

[@chynnaurl]

I appreciate this video per usual, lol. I am on medium right now as a reset, but I definitely will be checking out ghost once I am financially able to pay for the service because medium lacks customization which i need lol

[@fawadbiscuitwala]

thanks for sharing your experience

[@ZulieWrites]

Thanks for watching!

[@davisjimenez4905]

Thank you!

[@bernhardkutzler]

Hi Zulie, great video. To the point and very informative. THANK YOU! I publish my English articles on Medium and will continue to do so. Now I am looking for a platform to publish my German articles. In the past there were attempts to have German publications on Medium, but all discontinued. Do you know a platform that works for German articles AND lets readers find me instead of me having to bring my own audience?

[@Housestationlive]

you helped me to get my memory back i actually already heard of medium but just putted in in trash bin of my memory.

[@davidwelburn]

Are there any particular topics that are favored (or not favored) on Medium? I mostly write about health, fitness, muscle-building, that sort of thing. Thanks. Great explanatory video, btw.

[@ZulieWrites]

Statistically speaking, there are some topics that perform better on Medium -- some of these are personal development, writing, and entrepreneurship. But really, any topic on Medium can perform well as long as you find your audience. (I never expected people to read my articles about cats but, as it turns our, there are a lot of furry friends out there!) The bottom line is that what you write about is not as important as *how* you write about it.

[@davidwelburn]

@@ZulieWrites OK; thank you, Zulie.

[@majeedatabdulmajeed1834]

You’re cutely funny 😂, thank you for the info

[@author.gabrielavrivera]

Can you do creative writing on Medium? I know on Vocal I am able to post chapters of my own stories but am I able to do that on Medium? Thank you!

[@ZulieWrites]

Absolutely. Medium is great for any type of writing and they also curate fiction. You should keep in mind they do not curate chapters, so the pieces need to be standalone to be curatable. There isn't a huge audience for fiction there right now. I still recommend publishing there because a) that could change in the future, and b) there still isn't any better place to write fiction and get paid for people reading it, and c) I find the editor very intuitive and easy to use. If you are thinking about writing fiction on Medium, I lay out my strategies for doing so here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hXqslWqemK6khbc

[@marizamentzou3293]

thanks Zulie, this cap on earnings on Medium, is it a 'new' thing or has always been the case?

[@ZulieWrites]

Hey! Great question, Mariza - a few other folks asked about this, so I have pinned my comment reply. Let me know if that makes sense.

[@Sages_and_Pages]

If I published an article on Medium, do I still retain the rights to post it elsewhere? Can I then, for example, also post that same article on my own WordPress and link it to my Pinterest?

[@ZulieWrites]

Yes, you keep owning the rights to your work, so you can post it anywhere you like! If you publish it on your own blog, I'd recommend using the canonical tool, so your website remains the highest domain authority. (More infos here: help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033930293-Set-a-canonical-link)

[@2mycup]

Hi. I didn't understand the part about the writing cooperative. Do we publish our articles first elsewhere and then they reshow them on medium? I have never blogged before. I don't know anything about this business but I would like to learn. Thanks for the video 👍

[@ZulieWrites]

Hi Elias! The Writing Cooperative is a publication on Medium. You can publish your article on your own website first and then republish them on Medium but you don't have to. You can also submit them directly to the publication, and if they accept your article, it'll be published! Here's a video that explains publications a bit further: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZTTn2lrqdWqpLs

[@2mycup]

@@ZulieWrites ok. I don't even have a website. I'm new to all this online writing world. Thanks

[@edvonblue]

I’m being censored on Medium. I just signed onto my account to look at my stats and a red banner came across the top of my screen saying that I am under investigation or I have violated some rules. Okay, well then I check my messages - the banner follows me to every screen - but I try to reply to a message, and then an error message comes up, stating I cannot message at this time. Can anyone tell me what in transitions is going on? And who do I contact to fix this?

[@Megan-vb9ze]

Could you kind of do both? Write blog posts on Medium, and then reupload them to your own website (Ghost, Squarespace, or otherwise)?

