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How much was Alex Honnold earning from climbing in his early career, and how did his income evolve?
Alex Honnold's first year of sponsorship through The North Face paid him approximately $10,000 — an amount he considered more than enough while living out of a van. His income stayed somewhere in the $10,000-to-$100,000 range for several years before the release of Free Solo became a turning point, opening corporate speaking opportunities and significantly growing his earnings.
$10,000 a year — and it was plenty
When Honnold landed his first major sponsorship with The North Face, the contract was worth around $10,000 for the year. By most professional-athlete standards, that number is strikingly modest. But as Honnold explains in The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett, the figure made complete sense for where he was in life: he was living in his van, keeping his expenses as close to zero as possible.
That lifestyle wasn't a sacrifice — it was a deliberate choice that let him spend roughly three months a year climbing walls in Yosemite, accumulating the kind of experience that no salary could have bought. The economics were simple: when your cost of living is nearly nothing, $10,000 a year is genuinely comfortable.
His income then stayed within a broad $10,000-to-$100,000 band for several years. The range reflects the natural variability of sponsorship deals, speaking fees, and appearance contracts that make up a professional climber's income — not a single salary but a patchwork of revenue streams.
Free Solo changed everything — on the business side too
The Oscar-winning Netflix documentary Free Solo, which followed Honnold's preparation for and completion of the first free solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite, made him a household name far beyond the climbing world. What it captured was the culmination of nine years of preparation in Yosemite — roughly 60 ascents of El Capitan via different routes, five days a week of climbing for three decades — though the film itself was only shot over two years of that journey.
That visibility unlocked an entirely new income category: corporate keynote speaking. As Steven Bartlett explores in this episode, organizations were suddenly willing to pay premium fees to hear Honnold speak about fear, preparation, and performance. It's the kind of platform that no climbing sponsorship alone could provide.
"There's no hack. You just get really freaking scared over and over for so long. And eventually it's not that scary anymore. But that's a very enduring way to overcome your fear."
Alex Honnold — Professional Rock Climber
Honnold is best known for completing the first free solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite — no ropes, no protection — a feat documented in the Oscar-winning Netflix film Free Solo. He has been climbing five days a week for 30 years, has ascended El Capitan approximately 60 times via different routes, and completed his first major free solo, Half Dome, in 2008 above a 1,700-to-1,800-foot drop at the crux. His career began while living in his van on a $10,000-a-year North Face sponsorship.
The trajectory Honnold describes — from a van and a five-figure sponsorship to corporate stages — illustrates how athletic credibility, when paired with a breakout cultural moment, can dramatically expand a professional's earning potential. It's a dynamic that Bartlett regularly unpacks with guests on The Diary Of A CEO: the moment a personal brand crosses into mainstream awareness, new revenue categories appear almost automatically.
What makes Honnold's case particularly striking is that the income growth wasn't the goal. He was already optimizing for something else entirely — maximum time on the wall, minimum friction everywhere else. The financial upside from Free Solo was, in a sense, a side effect of doing the work with total commitment for a very long time. This is a theme that runs throughout this conversation with Steven Bartlett.
See also
What traumatic experience did Alex Honnold have while free soloing Half Dome in 2008?
Honnold free soloed Half Dome in 2008 with what he describes as bare minimum preparation, admitting he barely knew how to get ready for it. He got off route during the ascent — a critical error above a 1,700-to-1,800-foot drop at the crux ledge that turned the climb into a genuinely harrowing experience.
What is Alex Honnold's view on fear as a skill and how does he recommend overcoming it?
Honnold says there is no hack to overcome fear — the only enduring method is to get really scared over and over for long enough that it eventually stops feeling as threatening. Repeated exposure, not shortcuts, is the only reliable path to building genuine tolerance.
Does Alex Honnold not feel fear, and what does the fMRI brain scan result actually mean?
Honnold rejects the conclusion that he does not experience fear, explaining that the fMRI scan showed him black-and-white photos inside a sealed metal tube — conditions far removed from actual climbing. The result reflects decades of habituated exposure, not an absence of fear.
Key takeaways
- Honnold's first North Face deal paid roughly $10,000 — a figure that worked precisely because he lived in his van with near-zero expenses.
- His income remained in the $10,000-to-$100,000 range for several years, reflecting the patchwork economics of professional climbing sponsorships.
- The release of Free Solo was the real inflection point, unlocking corporate keynote speaking and meaningfully higher earnings.
- The income growth was a byproduct of total commitment to the craft — not a goal Honnold was explicitly chasing during those early van years.
This answer comes directly from an episode of The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett. Listen to the full conversation with Alex Honnold on Listenly.
Listen to the episode on Listenly