From Medium's algorithm
to your own audience.
Migrate your writing, your subscribers, and your ownership. VeloCMS gives Medium refugees a real home — custom domain, 0% platform fee on subscriptions, and SEO that works in AI search.
Medium was never your platform
You wrote the words. Medium owns the readers, the revenue split, and the algorithm that decides whether anyone sees what you made.
Medium's paywall traps your readers
When you put a post behind the Medium Partner Program paywall, it's Medium's paywall — not yours. You don't control who sees it, what the checkout looks like, or what happens to that reader's email address after they subscribe. Medium controls all of it. You get a cut, maybe. Medium keeps the relationship.
Your audience disappears the moment you stop
Medium doesn't give you your subscribers' email addresses. There's no CSV export, no list you can take with you. If you stop publishing on Medium tomorrow, every reader you built over years is just... gone. They belong to Medium. You were renting them the whole time.
The algorithm buries posts you spent hours writing
Medium's recommendation engine is trained on what keeps readers inside Medium — not what serves your specific audience. A 3,000-word essay you spent a week on competes with lightweight listicles. The distribution model rewards volume and virality. Deep, thoughtful work usually loses.
What actually changes when you own your blog
Not theoretical ownership. Real, practical control — over your domain, your subscribers, your paywall, and your SEO.
Bring your own email list — readers belong to you
VeloCMS puts your subscriber list under your control from day one. Import from Mailchimp, Kit, Beehiiv, or any CSV your current platform exports. Every new subscriber you gain on VeloCMS goes straight into your account — full email addresses, fully exportable, always. No intermediary owns the relationship.
AEO-baked SEO — rank in AI search out of the box
Every post on VeloCMS ships with Article JSON-LD, BreadcrumbList, FAQPage structured data, and an auto-canonical tag. ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews pull cited passages from pages with clean structured data. Medium posts are largely invisible to those tools — your new VeloCMS posts won't be.
Custom domain — yourname.com, not medium.com/@you
A custom domain on Pro is included. yourname.com or blog.yourname.com — point a DNS record, VeloCMS provisions TLS automatically. Your posts live at a URL you own forever. If you ever move again, you take the domain with you. That's not possible with medium.com/@you.
Member paywall — keep 100% of subscription revenue
Medium's Partner Program takes roughly 50% of what members pay to read your work. VeloCMS connects directly to your own Stripe account. You set the price. Readers check out on Stripe. VeloCMS takes 0% on top of Stripe's standard processing fee. That's the whole model.
1-click Medium export import
Go to Medium Settings → Download your information and you'll get an export.zip. Upload that at Admin → Import and VeloCMS pulls your posts in with their original publish dates, tags, and inline images. No copy-pasting, no broken formatting, no manual image re-uploads for most exports.
Everything a writer needs, built in
No plugin store. No app marketplace. The features Medium writers ask for most are already here — AI authoring, themes for text, newsletters, paywall, custom domain, self-hosting.
AI-native authoring
Describe your post angle in a line and let the Gemini-powered assistant draft a structured outline, headings, and a FAQ block. The humanize filter keeps it sounding like you — not a template. It's an assistant, not a ghostwriter. The pen stays yours.
Writer-focused themes
Atelier Modern, Studio Calm, Manifesto Black, Brutalist Press — themes built for text-first publishing. Serif body type, 72-character measure, real drop caps, reading progress bar. Your writing gets a home that matches its quality.
BYOK Stripe — members pay you directly
Wire your own Stripe account in five minutes. Set monthly or annual subscription prices. VeloCMS handles checkout, access control, and renewal emails. Platform fee: zero. No revenue share, no lock-in, no platform middleman between you and your readers.
Newsletter visual builder
Write a broadcast, preview it, send it. VeloCMS's newsletter builder works from the same editor you write posts in — no switching apps, no Mailchimp login, no separate Substack account. One tool for publishing and emailing your audience.
Custom domain on Pro — free
Every Pro plan includes a custom domain. Not a paid add-on. Not limited to a subdomain. Your full apex or subdomain, with automatic TLS. DNS setup takes about ten minutes from the onboarding wizard.
Self-host option — full ownership
Not comfortable handing your archive to any SaaS? Deploy VeloCMS on your own VPS with the Docker image. Your posts, your server, your backup policy. Full ownership with the same UI as the managed platform.
From Medium to VeloCMS in 30 minutes
No developer needed. The importer handles posts, slugs, and images. You handle the coffee.
Export from Medium settings
Go to medium.com/me/settings → Security and Privacy → Download your information. Medium emails you a link within a few minutes. Download the ZIP — it contains all your posts as HTML files plus your account data.
