Here on Medium I make around 10 dollars a month. I'm happy that my occasional writing can at least pay for my monthly subscription. I'm on Vocal and haven't upgraded to Vocal+ because it's clear that with their payout rate of 3.8 dollars per 1000 reads, I won't make enough to cover for my subscription. Vocal articles don't rank high on Google, but Medium articles do. Here on Medium I don't even need 100 reads to earn 3 dollars.