Writing on Vocal Vs. Medium

I started writing for Medium in March, 2024. I then learned about Vocal and joined Vocal in October of 2024. Here are my current impressions of writing for each for the last couple of months.

I won’t go over features etc… of the platforms. You can figure those out yourself. In terms of basic, platform functionality, I find them of equal quality, though organized differently.

These are my personal experiences. If you’ve written for both and your experiences have been different, I’d love to hear.

Gaining Readers/Subscribers

I found it easier to gain initial interest on Medium. Within a month of posting about 1–2 times a week, I had around 100 followers. After four months on Vocal I have 35 subscribers. However, here’s the catch. I find followers on Medium more topic-focused. So, unless I consistently write about the same thing that they initially followed me for, they don’t read my stories.

This might work well for some niche writers. However, I have a mixed educational and professional background. I therefore have multiple interests that I like to write about. I joined these writing platforms to give me the freedom to do that. Vocal feels better in terms of offering that. While it is taking me much longer to garner readers on Vocal, they feel more multi-faceted.

Payment

I have a paid membership for both — if you don’t get the paid membership on Medium you are not able to monetize, period. If you don’t get the paid membership on Vocal you make $3.80/1k. So, if you are not able to afford a membership, Vocal pays better.

However, if you are able to get the membership, Medium pays better. They base their payment scheme on the number of minutes someone spends on your article, making it difficult for me to say precisely how much I make per 1k reads. However, on average, I would say I make $20+ per 1k. On Vocal it’s a standard $6/1k.

Vocal does offer bonuses, such as an extra $5 for being chosen as one of the day’s top stories. Additionally, they offer writing challenges that you can earn additional money from if you win, or are even a runner up. I have gotten top story a couple of times and have been a runner up for a challenge once. However, even counting those, I still make less on Vocal.

Article Promotion

Both Vocal and Medium choose stories that they will promote to their readers in different ways. Having your story chosen for top story on Vocal or to be boosted on Medium is the quickest way to gain new readers.

Vocal and Medium outshine each other in different ways in this category.

If you get chosen to be boosted on Medium, your story will get potentially thousands of readers very quickly. If you get chosen as top story on Vocal, you’ll get new readers but not as many, and not as quickly. In this sense, Medium outshines Vocal.

However, while Medium states that it promotes high quality content, from my experience this isn’t fully the case. Yes, your content needs to pass quality standards to be considered for a boost. But, from my experience I believe that Medium promotes content that a) fits a current trend and b) fits the platform’s social-political stance. I have noted that Medium is very left-leaning. I am also left-leaning, however, I like to look at things from more than one perspective. So, while some of my pieces can be considered leftists, others take both views into account. I have noted that unless my article can be classified as fully left, it won’t get boosted on Medium.

For example, I recently wrote an article about Incels, where I tried to take a balanced approach and see the issue from various perspectives. This article won top story on Vocal, while on Medium it was completely ignored.

When it comes to Medium promoting specific current trends, I know that I can write practically anything on open relationships and it will do at least decently on Medium. Sure, I could keep spitting out the same thing in circles just to make money. I’ve seen others do that. But, I don’t want to. That’s not what I am here for. I am here to write on a topic when I have something insightful and NEW to say about it.

So, overall, for me, Vocal does far better in this category. My articles that have been chosen as Top story or as runner up to a contest are varied. Additionally, I don’t feel that what is boosted is specifically left, right or centre leaning. It’s just interesting writing. I think that makes for a better variety of boosted writing that attracts more readers, introduces readers to a wider range of views and is therefore more educational. At least for me, reading is about learning, whether it be a fact or a new way of looking at life. Reading only things that concur with my already standing opinion is not helping me grow as a person.

Quality of Reader Comments

This one is a 50–50 for me. On Vocal people are kinder and more supportive as a whole. However, sometimes I feel that there is not enough deeper commentary and debate. Medium, on the other hand, has more people willing to pose questions and have mini debates in the comments. However, these debates don’t always end up being intelligently thought-out. In fact, every now and then, I think I’m seeing an Instagram troll who migrated to Medium, just to post angry or accusatory garbage in the comments sections of people’s articles. But, I’m not sure why these trolls seem to be more attracted to Medium than to Vocal.

Overall Feelings

While I make more money from Medium, I have felt more appreciated as a writer on Vocal, being made to feel that providing more than one view point on more than one topic is a positive thing.