How does the pay system work for people who write short stories on medium.com?

You pay a monthly subscription fee to the platform - $5 per month.

Then you write articles that are paywalled and get shared openly. You then get paid based on several factors, including:

Read time.

Read ratio.

Claps/ engagement.

You can also submit your articles to bigger publications to help get more eyes on your writing.

There is no direct formula to determine how much one article will generate. My first few months were zero, but it has gradually increased since then. It’s a long-term effort. I hope this helps.