Hoda Kotb Net Worth: The $20 Million Salary That NBC Said It Could No Longer Justify

Hoda Kotb Net Worth at a Glance

From Mississippi to the Today Show

Hoda Kotb was born on August 9, 1964, in Norman, Oklahoma, to Egyptian parents who had immigrated to the United States. She grew up between West Virginia, Virginia, and periods spent in Egypt — a multicultural upbringing that she has described as central to her ability to connect with a broad audience. She was elected homecoming queen at her Virginia high school, attended Virginia Tech, and graduated in 1986 with a degree in broadcast journalism.

Her early career was the kind of grind that defines most successful television journalists before anyone knows their name. She began at a CBS affiliate in Greenville, Mississippi, then worked at an ABC affiliate in New Orleans before joining NBC as a Dateline correspondent and NBC News reporter in April 1998. At Dateline she covered Hurricane Katrina on the ground in New Orleans — reporting that earned her widespread recognition and deepened her connection with the city she had once called home. Her breast cancer diagnosis in 2007, her mastectomy, and her subsequent public advocacy for early detection and awareness became a defining chapter of her public identity before she ever sat behind the main Today desk.

She joined the fourth hour of Today in 2007, paired with Kathie Lee Gifford from 2008. The Kotb-Gifford hour — known for its Wine Wednesday segments and relentlessly warm chemistry — became a cultural institution within the show. When Matt Lauer was fired in November 2017 following allegations of inappropriate workplace behaviour, Kotb was named his replacement as co-anchor of the flagship broadcast in January 2018. She became part of the first all-female anchor team in Today’s history, alongside Savannah Guthrie.

The NBC Salary Arc: From $7 Million to $20 Million — and Back to Zero

Kotb’s salary progression at NBC is one of the most documented in morning television, largely because each milestone came with a public discussion of the numbers — some revealing, some deliberately incomplete.

When Kotb was first named co-anchor in 2018, Page Six reported her salary at $7 million per year — the same as Savannah Guthrie at the time, and notably less than the $25 million Matt Lauer had been earning before his firing. Kotb acknowledged to People that she and Guthrie both earned less than Lauer, and said she was comfortable with it because she valued the job itself.

“I’m a worker. I’m a grinder. I’m not the most talented. I’m not top of my class. I’m not that person. But I’m a grinder, and the one thing I think I do really well is, I get up. I’ll fall a thousand times, but I get up.” — Hoda Kotb, to Forbes

By 2022, her expanded responsibilities — hosting both the 7 and 8 a.m. main news hours and continuing to co-host the 10 a.m. fourth hour alongside Jenna Bush Hager — pushed her total compensation above $20 million per year, per Puck News. That figure made her the highest-paid host on Today, and one of the highest-paid anchors in American morning television.

In late 2024, Puck News reported that NBC executives had informed her agents that a salary of $20 million-plus could no longer be justified given the structural decline in broadcast television viewership. Today’s average audience had fallen from roughly 4.7 million viewers in 2014 to approximately 2.9 million by 2024. The network framed the proposed cut as an industry-wide adjustment rather than a performance issue — but the effect was the same. In October 2024, Kotb announced she would leave the show. On January 10, 2025, she delivered her final broadcast, saying: “I just turned 60. I started thinking about that decade — what does it mean, what does it hold. And I realised it was time to turn the page.”

The Pay Gap That Followed Her Throughout

Kotb’s $7 million starting co-anchor salary in 2018 was $18 million less than the $25 million Matt Lauer had been earning. NBC sources cited at the time framed this as a reflection of Lauer’s 25 years on the show rather than a gender disparity — an explanation that became harder to accept as Kotb’s audience numbers and cultural impact grew. She went on to be nominated for and win industry recognition, attract high-profile interview subjects that elevated Today’s cultural standing, and host a franchise hour that consistently outperformed in its time slot. By 2022 she had closed much of the gap, reaching $20 million. But the fact that her peak salary arrived only after four years in the role, while Lauer’s had been $25 million from a position she replaced, remained a data point that compensation watchers in broadcast journalism noted throughout her tenure.

