Alex Cooper’s net worth is estimated at $150 million as of October 2026, built on three big podcast contracts for Call Her Daddy and, above all, on her stake in Unwell, the media company she runs with her husband, Matt Kaplan. In August 2026 an investment from Patrick Whitesell’s firm WTSL valued Unwell at $500 million, which is why her fortune now looks far larger than the figures most sites still show.
Published estimates range from $22 million to $60 million, and every one of them was written before that valuation. They also differ because her contracts pay her company rather than her alone, and because neither her share of Unwell nor her spending is public. The Radar Readout below shows how the figures compare and how we get to $150 million.
Radar Readout
Alex Cooper net worth
Updated
Oct 28, 2026
Our estimate
$150M
Likely range $80M to $245M
Confidence
Modeled estimate. Her deals and Unwell's $500 million valuation are well reported, but her share of the company and what she has kept are not public, so the total is modeled.
How the published estimates compare
- HollywoodLifeJun 2026$22M to $60M
- Celebrity Net Worthcited May 2026$60M
- Net Worth RadarOct 28, 2026$150M
Published figures run from $22 million to $60 million, and all of them predate the August 2026 investment that valued Unwell at $500 million. Ours adds a discounted share of that company to her personal savings.
How we get to $150 million
- Savings from the Barstool and Spotify years, through 2024$30M$18M to $40M
- Personal pay kept in the SiriusXM era, 2025 to October 2026$20M$12M to $30M
- Her share of Unwell, discounted because it is private$100M$50M to $175M
You vs. Alex
At $60,000 a year, it would take you 2,500 years to earn Alex’s estimated $150 million, before tax and without spending a cent. One year of what SiriusXM reportedly pays Unwell ($30 million) equals 500.0 years of your pay.
Sources and how we estimated this
We start from what she most likely kept from her Barstool salary and her $60 million Spotify deal, using Forbes earnings estimates and keeping a little under half after tax, fees and spending. We add a cautious share of her pay since the SiriusXM deal began in 2025. Finally we take Unwell's reported $500 million pre-money valuation, assume she personally holds a share of the founders' stake alongside her husband and co-founder Matt Kaplan, and cut that value roughly in half because the company is private and the stake size is not disclosed. How we fact-check
- Fortune: Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper raises money at a $500 million valuation (Aug 2026)
- Axios: Alex Cooper's Unwell lands $500M valuation from WTSL
- TheWrap: Alex Cooper sets $125 million multiyear deal with SiriusXM
- Business Insider via AOL: How Alex Cooper's $125 million SiriusXM deal works
- Forbes Australia: Forbes Top Creators 2025
- TMZ: Alex Cooper's Unwell beverage business is shutting down
- TheWrap: Why Alex Cooper left UTA
- Wikipedia: Call Her Daddy
- Wikipedia: Alex Cooper (podcaster)
Alex Cooper Net Worth at a Glance
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Estimated net worth (October 2026) | $150 million |
| Likely range | $80 million to $245 million |
| Main source of wealth | Call Her Daddy and her stake in Unwell |
| Spotify deal | About $60 million over three years, signed June 2021 |
| SiriusXM deal | Up to $125 million, three years, announced August 2024, started 2025 |
| Unwell valuation | $500 million pre-money, August 2026 |
| Forbes earnings estimate | $32 million gross, April 2024 to April 2025 |
| Born | August 21, 1994, Newtown, Pennsylvania |
| Spouse | Matt Kaplan, film producer, married April 2024 |
How Alex Cooper’s $150 Million Net Worth Is Built
No audited figure exists for Cooper, so we model it in three lanes. The first is what she most likely saved from her Barstool and Spotify years. The second is her personal pay since SiriusXM took over the show in 2025. The third, and by far the largest, is her share of Unwell, valued at a steep discount because it is a private company and the size of her stake has never been disclosed.
| Lane | Our central estimate | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Savings from the Barstool and Spotify years, through 2024 | $30 million | $18 million to $40 million |
| Personal pay kept in the SiriusXM era, 2025 to October 2026 | $20 million | $12 million to $30 million |
| Her share of Unwell, discounted because it is private | $100 million | $50 million to $175 million |
| Total | $150 million | $80 million to $245 million |
The Unwell lane is where the uncertainty sits. At a $500 million pre-money valuation, a founder holding even a quarter of the company would have a paper stake of $125 million. Cooper co-founded Unwell with Kaplan, and reports describe the two of them as the people making the key decisions, but no outlet has said how the shares are split or how much WTSL bought. We assume Cooper holds a meaningful part of the founders’ stake in her own name and then cut its value roughly in half, because private media companies are hard to sell and a valuation set by one strategic investor is not cash in the bank.
