How to Cancel Medium Membership in 2026 (Keep Your Articles + Free Reading Hacks)
Updated 2026-02-26 · 5 min read
💰 $60/Year for Blog Posts
Medium charges $5/month or $50/year for unlimited article access. While some Medium content is genuinely excellent, the platform has become increasingly cluttered with AI-generated content, recycled advice, and SEO-optimized listicles. The highest-quality technical content has largely migrated to personal blogs, Substack, and GitHub. And there are multiple free ways to read paywalled articles.
Step 1: Cancel Your Membership
On desktop:
Go to medium.com and click your profile photo
Click Settings
Go to Membership & payment
Click Manage membership → Cancel membership
Confirm — access continues until the end of your billing period
If billed through Apple/Google:
iOS: Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions → Medium → Cancel
Android: Play Store → Subscriptions → Medium → Cancel
What You Keep After Canceling
Your published articles: Everything you wrote stays live and public
Your profile and followers: Fully intact
Partner Program earnings: If you earned money, you keep past earnings (but stop earning on paywalled articles)
Free articles: You can still read 3 free member-only articles per month
Non-paywalled content: Articles not behind the paywall remain fully accessible
Free Ways to Read Medium Articles
Incognito/private browsing: Open paywalled articles in an incognito window — resets your free article count
Clear cookies: Medium tracks your free reads via cookies. Clearing them resets the counter
Google cache: Search the article title on Google → click the three dots → Cached — view Google's saved copy
Archive.org: Paste the URL into web.archive.org — many popular articles are archived
Author's website: Many Medium authors cross-post to their personal blogs without a paywall
RSS readers: Some Medium publications have RSS feeds that show full content
3 free articles/month: Save your free reads for articles you actually want to read
💡 If You Write on Medium
You don't need a paid membership to write on Medium. Free accounts can publish unlimited articles. If you're in the Partner Program and want to earn money from paywalled articles, you DO need a membership — but consider whether your earnings exceed the $5/month cost. Most Medium writers earn less than $10/month.
Better Alternatives for Readers
Substack (Free): Most Substack newsletters are free. Subscribe directly to writers you like instead of paying a platform
Dev.to (Free): For tech/programming content — no paywall, community-driven
Hacker News (Free): Curated links to the best tech and startup content
RSS feeds: Use Feedly or Inoreader to follow your favorite writers across any platform
Personal blogs: The best writers publish on their own domains. Follow them directly
Your library: Many libraries offer digital magazines (Libby, PressReader) covering similar topics
💸 The Math
Medium membership: $60/year. Free alternatives that cover 95% of the same content: $0/year. If you read 5-10 Medium articles/month, you can get 3 free + use incognito for the rest. The membership only makes sense if you consistently read 20+ paywalled articles per month AND can't find the same content elsewhere.
Find All Your Subscriptions
Medium, newsletters, streaming — see every recurring charge in one scan.