How Much Do WNBA Players Get Paid? The Salary Structure, Explained

In 2026, the WNBA minimum salary is $270,000 to $300,000 depending on years of service, and the maximum "supermax" salary is $1.4 million — roughly quadruple to quintuple 2025's numbers. The jump comes from a new seven-year CBA that the league and players ratified in March 2026, rewriting almost every figure in this article.

Most of what's written about WNBA pay online is now out of date. Here's what actually changed, what stayed the same, and how the money works in 2026.

2026 WNBA Salaries at a Glance

All figures below are set by the 2026-2032 CBA (contracted) unless marked otherwise.

Sources: CBS Sports, ESPN, and Front Office Sports (see Sources below).

Before and After the 2026 CBA

This is the number that got obsolete almost overnight. Here's the same league, one year apart.

The old $66,079 minimum and $249,244 supermax (2025 figures, confirmed via CBS Sports) are still what most articles online cite — if you're seeing those today, you're reading a page that hasn't caught up.

How the Salary Structure Works

Minimum salary by service time. Rather than one flat minimum, the 2026 CBA sets a minimum salary band of $270,000 to $300,000 that scales with a player's years of WNBA service — rookies and young players sit toward the bottom of the range, veterans toward the top (CBA-contracted, per CBS Sports and ESPN reporting).

Supermax and standard max. The supermax — $1.4 million in 2026, reported as roughly 20% of the salary cap — goes to players who qualify through MVP or top-tier All-WNBA honors plus a minimum service requirement; A'ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, and Napheesa Collier are among those who've qualified. A standard "max" tier sits below it at roughly $1.19 million (about 17.5% of the cap) for All-WNBA First or Second Team players without MVP-level accolades. Both are set as percentages of the cap, so they rise automatically as it grows (CBA-contracted structure; 2026 dollar figures per CBS Sports and SI).

Rookie scale by draft slot. Draft picks are paid on a fixed scale tied to selection order, not negotiated individually. The No. 1 overall pick earns $500,000 in 2026 (about $2.2 million over a four-year rookie deal); the No. 2 pick is reported around $466,913 and No. 3 around $436,016, scaling down to roughly $289,133 for the last first-round pick (CBA-contracted scale, per TheAthleap's reporting). A new "Exceptional Performance" provision lets a rookie-scale player who wins MVP or makes All-WNBA renegotiate their final contract year up to max or supermax level early, rather than waiting out the full deal (CBA-contracted, per Front Office Sports).

The Cap and Revenue Sharing

The team salary cap jumped from $1.5 million in 2025 to $7 million in 2026 — CBA-contracted, confirmed across ESPN, CBS Sports, and Front Office Sports. It's projected (soft) to pass $10-11 million by 2031-2032 as revenue rises.

The bigger structural change: this is, per the league and union, the first comprehensive revenue-sharing model in women's professional sports — player compensation is now tied to actual league revenue instead of a fixed schedule of numbers. Reporting from Front Office Sports and The Ringer puts the average player revenue share at roughly 20% of league revenue across the life of the deal (medium confidence — reported, not an officially published single percentage). WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike described it as tying "player salaries to a truly meaningful share of league revenue, driving exponential growth in the salary cap" (quoted via CBS Sports/Ringer reporting).

Bonuses and Prize Money

On top of salary, 2026 carries performance bonuses (CBA-contracted, per ESPN and CBS Sports): WNBA champion, $60,000; season MVP, $60,000; All-WNBA First Team, $30,000; Defensive Player of the Year, $30,000; All-Defensive First Team, $15,000; Rookie of the Year, $15,000; All-Star selection, $15,000; All-Star Game MVP, $20,000.

These stack on top of base salary. (Players aren't the only ones on the floor earning a paycheck — see how much WNBA referees make for how officiating pay compares.)

Benefits That Aren't Salary

Several of the biggest gains in the new deal don't show up in a salary number at all:

• Charter travel is now mandated league-wide, replacing the patchwork phase-in of recent years.
• Housing is covered for all players through 2028, extended through 2030 for players earning under $500,000. Developmental-roster players get housing for the life of the deal.
• Medical staffing minimums, by 2028: two athletic trainers, a strength and conditioning coach, a physical therapist, a director of sports medicine, a massage therapist, and nutritionist access per team, plus dedicated medical facilities.
• Retired-player recognition payments: a one-time $30,000 (5-7 years of service), $50,000 (8-11 years), or $100,000 (12+ years) — new for the WNBA, confirmed identically by CBS Sports and Swish Appeal.
• 401(k) and life insurance contributions increased; mental-health and family-planning coverage expanded; players with 4+ years get up to $1,200/year in healthcare reimbursement.
• Players with children 13 or younger can travel with the team, with the team covering an extra hotel room.

(All CBA-contracted per CBS Sports and Swish Appeal; developmental-roster stipend amounts weren't disclosed in the reporting reviewed — treat as unspecified, not zero.)

Do Players Still Need an Offseason Job?