From Barstool to Spotify: The First $60 Million Deal
Cooper grew up in Newtown, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children, and played Division I soccer at Boston University while studying film and television. She launched Call Her Daddy with her then roommate Sofia Franklyn on October 3, 2018. Barstool Sports took over the show soon after, and downloads reportedly jumped from 12,000 to 2 million in two months.
The early money was modest. Barstool founder Dave Portnoy has said the original three-year contract carried a $75,000 base salary plus bonuses, with Barstool owning the show’s intellectual property. When the contract was renegotiated in 2020, Portnoy said Barstool had offered a $500,000 base salary. Franklyn left, and Cooper carried on alone. Merchandise was an early sign of the brand’s pull: Forbes reported $800,000 in “Daddy Gang” merch sales in the first three days of a November 2020 release.
The turning point came in June 2021, when Cooper signed an exclusive three-year deal with Spotify worth about $60 million. Barstool kept the merchandising rights. The Los Angeles Times later reported her annual salary at $20 million. Over the Spotify years the show ranked second on the platform behind The Joe Rogan Experience, and Time called her arguably the most successful woman in podcasting. Spotify did not renew when the term ended.
The SiriusXM Deal: Up to $125 Million
In August 2024 Cooper announced a three-year deal with SiriusXM worth up to $125 million, starting in 2025. TheWrap reported that SiriusXM took exclusive advertising and distribution rights for Call Her Daddy, plus global ad sales rights for the Unwell Network’s current and future shows. Unlike the Spotify deal, the show stayed available on every podcast platform.
The headline number is a ceiling, not a guaranteed paycheck. Business Insider reported that payouts are tied to download targets and other goals such as live events and satellite radio programming, and that Cooper has to pay the other hosts on her network out of what SiriusXM pays. In August 2026, Fortune reported that SiriusXM pays Unwell more than $30 million a year. That money flows to the company, which is why we count most of it inside the Unwell lane rather than as her personal income.
Forbes ranked her fifth on its 2025 Top Creators list, with estimated gross earnings of $32 million between April 2024 and April 2025, the highest of any woman on the list. Forbes counts earnings before taxes and fees and does not include equity, so the figure tells us about her income, not her fortune.
Unwell: The Company Behind the Valuation
Cooper and Kaplan founded Unwell in 2023. It began as a podcast network aimed at Gen Z, with early signings that included Alix Earle’s Hot Mess and Madeline Argy’s Pretty Lonesome. Axios reported in August 2026 that the network has more than a dozen shows. The company has since added film and TV production, live events and a creative agency. Unwell Creative Agency launched in October 2025 to help brands reach Gen Z, and Unwell produced the Netflix reality series Let’s Marry Harry.
Live shows were part of the plan from the start. The Unwell Tour opened with a sold out Boston show on November 3, 2023, with guests including Alix Earle, Chelsea Handler and Kelsea Ballerini.
On August 12, 2026, Unwell took its first outside investment, from WTSL, the firm led by former WME co-founder Patrick Whitesell and backed by Silver Lake. Axios put the pre-money valuation at $500 million. The size of the investment and the stake sold were not disclosed. Fortune reported that the money will fund growth in video and consumer products, and that Whitesell believes Unwell can become a billion dollar media business.
Not every venture worked. Unwell Hydration, an electrolyte drink made with Nestlé, debuted at Target on January 1, 2025, and later added protein and energy drinks. A day after the investment news, TMZ, citing Bloomberg, reported that the beverage business would wind down after a final run of Halloween flavors, less than two years after launch. No sales figures were published, so we do not count the drinks as a meaningful part of her wealth either way.
