Meghan Markle Net Worth 2024: From Suits to Duchess Banking $200 Million

Meghan Markle is a former actress and is now a philanthropist, investor, entrepreneur, and member of the British Royal Family. Markle became the Duchess of Sussex when she married Prince Harry in 2018 and the duo has since stepped down from official royal duties and moved to the US.

Harry and Meghan Markle have an estimated combined net worth of $200 million in 2024.

Let’s explore Megan’s career, net worth, and life story to discover the insights we can learn from her.

10 Interesting Facts About Meghan Markle

1. Royal Connection: Meghan Markle became the Duchess of Sussex upon her marriage to Prince Harry in 2018. They stepped down from official royal duties in early 2020 and moved to the United States.
2. Acting Career: Before her royal life, Meghan was known for her role as Rachel Zane on the legal drama series “Suits,” where she starred from 2011 to 2017.
3. Philanthropy: Meghan is a committed philanthropist. She has been involved in various charitable endeavors, including her work with the Mayhew animal welfare charity and advocating for women’s rights.
4. Entrepreneurship: She founded the lifestyle website The Tig, which she ran from 2014 to 2017. The site was named after her favorite wine, Tignanello.
5. Education: Meghan graduated from Northwestern University with double degrees in theater and international studies.
6. Royal Wedding: Her wedding to Prince Harry was a global event, watched by millions worldwide. The ceremony took place at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, on May 19, 2018.
7. Authorship: Meghan authored a children’s book titled “The Bench,” which was published in 2021 and explores the bond between fathers and sons as seen through a mother’s eyes.
8. Investments: Meghan and Harry have invested in several ventures, including Clevr Blends, a company that sells instant oat-milk lattes. They also have a partnership with the financial services company Ethic, which focuses on sustainable investing.
9. Podcasting: The couple signed a deal with Spotify and produced the “Archetypes” podcast, though the deal ended in 2023.
10. Television Production: Their Netflix deal, worth $100 million, includes producing documentaries, feature films, and children’s programming through their company Archewell Productions.

Meghan Markle’s Net Worth: Full Breakdown

Meghan Markle keeps most of her investment and portfolio information private, like many wealthy people, which makes it impossible to determine her exact net worth.

Many of her assets are also held jointly with Prince Harry.

However, we’ve been able to collect plenty of public information surrounding her various sources of income, investments, assets, and business ventures to build a careful estimate.

Here’s what Prince Harry’s and Meghan Markle’s net worth looks like:

Meghan Markle’s Early Life

Meghan Markle was born Rachel Meghan Markle on August 4, 1981, in Los Angeles, California.

Her father Thomas Markle Sr. is Caucasian and worked as a television lighting director and director of photography. Her mother, Doria Ragland, was a makeup artist and of African American heritage.

Her parents separated when she was only two and subsequently divorced.

In the Netflix documentary Harry and Meghan Markle said, “Even though my parents co-parented well, you think about how that informs what you grow up to be and what you want.”

She also recalled an assignment at Immaculate Heart School when she was 12 where she was supposed to write a poem about her life, which she still remembered. The poem illustrates the feelings that she had while growing up with divorced parents.

As a child, she used to visit the sets of Married… with Children where his father was the lighting director and director of photography.

“Every day after school for 10 years, I was on the set of Married… with Children, which is a really funny and perverse place for a little girl in a Catholic school uniform to grow up,” she recalled in an interview with Esquire.

After her schooling, she attended Northwestern University (NU) in Evanston, Illinois in 1999, and graduated with double degrees in theater and international studies.

During her junior year, she did an internship as a junior press officer at the American embassy in Buenos Aires.

Markle contemplated building a career in the diplomatic field but gave up the plans after she scored low in the Foreign Service Officer Test.

She was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority at her college and played small roles in television series and films while still at NU. Her first official TV acting role was as Nurse Jill in General Hospital where her father was the lighting director.

