The 30th WNBA season tips off Friday. So it's time to look at the new and improved wages that each player on the league's 15 teams will earn this summer.
As part of our WNBA betting insight, we divided each player's salary by their Player Efficiency Rating (or PER) to produce a dollar-per-PER figure for WNBA player efficiency. For every team we list one bargain and one overpaid player in our interactive graphic:
Methodology For Measuring WNBA Player Efficiency
For each WNBA team, every rostered player was evaluated using salary divided by Player Efficiency Rating (PER) to produce a $/PER figure. The player with the lowest $/PER on each roster is the team's best bargain; the player with the highest $/PER is the most overpaid. Salary figures reflect 2025 cap hits and PER reflects 2025 regular-season performance.
Best Value WNBA Players in 2026 Based on Salary and PER
Each of the league's 180 players (12 per team, with 15 teams in 2026) are earning significantly more in 2026 compared with the year before. That's thanks to the league's new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that sets the minimum salary at $270,000 (from the previous mark of $66,079). See our WNBA 2026 Pay Raise Tracker for more details.
Yet certain players are still relative bargains in today's WNBA.
Take, for instance, second-year Dallas Wings forward Amy Okonkwo. She has the best dollar-per-PER value leaguewide, at $12,329. She has 21.9 PER (culled from basketball-reference) against her updated salary of $270,000 in 2026.
Leaguewide, Okonkwo's production against her league-minimum salary means she's the best bargain leaguewide. Golden State Valkyries forward Laeticia Amihere has the next-closest total, at $15,164.
Across the WNBA, only two other players had dollar-per-PER totals that were $16,000 or less: Phoenix Mercury veteran forward Natasha Mack ($15,569, pictured above) and forward/center Makayla Timpson of the Indiana Fever ($15,590).
Based on the 2026 salaries provided by Spotrac, Mack is slated to make the most of the four players that posted the best dollar-per-PER totals leaguewide, at $303,600. Amihere and Timpson will make $277,500 each this season.
Still, all four have shown they can deliver top-tier efficiency on a salary that's at or near the league minimum. That helps them lay claim to being the biggest bargains in the league this season, and might make them worth watching for Fantasy WNBA value as well.
Most Overpaid WNBA Players in 2026 by Salary Efficiency
Some player in the league's higher salary tiers, though they fill roles with their teams, do so at a high price tag compared to their PER.
Take, for instance, eighth-year forward Bridget Carleton. She will earn $1.190 million in her first season with the expansion Portland Fire. She has a PER of 10.6 through 219 games in the league.
Those totals mean that the former Iowa State star takes home the distinction of being the most overpaid player in the WNBA this season, according to our metrics. Her dollar-per-PER total is $119,000, beating out fellow expansion club star Marina Mabrey of the Toronto Tempo. Mabrey is the only other player to have a value total of $100,000 or more.
Also see: WNBA Expansion: Can Toronto or Portland Match Golden State's Playoff Feat?
Mabrey's $1.2 million salary with the Tempo during the club's debut season in 2026 comes after she earned 14.6 PER in 230 games with the Las Vegas Aces, Dallas Wings, Chicago Sky and Connecticut Sun between 2019 and 2025. Her dollar-per-PER figure of $108,108, making the Toronto guard the league's second-most overpaid player this season by our measurement.
The club with the most undervalued player, the Dallas Wings, also has the fourth-most overpaid star. That's guard Arike Ogunbowale, who will earn $1.190 million in 2026 after posting 17.8 PER through 224 games in the league. At Caesars Sportsbook, the Wings – who selected former UConn star Azzi Fudd No. 1 overall in the 2026 WNBA Draft – have +2200 odds to win the WNBA championship, eighth on the operator's board.
Ogunbowale's dollar-per-PER total is $89,474, ranking just behind forward Michaela Onyenwere of the Washington Mystics ($89,744) on the most overpaid WNBA players list this year.
The Chicago Sky player who landed on this end of the list was list was Hailey Van Lith, who was waived on Monday. The team cut ties with its first-round pick from last year, who averaged 3.5 points per game as a rookie in 2025. Her salary per PER number was $51,631.
All told, there will be plenty of storylines starting May 8 when the WNBA marks three decades of action. One to keep an eye on will be whether the league's up-and-coming (and undervalued) stars-in-the-making continue to shine. And will veterans earning more live up to their new seven-figure paychecks?
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