The stars of TLC’s Sister Wives, Kody Brown and his polygamous family, have been open about their income and finances through the years.
“All of our money got put into a big, huge fund and we got paid out of that fund. And I always talked to Kody about getting paid,” Christine Brown claimed in a January 2025 episode of Sister Wives. “He’s the one who always wrote the check if I needed anything. I told Kody [and] it was Kody who really had the control of the money.”
According to Christine, she would solely “record what was spent and sent it to the accountant.”
Kody and Meri Brown wed in 1990, several years before he “spiritually married” Janelle Brown in 1993 and Christine in 1994, respectively. Kody and Meri divorced in 2014, so that he could legally marry his fourth wife, Robyn Brown, and adopt her three children from a previous marriage. (Kody and Meri split in 2022, the same year that he and Janelle went their separate ways. Christine, meanwhile, announced her breakup from Kody in 2021.)
Kody, meanwhile, concurred during the January 2025 episode, noting that he often “guided where the money went.”
“We all had access to the account,” Kody said. “Listen, we were a family working together and we did the best we could.”
Keep scrolling for everything to know about the Browns’ finances:
Growing Up
Maddie, the eldest daughter of Kody and Janelle, claimed in December 2024 that the family was “very poor” before the TLC series.
“I think my dad made decent money, but you have, like, 15 kids. Like, a lot of kids,” Maddie recalled on her “Authentic Society” podcast. “My dad always chose the get-rich-quick scheme, almost always. It was such a foreign thought to [my husband], Caleb. And I remember explaining some ideas to him, and he was like, ‘No, no.’”
According to Maddie, her parents would also “immediately spend” their tax returns instead of saving the funds.
“I remember saying to Caleb about seven years ago, ‘You know what’s weird? It’s realizing that there is no [getting] rich quick,’” she recalled. “And I knew it, but I think actually saying it out loud, it was such a weird concept.”
Kody Brown, Christine Brown, and Gwendlyn Brown.Courtesy of Christine Brown/Instagram
Spending Habits
Gwendlyn, Kody and Christine’s daughter, alleged in March 2023 that her dad and Robyn didn’t live “within their means at all.”
“I think that my dad and Robyn have a terrible habit of spending very crazy,” Gwendlyn claimed in a YouTube video. “Janelle and Meri are kind of similar to my mom in that they’re not gonna be salty or petty and try to take money from him even though they totally deserve it because he’s been spending all of their money on whatever. They are probably a lot better off now that they’re no longer with him, and they’re no longer financially tied to him because you still make a lot of money separately.”
Coyote Pass Land
When the Browns moved from Utah to Arizona in 2018 to continue practicing polygamy, they jointly purchased land known as Coyote Pass. The plan was to build houses for each wife. When Christine left her marriage, she decided to give her part of the deed back to Kody and Robyn for $10. Janelle and Meri, meanwhile, kept their shares when they separated from Kody.
Janelle had been candid about the costs of maintaining her share since the breakup, even offering Kody the chance to buy her portion. She wanted to use the funds to move out of state.
News broke in April 2025 that Kody, Robyn, Meri and Janelle sold their respective shares of the 14-acre property for $1.5 million.
TLC / Courtesy: Everett Collection
Kody Held the Purse Strings
During a January 2025 episode of Sister Wives, Janelle said their financial situation was “really hard.”
“When we all first started, there was kind of like this thing [where] we weighed in on what bills should be paid, how we were going to pay, who got priority,” she said. “And then the last several years, Kody would just take out funds and I don’t know what for. And the money was just being spent — and lots of it.”
Kody denied the claims, stressing that he “had a lot of places that money needed to go,” including his other wives and 18 children.
Income Breakdown
In addition to their real estate holdings, the Browns make money in multiple other ways. They all presumably earn salaries for appearing on Sister Wives, which have not been publicly disclosed. They have supplemental income from selling their clothes, filming Cameo requests and partnering with brands like Plexus and LuLaRoe.
Meri also owns a bed and breakfast in Utah, which she purchased without Kody or the other wives in 2017.
“I knew that the funds were not there. I just felt like, ‘Well, I’m just going to have to go do it then,’” Meri exclusively told Us Weekly in 2019. “So that’s why I got up and I left and I started working, because I knew that I needed to figure it out because it was something important to me.”
Lizzie’s Heritage Inn temporarily closed in 2024 for renovation.
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The Kids Were Not Always Paid
Christine and Kody’s daughter Gwendlyn claimed in a Teen Vogue feature published in May 2025 that she and her siblings didn’t always earn a stipend from appearing on Sister Wives.
“We just got thrown into fame and thrown into money. And I stopped wanting and needing things,” she recalled. “Life is a lot easier for a kid that’s not going hungry. It was quite a blessing initially. … The network only paid the parents. I’m not sure if they did or didn’t expect the parents to pay us kids, but we weren’t paid.”
According to Gwendlyn, it was her mom who pushed for her six kids to receive an income based on how many hours they appeared each day. A spokesperson for TLC told the outlet that “compensation is handled in accordance with contractual commitments and applicable labor laws and regulations.”
