Writing on Medium, or at your own address
Medium lends you its readers. Typoza gives you an address and a subscriber list that stay yours, and no audience to start with.
Free to start, no card. You can export your posts at any time, on every plan.
Five years of writing on Medium
- Followers you reach only through Medium
- Payouts set by the Partner Program's rules
- Medium's layout, shared by every writer
- Medium's sign-up prompts around your posts
Five years of writing on your own site
- Subscribers whose addresses you can export
- No payouts from Typoza
- Your theme, in your colours and fonts
- No ads, and no prompt you did not switch on
On Medium, your posts reach people who already read there. Medium recommends them to its readers, and members' reading can pay you through the Partner Program.
In return, Medium sets the layout, the prompts around your posts and what it recommends. Your followers are Medium accounts, not a list you hold.
On Typoza, you publish on a typoza.com subdomain, or on your own domain from the Collective plan, and your newsletter's subscribers are yours to export. Typoza brings you no audience: readers arrive through search, feeds, links and your emails.
Point by point
| What we compare | Typoza | Medium |
|---|---|---|
| Readers on day one | None. They come from search, feeds, links and your newsletter. | Medium's own readers, through its recommendations. |
| Who holds the audience | You. Your subscribers' addresses are yours to export. | Medium. Followers are Medium accounts. |
| Getting paid | No payouts. You pay for the plan. | The Partner Program pays for members' reading. |
| Your address | Your own domain from the Collective plan; a typoza.com subdomain before that. | A profile or a publication on Medium. |
| Design | Your theme: colours, fonts, text width. | Medium's layout, shared by every writer. |
| Around your posts | No ads and no sign-up wall. A subscribe window appears only once you open your newsletter. | Medium's prompts to sign up and to become a member. |
| Search engines | Sitemap, structured data and feeds, for a site of your own. | Handled by Medium, for Medium's pages. |
| Your archive | Your posts and your subscriber list, downloadable whenever you like. | Your posts, as a folder of HTML files. |
What Medium does better
Every comparison has this section, and it is never empty. We lose on these points:
- Readers from the first post. A good post on Medium can find readers the day it goes up; a new site starts with nobody to show it to.
- Payouts. Members' reading can earn you money with nothing to sell and no sponsor to find.
- No setup. No domain, theme or hosting to think about: you write and press publish.
- A reading habit. People open Medium to read, so your posts sit where readers already are.
Moving from Medium
Medium lets you download an archive of your posts as HTML files. Typoza cannot import that archive, and your followers are not in it.
What comes across
- Your posts' text, pasted from the archive one post at a time.
- Cleaner addresses. Medium's end with an identifier; on Typoza, you choose each slug before publishing.
- The Medium versions, for as long as you leave them up. Nothing forces you to delete anything.
- A domain of your own, from the Collective plan. It stays yours if you move again.
What does not
- Your followers. They follow a Medium profile, and nothing on our side can move that link. Invite them to your newsletter while you still publish on Medium.
- Payouts. Typoza pays you nothing. If the Partner Program is part of your income, count that loss first.
- The reach Medium gave you. Your site starts without an audience and grows through search, links and email.
- Images, uploaded again by hand from your archive.
- Your Medium addresses. They keep working while the stories are up, and never lead to your site.
So, which one?
Pick Medium if…
You want readers now without building anything, and Partner Program payouts matter more to you than an address of your own.
Pick Typoza if…
Your posts, your subscriber list and your address should stay yours for years, and starting with no audience does not put you off.
Questions people ask next
Can Typoza import my Medium archive?
No. Typoza's importer reads WordPress's export format, and Medium's archive is a folder of HTML pages. You paste each post into the editor.
Should I delete my posts on Medium?
Not right away. Two full copies of a post compete in search, so shorten the Medium version to its opening and a link to your site. Readers who land on Medium still find their way to you.
Will I earn anything on Typoza?
No. Typoza has no payouts and no paid subscriptions. You pay for the tool, and any money your writing makes comes from elsewhere.
Why start over on my own site?
Because the address, the subscriber list and the search ranking you build there stay yours if you move again. If you are not sure you will keep writing, Medium costs you less.
Do I need my own domain?
No. The free plan gives you a typoza.com subdomain. Your own domain comes with the Collective plan, and from then on the subdomain redirects to it.
The post you keep putting off
Write its first paragraph today. The post stays a draft until you publish it, and no reader sees it before then.
Free to start, no card. You can export your posts at any time, on every plan.