With climbing’s recent popularity explosion, lots of people are looking to find a career in the sport. I’ve put together the following guide to show how viable a career it may be!
So, how much does a professional climber make? The best professional climbers can earn as much as $300,000 per year, although most get paid less than $10,000 per year.
The range of professional climber’s salaries varies greatly. From big names like Alex Honnold to small, almost unknown climbers who do it for the love of the sport, there’s a wide variation in the salaries they earn. If you’re one of the best in the world, you can enjoy a pretty comfortable lifestyle: athletes like Tommy Caldwell will earn six figures a year from sponsorships and various other income streams. However, the majority of pros live off of below-poverty wages.
How Much Do Professional Climbers Make?
To demonstrate how much a professional climber can expect to make, I’ve broken the athletes down into four categories: celebrities, secret crushers, up-and-comers, and influencers. Celebrities earn the most at $300,000, while influencers scrape by with about $6,000.
These athletes have varying levels of skill, fame, and income sources owing to their different salaries, and we’re going to break them down to get a better look at their earnings.
First, though, it’s important to define ‘professional’. According to a quick Google search, a professional is someone who’s ‘engaged in a specific activity as one’s main paid occupation, rather than as a pass time’.
So, for this article, I’m just going to take it to mean someone puts time and effort into getting paid for their rock climbing. This effort could include training to crush harder, emailing companies for sponsorships, or working on your social media presence — anything counts.
Let’s dive into our four categories!
Top Tier: The Celebrities
Who are they: The best climbers in the world who have long, comfortable careers in the sport. They’re not millionaires, but money usually isn’t a concern.
How much do they earn? Salaries can vary, but will usually be between $100,000 and $300,000.
Examples: Alex Honnold, Tommy Caldwell, Adam Ondra, Emily Harrington, Lynn Hill, Chris Sharma
First up are the celebrities — the best rock climbers in the world, who have spent years or sometimes even decades climbing professionally and have amassed a good amount of money from doing so.
These are the people who will be recognizable to any person at the climbing gym, and probably to some members of the general public. They make six-figure incomes for long periods of their prime, and are therefore able to live pretty comfortably (not to mention most of their trips are often sponsored).
To be in this category, though, you need to be the best of the best of the best — the true 0.001%. Maybe if you’re not quite that good you could eek in by having some other skills (like Jimmy Chin, who’s a really good rock climbing but an incredible photographer), but I wouldn’t count on it.
So, unless you’re cruising 5.13’s as a 12-year-old, I wouldn’t count on getting rich rock climbing. These guys are legit once-in-a-generation talents, and that’s why they get paid the big bucks.
Mid-Tier: The Careers
Who are they: Lifelong climbers who, while not being as well-known, are good enough to make a respectable income within the sport.
How much do they earn? $50,000-$100,000
Examples: Jonathan Siegrist, Sebastien Bouin, Brooke Raboutou, Cedar Wright, Ashima Shiraishi
Recognizable to those who follow the sport, the Careers are hard-core crushers who fall just short of being the best in the world. While their achievements aren’t as newsworthy as those of the celebrities — like scaling the Dawn Wall or free soloing El Cap — you can still catch these guys cruising 5.15’s or qualifying for the Olympics.
Careers are people who love the sport and, while they’ll probably never get rich, can have a comfortable life as a pro climber. They make about the median income and get to travel, train, and spend every day doing the sport they love (at least theoretically).
If you have dreams of being a professional climber, a Career is probably as high as you can realistically go. Even to do this, you’ll need to be insanely good (take Siegrist for an example — he crushes), and there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever really ‘make it’.
Low Tier: The Fringers
Who are they: The dirtbags and dream-chasers, these are people who can get by while rock climbing but will probably always be a little concerned about money.
How much do they earn? $20,000-$50,000
Examples: Matt Bush, Will Stanhope, Ben Hanna, the late-but-great Brad Gobright
For the true hardcore rock climbers, this is where most professionals will fall — able to make a living, but not exactly what you would call financially stable.
If you’re a purist, you might consider these guys the real climbers. They do it not for money or fame (because they don’t really have any of either), but for a love that drives them to climb even when it seems ridiculous to do so.
Fringers will very much need to ‘make it work’. These guys aren’t driving around in brand-new Sprinter vans or converting their garages into giant training facilities. Think crashing at your parent’s house, sleeping in the back of a minivan, and patching the same puffy jacket 8 times so that you don’t have to use your grocery money to buy a new one.
I’m kind of exaggerating — lots of people get by on less than $50,000 a year — but the hard truth is that most professional climbers are pretty strapped for cash. If you’re a good climber and willing to put in the work, you can probably make it to this income level, but be warned: it’s not always easy to ascend past here to the Career stage.
Bottom Tier: The Dirtbags
Who are they: Those who don’t have the audience, climbing skill, or simply the want to gain wider recognition/sponsorships, this group does a lot more climbing than they do spending.
How much do they earn? >$10,000 per year
Examples: The majority of professional climbers
You’ll notice that I didn’t list any specific names for this category, and you may be wondering why. The answer is simple: you wouldn’t have heard of them if I did.
As much as it may suck for anyone with dreams of becoming a professional climber, the fact of the matter is, most of them earn less than $10,000 per year (to be exact, 58% of pro climbers earn less than $5,000 annual, as per Rock and Ice).
In reality, most people just aren’t good enough to be professional climbers. Added to that, loads of people would love to do it, and so you get a large influx of people with no real way to differentiate themselves. That leads to a lot of 5.14 crushers who haven’t found their niche (or a reliable income).
If you want to be a professional climber, you need to be prepared for this possibility: low income, little recognition, and hours spent trying to get your name out there. You’ll probably have to work side jobs just to get by, and that will take away from your opportunity to climb as often as you would like.
Do it for the love of the sport, sure, but if you have dreams of being a pro, don’t be dazzled by pictures of Chris Sharma’s house of video tours of Alex Honnold’s van. It’s a lot more likely you’ll end up here than you will there.
How Much Does Alex Honnold Make Per Year?
Now, if you think about pro climbers, there’s probably one name that pops into your head: Alex Honnold.
So, how much money does Alex Honnold make? Alex Honnold earns around $200,000 a year, although he’s likely earned more from the release of Free Solo.
Specific contract details aren’t available, but if you do some digging you can glean information about Honnold’s financial history. He says that he gives about a third of his income to his foundation (The Honnold Foundation), and has stated that the average donation is around $50,000; some quick math gives you a $150,000 annual salary.
However, that’s increased in recent years as Honnold’s fame has grown. In 2017 he said that donation was $80,000, which would put his total salary at $240,000. Other times, Honnold has said he’s as rich as ‘a moderately successful dentist’, which would fit with that range.
How Do Professional Climbers Make Money?
You’re not alone in wondering just how these guys get paid. It seems a little ridiculous — who’s dishing out $250,000 a year just so Honnold can go climb some rocks?
I have an entire article written about the specifics of this question, but it essentially boils down to this: the majority of the money will come from sponsorships. Companies like Black Diamond, Patagonia, and the North Face will pay to have athletes wear their gear when they’re climbing, so that their stuff gets associated with crushers.
Additionally, in the age of social media, it’s not uncommon for people to use other avenues (like Instagram) to promote brands.
Other income sources include:
- Public speaking gigs
- Books/movies
- Guiding