By Kimberly Wilson ·Updated May 5, 2026 < /> Getting your Trinity Audio player ready… Not long ago, the best women’s basketball players on earth were spending their offseasons overseas just to make rent.
Some were coaching youth camps and piecing together a living because the league they built their careers in simply did not pay them enough to stop. As recently as last season, the WNBA’s highest-paid player took home $269,000. The league’s supermax, reserved for its absolute best, sat at $249,244.
In March 2026, a new Collective Bargaining Agreement pushed the salary cap from $1.5 million to $7 million, introduced a supermax tier at $1.4 million per year, and brought the average salary up to $583,000. For the first time in the league’s 30-year history, players can earn more in a single season than most of them made across their entire careers. Here are the five women collecting the biggest checks when the season tips off.
A’ja Wilson, Las Vegas Aces — $1.4 million
You could spend a paragraph just listing what A’ja Wilson accomplished last season and still feel like you left something out. She led the league in scoring, won MVP, took home Defensive Player of the Year, and then won the Finals and its MVP award as well, all in the same season. No player in the WNBA or the NBA has ever swept all four in the same year. She averaged 23.4 points, 10.2 rebounds, and shot better than 50 percent from the field while doing it.
She re-signed with Las Vegas on a three-year fully guaranteed deal totaling $5 million, which is the richest contract any WNBA player has ever signed, and she will pocket $1.4 million of that in the 2026 season alone. The league’s salary rankings last season did not even have her in the top twenty. Her own teammate Jewell Loyd was paid more than she was. And in 2023, Wilson deliberately took a below-market extension to give the front office flexibility. “I love Vegas. I’m not leaving Vegas,” she told reporters at a Team USA training camp this spring. They made sure the feeling was mutual.
Napheesa Collier, Minnesota Lynx — $1.4 million
Napheesa Collier spent the better part of 17 months in negotiating rooms as one of the WNBPA’s vice presidents, fighting for the deal that would restructure how every player in the league gets paid. When the deal was ratified, she signed one of the first supermax contracts the new system produced, returning to Minnesota on a one-year, $1.4 million agreement.
Her season was going exactly the way the Lynx needed it to before an ankle collision with Alyssa Thomas in the third game of the playoffs changed everything. She had surgery in January and photographs from the NCAA Women’s Final Four in April showed her still in a walking boot. Her return window sits somewhere between opening night and early July, which is a wide range for a team with championship intentions. Minnesota brought her back at full pay regardless, because when you believe you have a championship roster, you do not haggle over the best player on it.
Kelsey Mitchell, Indiana Fever — $1.4 million
Indiana’s 2025 season was supposed to be a coming-out party for the Caitlin Clark era. Clark’s groin gave out early in the season, and Sophie Cunningham was not far behind her on the way to the sideline. What followed was Kelsey Mitchell, essentially alone, willing the Fever into the postseason and through it, game by game. She averaged just over 20 points and more than three assists during the regular season, then turned in a 34-point performance in Game 1 of the semifinals against Las Vegas, the eventual champions. She put up 22.3 points per game in eight playoff appearances.
Mitchell is 30 and has never played for another WNBA franchise. The Fever signed her to a one-year supermax deal this spring, and the general manager described keeping her as the organization’s highest priority going into the offseason. A player who performs at that level while staying loyal to one franchise for her entire career was always going to get paid when the money finally arrived.
Breanna Stewart, New York Liberty — $1.19 million
Breanna Stewart re-signed with New York on a three-year deal paying her 17 percent of the salary cap annually, which comes out to $1.19 million this season, terms she confirmed herself on her podcast. The three-time WNBA champion and two-time MVP returns to a Liberty team that went through a frustrating 2025, losing to the Phoenix Mercury in the first round of the playoffs despite finishing with one of the better records in the league. Stewart missed 13 games that season with a knee injury, and the Liberty clearly were not at full strength when it mattered most. She came back healthy enough to lead Mist BC to the Unrivaled championship this past winter. New York also added Satou Sabally alongside the returning core of Ionescu and Jonquel Jones, and under new head coach Chris DeMarco, the franchise is betting this group has another title in it. “My family is set up and solid here,” Stewart said when she announced her return.
Sabrina Ionescu, New York Liberty — $1.19 million
Ionescu does not always get the flowers she deserves, partly because she plays alongside Stewart and Jones and partly because her game is more about efficiency than spectacle. Last season she averaged 18.2 points, 5.7 assists and 4.9 rebounds across 38 games, earning All-WNBA Second Team honors for the fourth consecutive season. A playoff injury kept her out of the 2026 Unrivaled season entirely, which makes her health something to watch as the season gets underway. She signed a three-year deal at the same rate as Stewart, 17 percent of the cap per year, locking her in through 2028. The Liberty made clear they were not rebuilding around this group. They were running it back.
One more name worth knowing. Azzi Fudd, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 draft, is earning $500,000 in her rookie season with the Dallas Wings. She doesn’t break the top five but that number deserves its own moment. Paige Bueckers went first overall last year and made $83,000. Caitlin Clark went first the year before that and earned $76,000. Fudd will clear $500,000 before she plays a single professional regular season game, a number that would have been the best contract in the entire league as recently as 2025.
The post Collect Your Coins, Sis: The Five Highest-Paid WNBA Players In 2026 appeared first on Essence.