With beauty lines, websites and fashion brands, the Kardashians are more than their reality TV show, which announced its final season in September. So how much do the Kardashians make per episode for Keeping Up With the Kardashians? We’ll get to that soon. But first—let’s talk about legacy of KUWTK.
Despite their other businesses, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which premiered on E! in 2007, was still a huge source of income for the reality TV family. In September 2020, Kim Kardashian announced on her Instagram that the show’s final season will air in 2021.
“To our amazing fans – It is with heavy hearts that we’ve made the difficult decision as a family to say goodbye to Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” she captioned an Instagram post of a promotional poster from KUWTK season 1. “After what will be 14 years, 20 seasons, hundreds of episodes and numerous spin-off shows, we are beyond grateful to all of you who’ve watched us for all of these years – through the good times, the bad times, the happiness, the tears, and the many relationships and children. We’ll forever cherish the wonderful memories and countless people we’ve met along the way.”
With how much the Kardashians have grown since Keeping Up with the Kardashians first premiered on E! in 2007, it’s hard to think that their family needs to rely on anything for an income these days. But that doesn’t mean their KUWTK salary should be ignored. In the 20-plus years KUWTK has been on the air, the family—Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, Kendall, Kylie and Kris—have leveraged their fame and following for higher per-episode rates and credits as producers.
Keeping Up with the Kardashians may not be the most-consumed Kardashian business these days, but it was the original venture that put the family on Hollywood’s map. So before you say goodbye to KUWTK, read out the Keeping Up with the Kardashians cast’s salary and what each sister’s net worth is. The highest-paid KarJenner might surprise you.
A version of this article was originally published in April 2019.
Kylie Jenner
Salary: ~$4.5 million per season
Net Worth: $1 billion
In 2017, Variety reported that the Kardashians signed a “below $100 million” deal with E! to renew Keeping Up with the Kardashians through 2020. However, TMZ reports that the number is even higher. According to the site, the Kardashians signed a $150 million deal for five seasons in 2017. (For the purposes of this article, we’ll use TMZ’s numbers because ~the bigger, the better~.) After Kris’s 10-percent cut for closing the deal, the final amount is $135 million (or $27 million a season) for the six leads: Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, Kendall, Kylie and Kris. (This is a raise from the Kardashians’ 2015 deal, which earned them $100 million for five seasons.)
TMZ also reports that E! doesn’t pay the KUWTK cast individually. Instead, it’s the family’s decision on how the money is divided. In 2017 interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Kris revealed that the family, for the most part, divides the money evenly. This means that each sister and Kris would receive $4.5 million a season. (This would change a little depending on which sisters have producer credits and which don’t.) “Everybody gets paid pretty much equally, because we all film a lot and we all work hard, and we’ve created this show and this brand for the last decade. Everybody’s happy,” Kris said.
This brings us to Kylie, who hasn’t appeared in as many KUWTK episodes as her sisters (she took pretty much a whole season off in 2017 because of her secret pregnancy), so her salary may be lower. It doesn’t matter though as the 21-year-old’s net worth is far beyond any of her sisters. In 2019, Forbes declared Kylie the “youngest self-made billionaire” ever at a net worth of $1 billion. Along KUWTK, Kylie’s net worth, of course, is because of her beauty empire, Kylie Cosmetics, which made $360 million in sales in 2018 alone. Kylie’s other sources of incomes are endorsement deals and Kendall + Kylie, her fashion line with her older sister, Kendall.
Source: Instagram
Kim Kardashian
Salary: ~$4.5 million per season
Net Worth: $350 million
Kim is an executive producer on KUWTK, so her pay should be a little more than those of her younger sisters, Kendall and Kylie. Though it’s unconfirmed how much each family member is paid per episode, we estimate that Kim’s salary is a little more than the $4.5-million-per-season rate we calculated before because of her executive producer credit and the fact that she’s pretty much in every episode (unlike some of her sisters.) According to Forbes, Kim’s net worth is $350 million, which is because of KUWTK, endorsement deals, her app, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, her emoji line, Kimojis, as well as her beauty brands, KKW Beauty and KKW Fragrance, which earned her $100 million in 2018. With a sunglasses collection with Carolina Lemke in 2019, Kim’s stock should only rise more.
Source: Instagram
Kris Jenner
Salary: ~$4.5 million per season
Net Worth: $90 million
Kris is also an executive producer on KUWTK, so her per-season pay should be higher than the family members who aren’t. According to Celebrity Net Worth, Kris’s net worth is $90 million, which should be from the show, as well as the 10-percent cuts she takes out of her kids’ deals as their mom and manager. According to TMZ, Kris also took out 10 percent of the $150 million deal she closed for the Kardashians’ next five seasons, which gave her $15 million. In 2018, Kris also released the Kris Kollection with Kylie Cosmetics. Part of her income also comes from endorsement deals on Instagram, like the rest of her family.
Source: Instagram
Khloé Kardashian
Salary: ~$4.5 million per season
Net Worth: $40 million
Khloé also has an executive producer credit on KUWTK, so her pay per season should be higher than Kendall and Kylie’s. According to Celebrity Net Worth, the youngest Kardashian sister is worth $40 million. Along with KUWTK, Khloé’s income also comes from endorsement deals and makeup collections with Becca Cosmetics and Kylie Cosmetics. Her most well-known business (which accounts for the bulk of her income) is her fashion line Good American, which sells both denim and activewear. Khlo is also an executive producer on the true crime show, Twisted Sisters, on Investigation Discovery.
Source: Instagram
Kendall Jenner
Salary: ~$4.5 million per season
Net Worth: $40 million
Unlike her mom, Kris, and sisters, Kourtney, Kim and Khloé, Kendall is not an executive producer on KUWTK, so her per-season and per-episode pay should be less than her sisters. Also, because of Kendall’s modeling career which keeps her busy around the world, she often appears in less episodes than her sisters, which could also lessen her salary. Still, Celebrity Net Worth reports that she’s worth an impressive $40 million. In 2018, Forbes declared her the highest-paid model for the second year in a row. Along with her KUWTK paychecks, Kendall also has Instagram endorsement deals, her Kendall + Kylie fashion line, as well as several high-end fashion campaigns with brands like Adidas, Swarvoski, Estee Lauder and Calvin Klein. (Her sisters are also Calvin Klein models.)
Source: Instagram
Kourtney Kardashian
Salary: ~$4.5 million per season
Net Worth: $35 million
Kourtney is the last of her family members to be an executive producer on KUWTK, which means that she also should earn a little more per season than Kendall and Kylie, who are only cast members. According to Celebrity Net Worth, Kourtney is worth $35 million. Part of that income is from KUWTK, while the rest is from Instagram endorsement deals (like the rest of her sisters), as well as her now-defunct app and website, Kourtney with a K, and her new website, Poosh. She also released a makeup collection with Kylie Cosmetics, named Kourt x Kylie, in 2018.
Source: Instagram
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