Summary

• Cast salaries for How I Met Your Mother increased with the show's popularity, pulling in impressive sums per episode.
• Although specific salaries are kept private, some cast like Wayne Brady earned $30,000 per episode.
• Stars like Neil Patrick Harris and Cobie Smulders made substantial amounts, reflecting the show's success with millions of viewers.

The How I Met Your Mother cast salary for stars like Neil Patrick Harris, Cobie Smulders, Alyson Hannigan, Jason Segel, and Josh Radnor of course increased as the show gained in popularity. By the time the series finale aired in 2014, the How I Met Your Mother cast pulled in an impressive sum for each episode, with a pay packet that reflected just how successful the sitcom had been. In nine seasons, How I Met Your Mother gained an incredibly amount of traction with fans, and there are many that are still quoting Barney's playbook or Lily's wise words.

While most of the How I Met Your Mother cast have kept their salaries under wraps, there are definitely a few that have made it public. The How I Met Your Mother cast salary makes for some interesting reading, as even characters outside the core group of Ted, Robin, Barney, Lily, and Marshall made a considerable amount for each appearance. At the show's height, How I Met Your Mother was drawing in millions of viewers and the pay for each performer very much reflects those incredible numbers as reported by Celebrity Net Worth.

7 Cristin Millioti As Tracy (A.K.A The Mother)

$25,000 Per Episode

While Cristin Millioti's salary for playing Tracy, the titular mother in, How I Met Your Mother, it's possible to make a pretty confident estimation. Cristin Millioti has a net worth of about $2 million and is said to have an annual salary of around $350,000. Since she starred in about 14 episodes per year (for 2013 and 2014), that would mean that Cristin Millioti's How I Met Your Mother salary was around $25,000 per episode for playing Tracy McConnell.

That's not bad, and many fans certainly adored Milloti's character Tracy after the identity of the mother was finally revealed in the How I Met Your Mother season 8 finale, "Something New". In 25 episodes, it's easy to do the math on how much this role contributed to her overall net worth. Following her appearance on the sitcom, Cristin Millioti went on to appear in shows like Black Mirror and The Penguin, in which she will play Sofia Falcone.

6 Wayne Brady As James Stinson

$30,000 Per Episode

Wayne Brady is believed to have made about $400,000 in total earnings from playing Barney's older brother, James Stinson, in How I Met Your Mother. He appears in 14 episodes, which would work out to be about $30,000 per episode. While this is a smaller amount than the main How I Met Your Mother cast salaries, it does make sense despite how often he appeared in the show, as he's not really a main character in any of the episodes he appears in.

Wayne Brady has a net worth of about $10 million, so his career has been quite lucrative overall. Of course, How I Met Your Mother is certainly not Wayne's claim to fame, as he was the host of talk show The Wayne Brady Show for several years and has a total of five Emmy's to his name. Outside of reality TV, game shows, and How I Met Your Mother, he's appeared in a variety of TV series including Key & Peele, 30 Rock, and Colony.

5 Cobie Smulders As Robin Scherbatsky

$225,000 Per Episode

Cobie Smulders plays the on-again-off-again love interest and successful TV host Robin Scherbastky in How I Met Your Mother. Robin is one of the show's central characters, so it's understandable that Cobie Smulders is one of the highest earners when it comes to the salaries of the How I Met Your Mother cast. Interesting, most of the five main cast earned the same amount in the final season. Cobie Smulders was pulling in about $225,000 per episode of How I Met Your Mother, which equates to about $5 million a season.

When it comes to her wider career, Cobie Smulders is believed to have a net worth of around $20 million, which ties her for the lowest of the main cast. Still, that's impressive, and while most of this came from her role as Robin, she also has a recurring role in the MCU as Maria Hill, and played the younger Lucill Bluth in Arrested Development.

4 Josh Radnor As Ted Mosby

$225,000 Per Episode

Many would believe that the highest How I Met Your Mother cast salary would go to the actor playing Ted, since he's technically the star of the show. However, Josh Radnor made the same amount as most of his co-stars, earning around $225,000 per episode. He also reportedly has the same net worth as Cobie Smulders, capping it off around $20 million.

Best Feature and Best Director for his dramedy movie Liberal Arts

Josh Radnors's role as Ted Mosby is certainly his most prominent role, though he has appeared in a number of other TV shows including Family Guy and Grey's Anatomy, as well as some movie appearances, such as in 2018's Social Animals. Radnor has also had some success as a director outside How I Met Your Mother, winning the Midwest Independent Film Festival awards in 2013 for Best Feature and Best Director for his dramedy movie Liberal Arts.

3 Alyson Hannigan As Lily Aldrin

$225,000 Per Episode

Alyson Hannigan also made $225,000 per episode in the final season of How I Met Your Mother, a salary that aligns with fellow main cast Cobie Smulders, Josh Radnor, and Jason Segel. This is somewhat surprising, however, as How I Met Your Mother wasn't actually Alyson's first big role, and she had a well-established career beforehand thanks to appearances in the American Pie movies and as Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Due to her extensive career outside the show, it's little surprise that Alyson Hannigan's net worth hovers around $30 million. Of course, she will always be Lily Aldrin in fans' hearts, and Alyson was a perfect fit for the How I Met Your Mother character. She appears to have slowed her career slightly in recent years compared to earlier decades, though still has appeared in several reality TV shows and some Comedy Central projects like the television movie Office Race.

2 Jason Segel As Marshall Erikson

$225,000 Per Episode

Jason Segel stole fans' hearts as Marshall Erikson on How I Met Your Mother, and while this is probably his most iconic and memorable role, he's since gone on to have an incredibly successful career on the big screen. Segel made $225,000 per episode for his How I Met Your Mother salary, which, like Alyson Hannigan, is a little surprising since his career significantly progressed during the time the show was on air.

While How I Met Your Mother was still on the air, Jason Segel managed to land starring roles in movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Sex Tape, which helped bring this up to about $40 million. This is why it's somewhat surprising that Jason Segel was making the same as his co-stars when the show came to an end in 2014. However, he's moved on to some larger roles since he was the humble and hilarious Marshall, so it seems likely that his net worth is far from its peak.

1 Neil Patrick Harris As Barney Stinson

$400,000 Per Episode

According to Insider, Neil Patrick Harris was earning nearly half a million per episode of How I Met Your Mother in the final season of the show. This made him one of the highest-earning television actors at the time, which probably isn't surprising given that he's a multi-award-winning presence in the How I Met Your Mother cast, with five Primetime Emmys and three Screen Actors Guild awards among his various accolades.

Barney Stinson had the highest income, and this fact was somewhat ironically mirrored in the actor's higher salary too.

Given his successful career, it's understandable that Neil Patrick Harris had the highest How I Met Your Mother cast salary. However, despite his incredible success on the big and small screen, Harris's net worth is currently pretty even with Jason Segel's, hovering around $40 million. Of all the How I Met Your Mother characters, Barney Stinson had the highest income, and this fact was somewhat ironically mirrored in the actor's higher salary too.