Markle appeared in small roles in two episodes.

Meghan Markle’s Early Career

Markle began her acting career after her graduation and took up small roles as a guest actor. To support herself financially, she also took up roles as a freelance calligrapher, where she did calligraphy for Robin Thicke and Paula Patton’s wedding among other clients.

In an interview with Esquire in 2013 she termed freelance calligraphy “super-lucrative because there are so few people doing it”. She also did calligraphy for Dolce & Gabbana’s celebrity correspondence and recalled:

I would sit there with a little white tube sock on my hand so no hand oils got on the card, trying to pay my bills while auditioning

Meanwhile, Markle had trouble finding roles early in her career due to her mixed race. As she said in an interview, “I wasn’t black enough for the black roles, and I wasn’t white enough for the white ones, leaving me somewhere in the middle as the ethnic chameleon who couldn’t book a job.”

In 2007, she landed a role as one of the briefcase girls on Deal or No Deal – a show hosted by Howie Mandel.

However, the job wasn’t easy, and in an interview, she recalled, “I would end up standing up there forever in these terribly uncomfortable and inexpensive five-inch heels just waiting for someone to pick my number so I could go and sit down.”

She did small roles and the odd commercial for Tostitos until 2010. However, none of these helped her rise to fame. Everything changed in 2011 when she was cast as Rachel Zane on Suits.

Meghan Markle Net Worth: Rising to Fame on Suits

Markle played the role of Zane in the legal drama series Suits between 2011 and 2017. Appearing on the popular USA network show, where her character began as a paralegal and then became an attorney, helped Markle rise to prominence.

Meghan Markle’s net worth also increased after the show. Her salary was reportedly worth $50,000 per episode. She appeared in 100 episodes meaning that we can estimate that Markle earned a total of at least $5 million from the role.

Markle wasn’t convinced that she would get the role and said that the audition for the role was the “worst”. She enjoyed working on the show and said that the cast felt like family.

Meghan eventually left the drama after she got engaged to Prince Harry but had no regrets about the decision.

“I don’t see it as giving anything up. I just see it as a change. It’s a new chapter, right? And also, keep in mind, I’ve been working on [Suits] for seven years. We were very, very fortunate to have that sort of longevity on a series,” she said in an interview with People.

In January 2018, she closed all her social media accounts. A statement from Kensington Palace thanked “everyone who has followed her social media accounts over the years”.

Meghan Markle Net Worth: Other Business Ventures

Along with her acting career, Markle has been associated with other ventures. She founded the lifestyle website The Tig and was its editor-in-chief between 2014 to 2017.

However, she shut down the website -named after her favorite wine, Tiganello – to avoid media scrutiny ahead of the looming wedding with Prince Harry in 2018.

In 2016, she also appeared as a guest judge on Food Network’s Chopped Junior. She is a foodie in real life and her Suits character was also a foodie.

She also released two clothing lines for Canadian retailer Reitmans in 2016 and was the company’s brand ambassador. However, she abruptly ended the partnership in 2017 which was again said to have been linked to the upcoming engagement with Prince Harry.

According to reports, she was paid $160,000 for the first year of the deal covering 10 days of work, and the second year she was paid $200,000 for the same amount of work.

Meghan Markle 's agent asked if she would like to be the face of Reitmans, a Canadian retailer selling women's apparel, in 2015. She would be paid $160,000 over ten days of work, including filming commercials and doing photoshoots.
Meghan wanted to be the face of Loreal or Dior,… pic.twitter.com/ddV5HA2IHn

— Suburban Duchess (Not A True Royal) (@SuburbanDuchess) May 1, 2024

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Investments

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry own a home in California’s elite Montecito neighborhood. They have also at several rental properties over the years.

Markle has invested in Clevr Blends, a company selling lattes. In 2021, the couple invested in Ethic, a financial services company that specializes in ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing. Notably, ESG investing has gained traction over the years and many investors consider such funds for their portfolio.