Hulu, Big Interviews and Awards
Cooper’s profile outside podcasting has grown quickly. She worked as a commentator and host for NBC’s coverage of the 2024 Summer Olympics, and in October 2024 she interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the presidential election. In January 2026 former First Lady Michelle Obama came on the show, and Call Her Daddy was nominated for Best Podcast at the 2026 Golden Globe Awards.
Her life story became Call Her Alex, a two-part Hulu docuseries directed by Ry Russo-Young. It premiered at the Tribeca Festival on June 8, 2025, and began streaming two days later. Here is the official trailer, posted on Hulu’s YouTube channel.
She was named to Time’s first TIME100 Creators list in 2025, in the Titans category, and she is set to appear as herself in the film adaptation of Verity.
Why Searches for Her Net Worth Jumped in 2026
Google Trends data shows interest in “Alex Cooper net worth” spiking several times this year, and each spike lines up with a news event. The biggest came in mid April 2026, when a public dispute with Alix Earle played out on TikTok. Earle’s show had left Unwell in February 2025, when the network dropped Hot Mess and gave her the rights, so the feud also touched on Unwell’s business. Smaller spikes followed her pregnancy announcement on May 17, 2026, the $500 million valuation in August, and the September 4 premiere of Earle’s Netflix series Earle Meets World.
The year also brought scrutiny of how Unwell is run. In April 2026 Bloomberg reported on staff turnover and complaints about Kaplan’s behavior toward employees, and in June 2026 a Vanity Fair report citing more than 40 sources made similar allegations. Speaking at Cannes in June 2026, Cooper called the coverage a smear campaign and said she had never been busier with brand partners. In August 2026 she also left UTA, her agency of more than six years. None of this has shown up in published revenue figures, and the WTSL investment came after the reports.
Why Other Sites Say $60 Million
| Source | Figure | Date | What it misses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Celebrity Net Worth (as cited by BollywoodShaadis) | $60 million | Cited May 2026 | Predates the $500 million Unwell valuation |
| HollywoodLife | $22 million to $60 million | June 2026 | Mixes earnings estimates with net worth; predates the valuation |
| Net Worth Radar | $150 million | October 2026 | Modeled; her exact stake in Unwell is not public |
The $60 million figure roughly matches what she could have saved from her Spotify and early SiriusXM pay. The gap with our estimate is almost entirely the value of Unwell. If her stake turns out to be smaller than we assume, or the valuation does not hold, her net worth would sit toward the lower end of our range.
How Alex Cooper Compares
Cooper is the newest in a line of hosts who turned audio into a fortune. Howard Stern, whose SiriusXM contracts set the template for her deal, sits at a Net Worth Radar estimate of $700 million, and Ryan Seacrest is estimated at over $400 million. Among creators who built companies around their audience, Paris Hilton is at $380 million through 11:11 Media, Logan Paul at $110 million, and Kourtney Kardashian at $125 million with her Lemme brand.
Frequently Asked Questions About Alex Cooper’s Net Worth
How much is Alex Cooper worth?
We estimate Alex Cooper’s net worth at $150 million as of October 2026, within a likely range of $80 million to $245 million. Most of that is her modeled share of Unwell, which was valued at $500 million in August 2026.
How much is Alex Cooper’s SiriusXM deal worth?
The three-year deal announced in August 2024 is worth up to $125 million, depending on download and other targets. Fortune reported in 2026 that SiriusXM pays Unwell more than $30 million a year for distribution and ad sales.
How much did Spotify pay Alex Cooper?
Spotify signed her to an exclusive three-year deal worth about $60 million in June 2021. Spotify did not renew it, and she moved to SiriusXM in 2025.
How much does Alex Cooper make a year?
Forbes estimated her gross earnings at $32 million for the twelve months to April 2025, ranking her fifth among creators. That is before taxes and fees and does not include the value of her company.
Who owns Unwell?
Unwell was founded by Alex Cooper and Matt Kaplan in 2023. WTSL, led by Patrick Whitesell, became its first outside investor in August 2026, but the size of each owner’s stake has not been disclosed.
Is Unwell Hydration still sold?
No new production is planned. TMZ, citing Bloomberg, reported in August 2026 that Unwell’s beverage business is shutting down after a final batch of Halloween flavors, with Target selling through its remaining stock.




