You Won’t Believe Who’s on Top — The Untold Wealth Behind the ‘Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” Cast!
There’s a lot of talk on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives about how “MomTok” isn’t just a business, it’s a sisterhood. It’s a nice idea in theory, but Season 3 makes you wonder how true it is.
According to Mikayla Matthews, Demi Engemann left the show because she asked to be paid “three times” more than the rest of her castmates and was denied. And Whitney Leavitt walked because she couldn’t negotiate a scripted role into her contract.
Both women came back halfway through the season, but it seemed their return had less to do with mending fences than it did protecting their reputations and business prospects. Whitney openly admitted to rejoining the show only for a chance to audition for Dancing With the Stars (which she landed).
With so much deal-related drama going down in Utah, one has to wonder: How much does the cast get paid for The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? And while we’re on the subject of money, who is the richest influencer in MomTok?
How much does The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives cast get paid per episode?
Without intel from MomTok, a Disney/Hulu exec or another reliable source, we can’t say for sure what the cast makes per episode.
But we do know that reality TV salaries vary enormously from show to show and person to person, and that some stars don’t even get paid per episode — they earn a flat fee per season instead.
A contestant who doesn’t go very far on Love Is Blind might make $1,000 per week (as one former suitor claimed in a lawsuit against the show), for instance, while the lead of The Bachelor might get closer to six figures for the entire season (Bachelorette star Jason Tartick once said he passed on an offer for $100,000).
Meanwhile, on a franchise like The Real Housewives, which Secret Lives hews closer to in format and style, New York alum Bethany Frankel has said that salaries range from $25,000 for the first season to seven figures (“and for some people, more”) for later seasons, although Bravo hasn’t verified those numbers.
Earlier this year, an unsubstantiated report from the tabloid The Sun (so take it with a grain of salt) claimed that the cast of The Valley got a pay bump between Seasons 1 and 2 that gave new, full-time cast members $5,000-to-10,000 per episode, depending on how much they filmed, and Vanderpump Rules alums around $30,000 per episode (for Jax Taylor) and in the ballpark of $20,000 or $25,000 per episode (for Brittany Cartwright and Kristen Doute).
Alas, none of this info gets us any closer to knowing what, exactly, the cast of Secret Lives cast makes per episode. Given the lay of the land, it wouldn’t be surprising if they got $5,000 per episode for Season 1 or $25,000 flat for all eight episodes — it’s anyone’s guess.
What we know for sure is that the cast renegotiated their contracts between each season of the series so far, so it stands to reason they got pay bumps that reflect the popularity of the show.
And they were reportedly paid equally for the first two seasons of the show (Whitney confirmed as much to Business Insider), but it sounds like that wasn’t the case for Season 3 (she also suggested that their arrangement could change “down the line”).
Certain stars had been clamoring to assert their personal worth for a while: In Season 2, Episode 6, the cast revealed that during talks for the second season, Demi suggested Jessi be kicked off the show to boost everyone else’s payday.
She defended herself by saying that Jessi “went around” her first, despite them having a “mutual understanding that we were gonna come in fighting for everything as a united front.” Either way, the writing was on the wall that the cast’s “equal pay” days were numbered.
What do The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives stars make from brand deals?
Many reality TV stars make a big chunk of their money through sponsorships, and that’s certainly the case for the MomTokers. But how much they make from brands varies from deal to deal.
“Each year is different,” Whitney told E! News in 2024. “You could get a really big brand deal like, ‘Hey, we want to have like a six-month contract with you,’ and then next year you don’t get it at all.
It varies drastically.” As viewers may remember, she once got $20,000 to promote a sex toy on Instagram. Meanwhile, Mayci has said that she once got $75,000 for a one-year deal with an unnamed brand.
How much is Taylor Frankie Paul from Mormon Wives worth?
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Taylor is worth $400,000. It’s likely that number will see a spike after she debuts as the next Bachelorette in 2026, at which point her earning potential — through brand endorsements, appearances, etc. — will skyrocket.
What is Taylor Frankie Paul getting paid for The Bachelorette?
ABC hasn’t disclosed salary details. But Amy Kaufman reported in her book Bachelor Nation that it’s “incredibly rare for someone to make less than six figures.”
How much is Whitney Leavitt making from Dancing With the Stars?
Per Variety, the starting salary on DWTS is $125,000, which includes training for at least 20 hours per week for several weeks prior to the start of the season. From there, competitors get weekly bonuses in the following amounts:
- Weeks 3 and 4: $10,000 per week
- Week 5: $15,000
- Weeks 6 and 7: $20,000 per week
- Weeks 8 and 9: $30,000.
- Semi-finals and finale: $50,000 per week
Because Whitney has made it to the semi-finals, which will air Nov. 18, 2025, you would think she stands to make a minimum of $310,000 — and $360,000 if she dances her way into the finale.
But a 2019 report claims that the pay was cut so that the maximum the final three could earn is $295,000. In which case, Whitney has already reached that cap.
How much did Jen Affleck make from Dancing With the Stars?
Jen made it to Week 7 before getting eliminated, which means she pocketed $200,000 in her time on the show.
What was Mayci Neeley paid for her memoir?
Mayci’s memoir, Told You So, came out in October 2025 and was an instant New York Times bestseller, but the details of her deal remain undisclosed.
Who is the richest one on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives?
There’s not enough reliable net worth data out there to say for sure who is the richest. Whitney and Taylor are obvious contenders for the top spot given their high-profile ABC gigs (DWTS and The Bachelorette, respectively) and the lucrative offshoot deals that are bound to come from them.
But our hunch is that Jessi has the deepest pockets of the bunch, at least for now. During the Season 2 pay conflict, Demi said that Jessi didn’t “need” the money because she had a “hair empire.” And her Salt Lake City mansion, which featured heavily in Season 3, just went on the market for $2.5 million. You’d need to sell a lot of vibrators on TikTok to come up with that kind of cash!