Markle told the New York Times Dealbook that she doesn’t come from a finance background but the mission of Ethic gels with her values.

“My husband has been saying for years, ‘Gosh, don’t you wish there was a place where if your values were aligned like this, you could put your money to that same sort of thing?’” said Meghan.

Meghan Markle’s Personal Life

Markle was in a relationship with actor and producer Trevor Engelson from 2004 and the couple eventually married in September 2011. They divorced two years later, after which Markle dated celebrity chef Cory Vitiello for some time.

In 2016, she began dating Prince Harry after she was introduced to him by mutual friends at a small event at Soho House in London. They made their first public appearance together at the annual Audi Polo Challenge in Ascot, England, in March 2017.

Markle talked about the relationship publicly for the first time in the October 2017 issue of Vanity Fair. She said, “We’re a couple. We’re in love. I’m sure there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell, but I hope what people will understand is that this is our time.”

In May 2018, Markle and Prince Harry married in a televised ceremony at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Markle was given the official title of Duchess of Sussex after the wedding and took up duties as a senior royal in women’s rights and care for animals.The lavish wedding was reported at the time to have cost $45 million. The nuptials were paid for by the royal family, meaning Meghan’s net worth wasn’t affected.

Markle has long been an advocate for rescue dogs, and she became the patron of Mayhew, an animal welfare charity shortly after her marriage to Prince Harry.

On May 6, 2019, the royal couple welcomed their first child Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. Princess Lilibet was welcomed to the family on June 4, 2021.

Meghan Markle’s Troubles With the Royal Family

The same year while on a tour of South Africa, Markle said that she was struggling to adjust to life in the royal family. In that interview (featured below), while speaking with Tom Bradby, a friend of Prince Harry, she said, “And, also thank you for asking, because not many people have asked if I’m OK. But it’s a very real thing to be going through behind the scenes.”

Among others, the frequent media intrusion in their lives as members of the royal family frustrated Meghan and Harry.

Buckingham Palace’s disapproval of developing their SussexRoyal brand also played a part in them stepping back from the royal family and working towards their financial independence.

In June 2020, the family moved to Southern California after spending some time in Canada. While in California, they reportedly stayed at a Los Angeles mansion initially owned by filmmaker Tyler Perry.

Prince William and Prince Harry received the bulk of Princess Diana’s £13 million ($21.32 million at the time) fortune when she died in 1997. Harry chose friend Oprah Winfrey for an explosive interview where he and Meghan talked about their time with the royal family. In that interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harry said that he used this money to relocate to the US. He said that the royal family “literally cut me off financially”.

Referring to the money that he inherited from his mother, Harry said, “But I’ve got what my mum left me and without that, we wouldn’t have been able to do this.”

In that same Oprah interview, Meghan said that she felt quite lonely in the royal family and was on the verge of suicide.

In 2023, the Duke and Duchess were asked to vacate Frogmore Cottage, a Grade-II listed property on the Windsor estate. They now no longer own a property in the UK and recent documents filed in Companies House said that Harry is usually a resident of the US instead of the UK.

The couple has since visited the UK several times, but during the King’s coronation in 2023, Markle did not accompany Harry.

What Have Harry and Meghan Markle Been Doing Since Quitting Royal Responsibilities?

As working royals, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry received 95% of their income from Harry’s father Prince Charles, while the remaining 5% came from Sovereign Grants.

Since leaving the royal family, the couple has been associated with several commercial and philanthropic activities.

In 2023, Prince Harry published his memoir Spare which talked about his relationship with his family as well as his grief over losing his mother at a young age. 1.4 million copies of the book were sold on the release day which made it a best-selling nonfiction book, surpassing sales of former US President Barack Obama’s 2020 memoir. Harry was reportedly paid $20 million as an advance for the book.