[@ZulieWrites]

Absolutely, that's a great strategy! Just make sure you use Medium's tool for setting a canonical link so Google doesn't get confused about the doubled content. More info here: help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033930293-Set-a-canonical-link

[@sieggee]

That’s what I was wondering! I have a website on Squarespace and would love to integrate Medium content to it

[@spencerj6557]

Hey Zulie, will you be doing Q and As or live streams again?

[@ZulieWrites]

I plan on doing them!

[@Miriammiririam]

Hi, can you transfer your medium audience to another platform like Ghost later on? Or are Medium Followers just like Instagram followers that you can't transfer?

[@ZulieWrites]

They're lik IG followers, no transfer. Lately Medium has offered readers the chance to subscribe to you (different from following) and you CAN export that list. But e.g. I have 58k followers but just 1.2k subscribers, so it's not useful to me yet.

[@kevindabramo1944]

"wrogging" is a cool new word ; )

[@swagnexttuber-boombeach7092]

zulie how would i know if my published article is indexed by google? i have wriiten 100 articles on medium.

[@ZulieWrites]

I'd Google it with your name and see if it pops up in the results!

[@jakefrosher]

👌🏼

[@kathryncainmadsen5850]

Can u include affiliate links on medium?

[@nightingale7622]

Hi zulie, could you please guide me how to share referral link of medium with someone, and convince them to subscribe. I mean how did you convince your subscribers?

[@ZulieWrites]

Your membership link is always your profile homepage followed by "/membership". So in my case, it's medium.com/@zulie/membership. Honestly, all I did was paste the link at the bottom of my stories. You can also change the promotional message, but I don't think it makes a huge difference.

[@jelly882]

How about Ghost vs Patreon or substack, they seems to be more similar than compared with Medium

[@ZulieWrites]

Good point. But I see Ghost primarily as a blogging platform so the comparison made sense. If you're looking for more details on Substack, I compared it to other newsletter platforms in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqfLn5ydbsqni9E

[@lulfather]

w background music

[@The_PsychPlanet]

❤❤❤

[@Amarachbw]

I'm happy to start writing on medium, but I want to write short stories, that's what I'm good at. Will I still make it on medium?

[@Rickiespsychologycorner]

If you are into Medium to get quick money, sorry. Just do it as a hobby. That to me is satisfying enough and you can open patreon account to have your readers support you directly just as I do with my articles at publyfy.com

[@edvonblue]

I just tried posting on Medium and a red banner came up saying something about rules, and now I can’t post. Is this because I’m not paying money to subscribe to Medium? Is this a paywall that doesn’t allow non-paying members to participate?

[@ZulieWrites]

Strange. Technically, you should always be able to post something on Medium, even as a non-paying member. But it might be worth double-checking if you (unintentionally) violated the rules. Most notably, Medium tightened their guidelines around AI recently as they want, more or less, 100% human content. You can find the rules here: help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/213477928-Medium-Rules

[@Freshlightmoneyonline]

Confused, you can't earn more than $5000 per month on Medium? I know people that have earned $7000 and more so I am not sure where it's written that there is a cap on earnings on Medium.

[@ZulieWrites]

Hey! Great question - a few other folks asked about this, so I have pinned my comment reply. Let me know if that makes sense.

[@PhantomMagician1846]

I have never herd of Ghost before ..... kind of ironic given the name of my YT channel

[@swagnexttuber-boombeach7092]

Hi zulie. how long it takes to get 100 followers on medium.

[@ZulieWrites]

That depends on the amount and quality of articles you publish, how you market them, and how engaged you are within the Medium community! For some people it takes months. Others will make it in a week. Either way is fine because everything you earn through the partner program before 100 followers is not wasted, only stored.

[@chrisbenn]

Arg! How dose the pay cap work?

[@ZulieWrites]

It was a poor choice of words on my part, there's no real "cap" per se. It's more that it's HIGHLY unlikely that more than 0.5% of writers on Medium will ever make more than that.

