The Hidden Revenue Stream
Most developers don't know this: dozens of tech companies pay external developers to write tutorials for their blogs.
Not $50 blog posts. Real money: $200-$1,500 per article.
I spent 20 hours researching every paid writing program I could find. Here's the complete, verified list.
$500+ Per Article
| Company | Pay | Topics |
|---|---|---|
| Corellium | $500-1,500 | Mobile security, reverse engineering |
| Airbyte | $300-900 | Data pipelines + $200 bonus for 1K views |
| Vultr | Up to $800 | Cloud deployment, servers |
| Twilio | $650 | Communications APIs (currently closed) |
| Retool | $500-1,000 | Internal tools, databases |
| Honeybadger | $500 | Error tracking, monitoring |
| Stack Overflow | $500 | Developer topics |
| Bugfender | Up to $500 | Mobile dev, debugging |
| Vonage | $500 | Communications APIs (currently closed) |
$200-$499 Per Article
| Company | Pay | Topics |
|---|---|---|
| Draft.dev | $315-578 | Various technical topics |
| CircleCI | $350-600 | CI/CD, DevOps |
| LogRocket | $350 | Frontend, React |
| Earthly | $350 | Build tools, containers |
| Simple Talk | $350 | SQL, .NET |
| AppSignal | $300 | Monitoring, Ruby, Node |
| Kestra | $300+ | Data orchestration |
| TestSigma | $300+ | Testing, QA |
| IOD Content | $300-400 | Various (agency) |
| Smashing Magazine | $200-250 | Web dev, UX |
| SitePoint | $250 | Web development |
| Civo | $200-500 | Kubernetes |
| Strapi | $200 | CMS, Node.js |
| Appsmith | $200-400 | Internal tools |
| LambdaTest | $200 | Cross-browser testing |
| Literally | $250-800 | Various (agency) |
How to Get Accepted
I've been writing technical articles for years. Here's what works:
1. Don't pitch "I can write about anything"
Pitch a specific article title with a 3-sentence outline.
Bad: "I'm a developer who can write about Python"
Good: "How to Build a Real-Time Data Pipeline with Airbyte and PostgreSQL — I'll walk through setting up incremental sync, handling schema changes, and monitoring pipeline health. ~2,000 words with code examples."
2. Show, don't tell
Link to 2-3 published articles. Dev.to posts count! If you don't have any, write 3 great articles on Dev.to first and link those.
3. Match their style
Read 5 of their recent articles before pitching. Match:
- Article length
- Code-to-text ratio
- Header structure
- Tone (casual vs formal)
4. Start with easier programs
Smashing Magazine and SitePoint have well-documented processes. Start there, build a portfolio, then pitch higher-paying programs.
The Math
One article per week at $300 average = $1,200/month.
Two articles per week = $2,400/month.
That's a legit side income from something you already know how to do.
Full List with Links
I maintain an updated list with application links, status (open/closed), and tips:
👉 get-paid-writing-technical-articles
Have you written for any of these programs? How was the experience? Share below 👇