For years, the honest answer to "how much do WNBA players make" was "not enough, so most also play overseas in winter" — in leagues in Turkey, Russia, China, and Australia, sometimes for salaries several times their WNBA pay. That's what the new CBA is designed to change. The Ringer's reporting on the deal put it bluntly: the goal is that "WNBA stars will never have to go overseas for a second job to make a sustainable living again" (quoted; framing from reporting, not a literal CBA clause).

Two things are doing the work. First, the raw salary jump: at $270,000-$300,000 minimum and $1.4 million supermax, 2026 pay is far more competitive with what top overseas clubs have historically offered, closing a gap that once made offseason travel close to mandatory. Second, domestic alternatives have grown. Unrivaled, the 3-on-3 offseason league co-founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, launched in January 2025 during the WNBA's winter break, giving players a paid, U.S.-based option — including some who've taken equity stakes in the league. Several players and commentators, including forward Gabby Williams, have credited Unrivaled with strengthening the union's hand in CBA talks by giving players a viable alternative to the league's prior terms.

Overseas basketball hasn't disappeared — players outside the newly enriched top of the pay scale will still go abroad, and the new CBA has reportedly made the WNBA itself more attractive to international players moving the other way, per ESPN's reporting. But the financial pressure to leave the country every winter is, by design, much lower than in 2025.

Endorsements

For the WNBA's biggest stars, off-court income has for years dwarfed on-court salary — a gap the new CBA narrows but doesn't erase, since even supermax pay ($1.4 million) is modest next to what top athletes elsewhere earn from sponsors. Nike, Gatorade, and State Farm are among the companies with multi-year deals with top WNBA players, and outlets like Forbes and Sportico publish annual off-court-earnings estimates that, for the league's most marketable names, run into eight figures. Unrivaled adds a further wrinkle by offering some players equity in the league itself rather than, or alongside, salary. Exact endorsement values are rarely disclosed, so treat figures you see elsewhere as reported estimates, not confirmed terms.

How This Compares to the NBA

A fair comparison separates two things: the size of the revenue pie, and the players' share of it.

On the revenue side, the leagues aren't close. The NBA is a decades-older business with far larger media rights deals, arena revenue, and global reach; its 2025-26 salary cap was roughly $154.6 million per team (via Wikipedia's NBA salary cap tracking) — more than 20 times the WNBA's $7 million 2026 team cap. That gap reflects the underlying revenue gap, not simply a difference in generosity. (It shows up in officiating pay too — NBA referees are paid on a far larger scale than most WNBA staff, for the same reason.)

On the share-of-revenue side, the comparison is closer conceptually, if not in dollar terms. NBA players receive a share of Basketball Related Income (BRI) that nets out to close to 50% under their current CBA — widely reported in coverage of the 2023 NBA labor deal. WNBA players, under the new deal, get a reported average revenue share of roughly 20% over the life of the agreement. The league and union call this historic progress — the first time WNBA pay has been formally tied to revenue at all — while some players and commentators note that 20% is still well short of the NBA's roughly 50%, and argue future negotiations should push it higher as league revenue keeps growing. Both things can be true: this is the biggest financial gain in WNBA history, and the revenue-share percentage still trails the NBA's by a wide margin. Treat the 20% figure as a reported average, not an officially published single percentage, since neither side has released the exact year-by-year formula.

What's Coming by 2032

Everything past 2026 in this section is a projection, not a contracted dollar figure — the CBA sets the formula and cap growth mechanism, but not fixed future dollar amounts.

• Team salary cap: projected past $10-11 million by 2031-2032 (from $7 million in 2026)
• Supermax salary: projected to reach ~$2.4 million by 2032 (from $1.4 million in 2026)
• League average salary: projected past $1 million by 2032 (from ~$583,000 in 2026)
• Minimum salary: projected to reach ~$340,000-$380,000 by 2032
• Season length: 44 games (2026) → 50 games (2027-2028) → 52 games (2029 on) — CBA-contracted, unlike the dollar figures above
• A player opt-out after 2031 means the union could reopen talks before the deal's full seven years play out

FAQ

What is the WNBA minimum salary? In 2026, $270,000 to $300,000 depending on years of service — up from $66,079 in 2025, under the new CBA.

What is the WNBA max salary? The supermax is $1.4 million in 2026; the standard max (All-WNBA players not supermax-eligible) is roughly $1.19 million.

How much does the No. 1 WNBA draft pick make? $500,000 in 2026, about $2.2 million over a four-year rookie-scale contract.

Do WNBA players still play overseas? Some do, but higher salaries and domestic options like Unrivaled have made it far less of a financial necessity than before 2026.

How does the WNBA salary cap compare to the NBA's? $7 million (WNBA, 2026) versus about $154.6 million (NBA, 2025-26) — a gap that tracks the two leagues' very different revenue bases.

What are the developmental roster spots? Two extra, cap-exempt roster spots per team created by the 2026 CBA, aimed at players with three or fewer years of service (or up to five with minutes limits) — a paid path onto a 14-player team for players who'd otherwise miss the 12-player cap-counted roster.

Is WNBA pay now tied to league revenue? Yes, for the first time. The 2026 CBA ties player pay to a reported average of roughly 20% of league revenue over the seven-year deal.