Sign up for VeloCMS and pick a theme
Create your account at velocms.org/signup. Walk through the onboarding wizard — pick a theme, set your blog name and tagline. Takes about five minutes. You can change the theme later in a single click.
Upload export.zip — posts auto-import
In Admin → Import, upload your Medium export.zip. VeloCMS parses the HTML, preserves publish dates and tags, and re-uploads inline images to Cloudflare R2 so you're not hotlinking from Medium servers. Most imports with under 200 posts complete in under two minutes.
Set up domain and Stripe Connect
Add a CNAME record pointing your domain at VeloCMS. SSL provisions automatically. Then connect Stripe in Admin → Settings → Billing — it's a standard OAuth flow. Set your subscription price and the paywall is live.
Email your Medium followers your new URL
Medium doesn't allow post-to-post 301 redirects, but you can publish a final "goodbye post" on Medium with your new URL and ask readers to follow you there. We ship a short email template for this — copy, customize, send.
Medium vs Substack vs VeloCMS
| Feature | VeloCMS | Medium | Substack |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription revenue share to platform | 0% | ~50% | 10% + Stripe fees |
| Algorithm-driven distribution | No | Yes | No |
| Email list ownership (export anytime) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Custom domain included in paid plan | Yes | No | Paid add-on |
| Self-hosting option | Yes | No | No |
| AI search ranking (AEO structured data) | Optimized | Poor | Poor |
| Markdown / post export | Yes | HTML only | HTML only |
| Sub-1s LCP on post pages | Yes | No | No |
One plan. Everything included.
VeloCMS Pro starts at $9/month — AI authoring, newsletter, BYOK Stripe, AEO structured data, custom domain, and unlimited posts. No per-feature add-ons, no revenue share. The Business plan at $29/month adds multi-author teams and white-label branding.
Questions Medium writers ask before migrating
Honest answers — no sales spin.
How long does the Medium export import take?
For most writers — under 200 posts, typical image volume — the full import runs in under two minutes after you upload the export.zip. Larger archives (500+ posts) can take five to ten minutes. The import runs in the background; you'll get a notification when it's done and can browse your posts while you wait.
Can I keep my Medium subscribers when I leave?
Medium doesn't give you your subscribers' email addresses, so you can't export them directly. What you can do is publish a final post on Medium linking to your new site and asking readers to re-subscribe there. Many writers also email their Stripe or newsletter contacts from any external tool they were using alongside Medium.
Do I need to know how to code to use VeloCMS?
No coding required. VeloCMS is built as a WordPress alternative for non-developers — the editor, theme picker, DNS wizard, and Stripe setup all walk you through each step with plain-language guidance. If you can write a Medium post, you can run a VeloCMS blog.
What happens to my Medium URLs — will they redirect?
Medium doesn't allow you to set up 301 redirects from medium.com/@you to your own domain. The practical approach most migrating writers take is to publish a farewell post on Medium with your new URL, let it index on both domains temporarily, and let the new domain build its own SEO equity over time. VeloCMS auto-generates a sitemap.xml to accelerate that.
Can I run paid subscriptions on VeloCMS?
Yes — this is one of the main reasons writers migrate. Connect your own Stripe account in Admin → Settings → Billing (takes about five minutes). Set a monthly or annual price. Add the Paywall block to any post to put it behind a members-only gate. VeloCMS takes 0% of subscription revenue on top of Stripe's standard processing fee. Medium's Partner Program takes roughly 50%.
Will my SEO transfer when I move to a new domain?
Starting on a new domain means a fresh SEO slate — there's no automatic equity transfer. That's not as bad as it sounds. VeloCMS ships every post with Article JSON-LD, BreadcrumbList, FAQPage structured data, and auto-canonical tags. AI search tools (Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, Google AIO) index structured data directly, so well-structured new content can appear in AI-powered answers faster than traditional SEO would suggest.
What if I want to export my posts from VeloCMS later?
Every post on VeloCMS exports as Markdown with YAML front-matter — title, slug, publish date, tags, status — plus images at their original resolution. The export runs from Admin → Settings → Export. There's no export gate behind a higher plan. You can download everything on day one if you want to. That's the ownership promise.
Is there a free tier — do I have to pay to start?
VeloCMS starts with a 14-day free trial on any paid plan — no credit card required to start. After the trial, the Pro plan at $9/month includes custom domain, unlimited posts, AI authoring, and the newsletter builder. The paywall and BYOK Stripe features (where you collect subscription revenue) are available from Pro upward.
Your writing deserves a home you own.
14-day free trial. Import your Medium posts on day one. No credit card needed to start.
Start your migration