[@chrisbenn]

@@ZulieWrites Thank you for your clarification! :)

[@Housestationlive]

i never heard about medium. you look even more geek than i am xD

[@IAMCHIDERA]

Can you use affiliate links on medium

[@tomaccino]

Yes

[@Fantasy-Exists-In-Minds]

The painful thing is, in South Africa, you can not be able to be a medium writer because of the Stripe issue.

[@ZulieWrites]

I can only imagine how frustrating that must feel. I believe all writers deserve to get paid for their work! However, Medium already announced they're going to admit many other countries very soon, including South Africa. You can find the full list here: blog.medium.com/partner-program-changes-are-rolling-out-now-456306d16cb9 I know this sucks for the time being and I wish there was a way around this. But for now, at the very least, there are indirect ways to earn money on Medium. I made a video about that here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e3-ch4x7o9Gslas Hope that helps!

[@reachforsomethingmore]

So there are no affiliate links allowed on Medium, eh? That's ridiculous... blogging IS mostly about affiliate links to earn money. My intention was to include affiliate links and now... I'm not so sure... like, if there arent going to be links allowed, can you include an email signup link? Sounds like not and that was going to be part of every post... was growing my email list... dang!

[@ZulieWrites]

Affiliate links ARE allowed on Medium (you can check out the guidelines here: help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/213477928-Medium-Rules). It's just that they make it less likely that your article will get shown to a wider audience. Also, including a CTA or a email sign-up link at the end of your article is totally fine. I've been doing it for years. And the great part about Medium is that you get paid based on read time, so you don't need to rely on affiliate links for your income. Hope that helps!

[@kathryncainmadsen5850]

It should be Ghost v Wordpress

[@SebastianPappG]

I don't even know how to search for this ghost thing website lol. Why u don't post the actual Link to the website??????????????? Doesn't make any sense.

[@ZulieWrites]

Good point! It's Ghost.org. I've updated the video description to include that!

[@DavePuckett]

Yes, I agree with you, Medium, or Ghost is like comparing apples to oranges. How about doing both? could you develop an audience on Medium and send them via links in your Medium articles to a paid newsletter on Ghost? One platform feeds the other one so to speak. Do you know of anyone doing that, or do you do that? thanks Zulie

[@ZulieWrites]

The most common use case is Medium < > Substack. Joe Duncan is a great example of this: joemduncan.medium.com/ i think as Ghost grows we'll see more of that!

[@nocturnaldrive9214]

Last month, I read where Medium paid out $40K to someone.

[@ZulieWrites]

Wow! Definitely rare. Good for them though!

[@MathAdam]

The Ghost "free" trial requires cc info. Red flag.

[@ZulieWrites]

Not a big issue for me TBH, but just worth considering. A lot more freemium platforms try to capture your cc info before letting you try it now to increase conversions. I don't love it, but it's definitely a factor.

[@DevaraZain]

please do Medium vs Wordpress

[@ZulieWrites]

I put it on my list of potential video ideas. Thanks for suggesting it!

[@Baqsam]

I was able to achieve much more much faster with WordPress, but admittedly, I don't write about the same things on WordPress that I do on Medium...

[@pankus_maximus]

why not do both?

[@pankus_maximus]

im serious though. what's the disadvantage, other than losing time, of uploading the same content on both, assuming medium is free?

[@ZulieWrites]

They're both free! No harm in doing both, apart from losing exclusivity. Why would someone pay to access your content on ghost if you're posting it for free on Medium? But if it's also free on Ghost, then why bother using Ghost at all?

[@dimulaidari3714]

How About Tumblr?😊

[@ireneutas4703]

Out of self respect i would tell them to stuff it im 76

[@priyankapandeyfamilyvlogs]

Hii how are you 👌❤️

[@ZulieWrites]

Doing amazing, thanks!

[@ladboii2901]

Hey bby

[@clarencesandoval6625]

??????? ?

[@A_Gib49]

It seems more that you’re favoring Medium over Ghost, judging by your tone. Also, maybe don’t lead an audience by putting “VS” in your still; it sounds more that you’re favoring one over the other- a Public Speaking critique. 🗣️🗣️

[@shubhamyadav-ez5bj]

Your earing is distraction