The Highest-Earning ‘Friends’ Character is Definitely Not Who You Think It Is (2024)

Of the main six characters on the massively hit show Friends, the highest earner is likely not who you’d think it would be. You might think that it would be paleontologist Ross Geller (played by David Schwimmer), or his sister, chef Monica Geller (played by Courteney Cox); it could even be Chandler Bing (played by Matthew Perry), who was an IT procurement manager. If you guessed any of those three, you’d be wrong—the highest-earning character (not the actual actors themselves, mind you) was Joey Tribbiani, played by Matt LeBlanc.

Bustle reports that on-and-off soap opera star Tribbiani earned the most inside the Friends stratosphere after he landed a gig in a feature film, which saw his annual earnings skyrocket to $130,000. “In between acting gigs, however, Joey seemed to lack any part-time jobs to make ends meet,” the outlet reports.

His roommate for part of the series, Chandler Bing, saw his earnings rise from $50,000 to $100,000 annually (keep in mind, the 10 seasons of the show ran from 1994 to 2004). “However, when Chandler swapped careers to become an advertising copywriter in season nine, the character’s earnings are estimated to have dipped significantly,” Bustle reports.

By the end of the series, Chandler married Monica Geller, who was head chef at Javu and earned an estimated salary of $80,000. “However, it’s rare that fans ever saw Monica at the restaurant (or any previous waitressing gigs she had), where long hours would be part of the job,” the outlet reports. Her brother, Ross, took home $75,000 as a paleontologist, but after going on sabbatical for a couple of seasons, he returned to work making a slightly lower salary.

Ross’ love interest Rachel Green (played by Jennifer Aniston) took home a maximum of $55,000 after originally working as a buyer and a personal shopper at Bloomingdales, and Phoebe Buffay (played by Lisa Kudrow) is thought to be the lowest earner of the six friends; she “tried her hand at a number of different careers, including as a masseuse and busker,” the outlet reports.

The Friends character’s salaries are, after all, just estimations, “and when taking into account the real-world cost of living, especially in one of the most expensive cities in the world [New York City], the economics of Friends should probably be taken with a grain of salt,” Bustle reports. Case in point? Though Monica netted about $80,000 annually, her iconic Greenwich Village apartment—which is where so many scenes of the show were shot—would have cost an estimated $4 million as of 2018; the deposit alone would have set her back $400,000.