Celebrity

Wednesday Star Jenna Ortega's Net Worth Solidifies Her Scream Queen Status

The Wednesday star gained 10 million new Instagram followers in 10 days.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 16: Jenna Ortega attends the world premiere of Netflix's "Wednesd...
Michael Tullberg/FilmMagic/Getty Images

Move over Jamie Lee Curtis — there’s a new Scream Queen on the block. Jenna Ortega, star of Tim Burton’s Netflix show Wednesday, has taken the baton for Gen Z and is running with it.

Ortega got her start in 2012 when she was just 10 years old, meaning she’s been acting for half of her life. Like many her age, she had early breaks on Disney including a small stint on Bizaardvaark alongside her real-life friend, superstar Olivia Rodrigo. But 2022 has been the year of Ortega. “I feel that I’m just now starting to see scripts that I’m interested in doing and projects that creatively fulfill me,” she recently told Rodrigo in a peer interview with The Face.

Most of those roles have been in the horror/thriller genres, which are slowly adding to her growing bottom line. How much is the year’s resident Scream Queen worth?

2 Ways Jenna Ortega Makes Her Money

1. Acting

Netflix

Ortega’s career began taking off in 2014 when she was cast as Young Jane on the CW hit Jane the Virgin. She was a guest star on the show until the end of its run in 2019, following that up with a star-making turn on the second season of the Netflix hit You set in Los Angeles.

In 2022, Ortega appeared in the latest installment of the Scream movie franchise and then further cemented her status as a bonafide scream queen in Ti West’s horror flick X and on the runaway Netflix hit Wednesday where she portrayed Wednesday Addams. The latest show became Netflix’s most-streamed series — while her earnings weren’t made public, she likely made at least $30,000 per episode if we’re using the cast of Stranger Things in the early days of that show as a barometer. Deadline reported that their salaries increased to over $200,000 per episode entering Season 3, which is something Ortega can likely expect in an as-yet-unannounced Season 2 given her many credits and the enormous success of the show.

2. Sponsored Social Posts

Ortega’s Instagram following exploded after Wednesday, with PopCrave reporting that she gained 10 million new followers in 10 days. Now, Ortega is taking her clout to the bank — as of Dec. 13, her going rate for a sponsored post that reaches her 31.9 million (and counting) followers is $78,869 and is only likely to rise alongside her follower count.

Despite the hefty payout, Ortega’s feed is curated and isn’t littered with ads; she hasn’t done a sponsored post since Wednesday dropped. But she’s not above using the platform as a source of income. “I have to look at my social media as a business platform because I think it’s unhealthy for everyone involved. I’d hate to be married to it,” she told The Face in a Nov. 2022 interview. “I don’t want to be worried about what I look like on there, or how people perceive me on there. It’s just work! It’s just work posts. I’ll talk about whatever and then people can look at me as an actor, not an influencer, and I can focus on that.”

What Is Jenna Ortega’s Net Worth?

$3 MILLION

At just 20 years old, Ortega has laid the groundwork for an incredibly successful screen career. Celebrity Net Worth estimates that she is worth $3 million. Wednesday is almost guaranteed to be renewed and with her star on the rise, her bank account will surely see its own bump as she negotiates her rate on future projects.