Former Nickelodeon child star reveals shockingly low salary for hit show

We’re calling Josh Peck a truther.

The former Nickelodeon star confessed he only made around $900,000 after working on the hit sitcom “Drake & Josh” for four years.

Peck shared on Thursday’s episode of the “Financial Tea with Mrs. Dow Jones” podcast that he started off making $3,000 per episode on “The Amanda Show” from 2000 to 2002 before landing his own gig on “Drake & Josh” alongside Drake Bell, Miranda Cosgrove, Nancy Sullivan and Jonathan Goldstein in 2004.

“And then by the time we finished ‘Drake & Josh’ — so that was 60 episodes total for the whole show —the median rate, the average rate per episode was about $15,000. So over four years, we wound up making about 900 grand,” he explained. 

In 2006, Peck and Bell, 39, starred in the movie “Drake & Josh Go Hollywood,” before the hit Nickelodeon series wrapped in 2007.

Peck emphasized that the cast was “working so much,” but didn’t see all of the money they earned.

“We probably, between agent, manager and taxes, we cleared half of that,” he recalled.

Looking back, Peck knows he did rake in a good amount.

“We were making about $125,000 a year. And people always will say, ‘Well, compared to so many other tougher jobs, like who are you to say anything?’ And I go, ‘I’m not,’” he clarified.

However, the money was no where near what fans assumed.

“The only reason I say it is because people always assume that it’s so much more and why would you ever have to work again? But of course, if you made the salary of a dentist or something like that, you couldn’t just stop working after four years.”

The “Grandfathered” alum also felt the pressure after becoming his family’s breadwinner, noting that when it’s “ingrained in you” to never go back to being broke, you keep going for “as long as you can.”

“And I saw that in myself forever,” Peck reflected, “just a deep financial insecurity that drove everything I did.”

In 2022, Peck revealed that while he was on the show he and his mom “had a used BMW five series” while living in a two-bedroom apartment with amenities.

“We lived a very middle-class life,” he divulged on the “Trading Secrets” podcast at the time.

He added that there’s “no residuals on kids’ television.”

Bell echoed his co-star’s sentiments in 2025, slamming the idea the every child star is raking in the dough.

“That’s the perception of the world, it’s always been this way,” he said while on “The Unplanned Podcast” at the time. “It’s like, you know, ‘Oh, you made a Folgers Coffee commercial. You must live in a mansion in Hollywood. Like, I saw you on TV. You’re rich.’”

“That’s far from the case,” Bell stated. “And especially, which is the bummer for most of us on Nickelodeon, we don’t get residuals for our shows.”