Previously, in 2021, Markle also published her children’s book named The Bench but its sales and hence her earnings from that book were much lower than Harry’s.

In February 2024, the pair launched their website named Sussex.com which they say is “shaping the future through business and philanthropy”. This includes their charitable organization The Archewell Foundation, production company Archewell Productions, and other organizations that receive their support.

In March 2024, Markle launched her American Riviera Orchard brand. Currently, the website is blank and asks users to provide their email to join a waitlist. However, citing a trademark application, the New York Post reported that “the brand plans to sell tableware, drinkware including decanters, kitchen linens and edible treats such as jellies, jams, marmalade, and spreads.” The report added that Markle is looking for a stamp of approval from the royal family for her latest brand.

Markle and Harry had a roughly $20 million deal with Spotify in 2020. However, the Archetypes podcast did not do well and the couple’s Spotify deal was canceled in 2023 and the pair didn’t receive a full payout since they didn’t produce the content stipulated in the contract.

Earlier this year, Markle signed a new podcast deal with Lemonada Media but according to reports, it might not come online before 2025.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Net Worth Skyrockets From Netflix Deal

The most lucrative deal that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have signed was with Netflix.

Signed in 2020, the Netflix deal is worth $100 million spread across five years. As part of the multi-year deal, the couple would produce documentaries, feature films, scripted shows, and programs for children.

The shows are produced by the couple’s Archewell Productions and in April 2024, the production house announced that it is producing two more shows for the streaming giant. Of these, one series will be curated by Meghan and will focus on the joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining, and friendship.

The second one will be mainly shot at the US Open Polo Championship in Wellington, Florida at The USPA National Polo Center. According to Archewell, it would provide “unprecedented access to the world of professional polo”.

The couple’s shows for Netflix haven’t performed as well as expected.

Their much-hyped documentary that detailed the couple’s exit from royal life was watched for a total of 62 million hours in the first half of 2023 – for context, that’s lower than the first two seasons of the popular children’s cartoon Peppa Pig.

@netflix

Harry & Meghan. Volume II: December 15. Only on Netflix.

♬ original sound – Netflix – Netflix

However, in its report, Netflix stressed that hours viewed doesn’t determine success on Netflix. It said, “It’s all about whether a movie or TV show thrilled its audience and the size of that audience relative to the economics.”

Meghan Markle’s Controversies

Meghan Markle appeared on The Ellen Show in 2021 during which she was asked by the host Ellen DeGeneres to carry out some embarrassing tasks in front of unsuspecting vendors. Meghan was reportedly upset with the backlash she received following the show.

Meghan has also been in controversies over her relationship with Kate Middleton and Victoria Beckham. In his book House of Beckham, well-known royal biographer Tom Bower claimed that Meghan fancied herself as the “next Diana”.

He added, “In the royal hierarchy she was subservient to Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and the future Queen.” The author also claimed that Markle was envious of Victoria Beckham’s wealth which far exceeds hers.

Bower writes, “As a seasoned operator, Meghan deluded herself that her status in the Royal family placed her above Victoria in the social pecking order.”

What Can We Learn from Meghan Markle’s Story?

There is a lot that we can learn from Meghan Markle’s life, rising to fame despite her troubled childhood.

She has championed the cause of gender equality and when she was just 11 she called out the “sexist” Procter & Gamble commercial for Ivory dishwasher soap.

After watching that commercial, two boys from her class remarked that women belong in the kitchen. Markle said, “I remember feeling shocked and angry and also just feeling so hurt — it just wasn’t right, and something needed to be done.”

She wrote letters to several leading personalities including then first lady Hillary Clinton after being encouraged to do so by her father.

She has also spoken out about issues close to her heart and has tried to make an impact through her philanthropic activities. Markle has also largely maintained her calm despite the many controversies and constant media scrutiny of her personal life.

She has achieved success through her hard work and perseverance and along with Prince Harry she significantly added to her net worth despite leaving royal duties behind.