Soap Star Salaries - Typical Earnings for an Actor

Dateline: May 8, 2000
Revised on February 11, 2002

Have you ever wondering how much your favorite soap star is making per year? Many fans have asked this same question before, but for some reason the salaries of soap stars remain very private information. Yet, it seems to be no secret for the stars on such hit shows such as Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, or even shows such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and David Letterman. More recently, the Today Show's Katie Couric $65 million dollar salary was revealed in the press. The opposite holds true however, when it comes to the world of daytime soap stars, where it seems no one really knows for sure what the actors are earning. Gathered below is information collected from various sources, and may certainly vary for the actors from different networks, or shows.

So for starters let's look at the minimum a soap star can expect to make on daytime television. For someone new to the business and what you could call an "unknown," the minimum would be around $700/per episode or even much less, depending on many different factors. This might initially sound like fairly good pay, however, a newcomer on a soap will be lucky if they work one or two days a week. Typically, all soap stars are only guaranteed 1-3 days of work per week, even for some of the veterans on the show. So some weeks may be good, others may not. Of course the longer they are on the show, the more money the actors may make per episode, and the more likely they will be guaranteed more days of steady work. So once a newcomer has been on a show for awhile, they can generally expect to make anywhere from $700 to $1300 per episode.

For soap stars who have been around the block a little longer, typically 5-10 years, their salaries can now be upwards of $1300 to $2500 per episode, which again may only be anywhere from 1-3 days a week of actual work guaranteed.

Lastly, for the soap star veterans, those who have been in the business for more than 10 years, the range of salaries can now be found around $1500 to $4000+ per episode. Only a small percentage of soap stars are actually in the $4000 or more range, but it's not unheard of for some of daytime's most popular actors or actresses. Plus, with the growing salaries of many primetime actors, there is no doubt that some daytime soap stars are most likely offered substantial incentives to stay put in daytime.

So for those of you who are considering a career in daytime television, here's a run-down of a typical annual salary for year one, five, and ten or more years. 

1st Year Mark - $72,800 - $135,200/per year

5 Year Mark - $135,000 - $260,000/per year

10 Year Mark - $156,000 - $416,000/per year

These numbers are based on a typical work week of two days per week,  times 52 weeks per year, which of course in not accounting for holidays, vacations, etc. These numbers are also just estimates, and may or may not be typical of the actual earnings. Also, many other factors can influence the actor's salary as well, including how much they pay their agent, their current contract status, bonuses, length of contract, and what soap opera they are on and if they are involved in a frontline story or not. Many soap stars also take time off in the slow months to do movies, commercials or other television projects which certainly adds to their annual take-home pay.

Soap stars may not make millions of dollars a week like some of their primetime collages may bring home, but work on a soap opera can certainly be more steady and perhaps even more profitable in the long run. 

© Copyrighted by Katherine Thurston, and May 8, 2000. Revised on February 11, 2002.