David Harbour’s Stranger Things Salary: What He Made Per Episode
When Netflix unleashed Stranger Things in 2016, it didn’t just become a hit—it rewrote the streaming playbook. The whole cast rode the neon wave of ’80s nostalgia to fame, but none surged faster than David Harbour, whose breakout catapulted him from character actor to global star.
When Stranger Things landed back in 2016, it didn't just rescue Netflix from the content void of summer — it turned a bunch of familiar faces into household names. The clearest glow-up? David Harbour. Hopper took him from 'that guy' to one of TV's favorite grumpy-dad heroes, and the paychecks evolved just as dramatically.
How much did Hopper pay? The short version
Harbour did not start at the top of the food chain. In Season 1, he was making less per episode than his co-star Winona Ryder — which made sense at the time, given her long A-list résumé. But as Hopper became core to the show's DNA, Harbour's salary shot up to match the show's scale and his importance.
Here's the season-by-season breakdown, including episode counts and what that adds up to:
- Season 1 (2016): $80,000 per episode, 8 episodes (about $640,000 total)
- Season 2 (2017): $80,000 per episode, 9 episodes (about $720,000 total)
- Season 3 (2019): $350,000 per episode, 8 episodes (about $2.8 million total) — this is where Harbour's pay jumped to match the show's top tier
- Season 4 (2022): $350,000 per episode, 9 episodes (about $3.15 million total)
- Season 5 (2025): $1.2 million per episode, 8 episodes (math says $9.6 million, but reports peg the final-season payday at $9.5 million — call it rounding or deal-structure weirdness)
For context: back in Season 1, Ryder reportedly earned $100,000 per episode thanks to her star status. By Season 3, Harbour's $350,000-per-episode bumped him into that same highest-paid tier.
The career shift behind the numbers
Before Hawkins, Harbour was a respected character actor: Broadway work, a Tony nomination for 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?', roles in films like 'Brokeback Mountain' and 'Quantum of Solace', and TV like 'The Newsroom'. The money wasn't shabby, but character actors don't typically get the big, splashy paydays. Industry estimates had his net worth around $6 million before Stranger Things took off.
Then came Hopper. Two Emmy nominations, a Critics' Choice Award, and the kind of global visibility you can't buy. The offers got bigger and more varied: he led 'Violent Night' as a bruiser Santa, showed up in 'Gran Turismo' as a tough-love racing coach, and joined the MCU as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian in 'Black Widow' with a return lined up for 'Thunderbolts.' There's also chatter about him popping up in a future Avengers movie under the title 'Avengers: Doomsday' — for the record, Marvel hasn't officially announced a film by that name.
The scale of the Stranger Things machine
Netflix reportedly spent around $30 million per episode on Season 4 — a staggering number even by streamer standards. It paid off: Season 4 set viewership records and, at the time, became the streamer's most-watched U.S. title. When a show gets that big, top-cast salaries tend to follow.
Where things stand now
Stranger Things is streaming on Netflix, with Season 5 expected in 2025. Regardless of how the Hawkins saga wraps, Harbour's payday arc is already one for the books — the rare case where a breakout role actually changes the entire trajectory of a career, bank account included.