Books and Publishing Income

Kotb has authored six books across memoir, inspirational nonfiction, and children’s literature, several of which became New York Times bestsellers. Her 2010 memoir Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee drew on her Dateline reporting, her cancer experience, and her friendship with Kathie Lee Gifford. Where We Belong: Journeys That Show Us the Way (2014) and This Just Speaks to Me: Words to Live By Every Day (2021) reflect her focus on resilience and gratitude. She has also written children’s books including I’ve Loved You Since Forever (2018), inspired by her adoption of her daughter Haley Joy, and You Are My Happy (2019).

Bestselling authors at Kotb’s profile level typically earn advances in the $500,000–$1.5 million range per title, with ongoing royalties from print, digital, and audiobook sales. Her children’s books, which draw directly on her widely followed personal story of late-life motherhood and adoption, have performed strongly within their category. Publishing income from a backlist of six titles, several of which remain in print and actively promoted, provides a durable secondary income stream that does not depend on her NBC salary.

SiriusXM and Other Media Income

From 2015 through 2022, Kotb hosted her own SiriusXM radio show twice weekly on the TODAY channel — a seven-year radio presence that expanded her audience beyond television and generated additional income alongside her NBC salary. The show focused on personal stories, inspiration, and the type of emotional connection that defined her Today persona. SiriusXM host fees for personalities at her recognition level are not publicly disclosed, but represent a meaningful supplement to primary television income.

Since her January 2025 Today departure, Kotb has outlined her next chapter publicly. She told Kelly Clarkson on The Kelly Clarkson Show that she is building a wellness app and company that will include retreats and a podcast. A source cited by Us Weekly said: “She’s going to earn way more than she did at the Today show. Now that she’s not full-time at NBC, Hoda’s going to be working with brands and can be paid to endorse them. She also could make several hundred thousand dollars for speaking engagements.” These post-NBC income streams are active but not yet publicly quantified.

Real Estate and Personal Life

Kotb lives in an Upper Manhattan apartment, which served as her primary residence during her NBC career. In 2018 she purchased a waterfront home in the Point Lookout hamlet of Long Island, New York, for approximately $2 million — a property with a private swimming dock that she has described as her retreat from the city schedule. These two properties form the documented core of her real estate holdings, with a combined estimated current value likely in the $5–7 million range given New York area appreciation since the 2018 purchase.

Kotb adopted her first daughter, Haley Joy, in 2017, and a second daughter, Hope Catherine, shortly after. She was previously engaged to financier Joel Schiffman, with whom she co-parents both children following their separation. She has spoken extensively and publicly about the experience of becoming a mother in her early 50s — a personal narrative that resonated deeply with her audience and directly informed two of her bestselling children’s books.

Why the $60 Million Estimate Has Two Different Sources

There is a meaningful discrepancy in publicly cited net worth figures for Kotb. Celebrity Net Worth, the most-cited source in this niche, places her net worth at $60 million as of February 2026. Parade magazine and Soaps.com, citing Celebrity Net Worth separately, report $30 million. Both are using Celebrity Net Worth as a source but appear to be referencing different update dates — the $30 million figure appears in earlier articles that predate the most recent Celebrity Net Worth revision.

The $60 million figure is more consistent with the documented income record: at $20 million per year for at least three years of peak salary, plus $7 million per year for four years before that, plus book advances, SiriusXM income, and brand deals across a 26-year career, the $60 million figure is financially coherent in a way that $30 million is not, even after taxes and living expenses. The $60 million estimate is the figure this article treats as the most reliable currently available.

What Hoda Kotb’s Financial Story Tells Us

Hoda Kotb’s net worth is the product of a broadcasting career that took longer to reach its peak than most, arrived at its highest point later than her co-anchor counterparts, and ended when the economics of the industry changed faster than any individual salary negotiation could accommodate. She did not build a media company, launch a startup, or pivot into podcasting during her NBC years. She built her wealth the old-fashioned way — by showing up every morning for 26 years, by being the person viewers trusted with the difficult stories, and by earning raises that recognised what she had built even when they came slowly.

The $20 million salary that NBC said it could no longer justify is also the $20 million that confirmed what she was always worth. The two facts coexist without contradiction. What comes next — the wellness company, the retreats, the podcast, the brand deals now available to her as a free agent — will determine whether the $60 million figure is a final chapter or a foundation.

All net worth figures are estimates based on publicly reported sources. Hoda Kotb has not publicly confirmed a specific net worth.