Flash Magazine, an important gossip mag in Japan, did a CM (commercials) price tag ranking and Utada Hikaru, Ayumi Hamasaki and Koizumi Kyoko tied at the first place. Koizumi Kyoko (KyonKyon) is a veteran actress who was an idol in the 80s but still has a girl next door image.
Their pricetag is at least 100 million yen per deal. That's about 890.000 dollars.
The price tag for all three of them will probably fall by next year. Hikki and Ayu due to their falling popularity and KyonKyon because of the scandal of her relationship with a much young KAT-TUN member.
The original source:
http://widegeinou.blog39.fc2.com/blog-entry-387.html and Dorama World.
The complete list
Please credit me if you're going to use it because I translated it.
At least 100 million
- Utada Hikaru (she's the most expensive one)
- Kyoko Koizumi
- Ayumi Hamasaki
80+
- Miho Nakayama (former 80s idol. Respected actress)
- Nanako Matsushima (Japan's most popular actress)
- Rie Miyazawa (most popular gravure idols from the early 90s. Now, she's a respected actress)
- Shizuka Arikawa (Gold at figure skating at the last Olympics)
- Tomoko Yamaguchi (respected actress)
70+
- Koyuki (thanks to 'The Last Samurai')
- Norika Fujiwara (former Miss Japan, actress and model)
- Seiko Matsuda (singer)
- Chisato Moritaka (singer)
60+
- Abe Natsumi (Hello!Project artist)
- Yuki Amami (popular and respected actress)
- Naoko Iijima (actress)
- Ueto Aya (very popular young actress/idol)
- Hitomi Kuroki (veteran actress)
- Kou Shibasaki (popular actress/singer)
- Kyoka Suzuki (actress)
- Yuko Takeuchi (actress)
- Tokiwa Takako (respected movie actress)
- Yukie Nakama (actress)
- Ryoko Hirosue (actress)
- Aya Matsuura (Hello!Project artist)
50+
- Itoh Misaki (very popular actress)
- Ai Kato ( actress)
- Ryoko Shinohara (very popular actress)
- Rena Tanaka (young actress/model)
- Kyoko Hasegawa (actress)
- Kyoko Fukada (popular young actress/idol)
- Takako Matsu (actress/singer. In the 90s/early 00s she used to be one of the most expensive)
- Alisa Mizuki (actress/singer. She's from AVEX)
- Yada Akiko (very popular actress)
- Yuka
- Ryoko Yonekura (very popular actress)
- Marina Watanabe (singer/actress)
40+
- Miki Ando (figure skater)
- Haruka Igawa (idol/actress)
- Takako Uehara (former member of girlband SPPED. Singer/actress)
- Kyoko Uchida (announcer)
- Ai Otsuka (everbody here knows her ;D)
- Miho Kanno (actress/former singer)
- Yoshinu Kimura (actress)
- Koda Kumi (yaah...)-
- Suzuki Anne (young actress)
- Asaka Seto (actress)
- Harada Tomoyo (actress)
- Fukatsu Eri (popular actress)
- Miki Mizuno (actress)
35+
- Masama Nagasawa (young actress)
- Mao Asada (young figure skater)
- Uchiyama Rina (actress)
- Ogura Yuko (very popular idol)
- Rei Kikukawa (model, actress, 'intelligent' - no really, the 'intelligent' is part of her image because she graduated from a highly competitive university - she used to be more popular)
- Eriko Sato (actress)
- BoA
- Yu Yamada (popular model)
- Yoshikawa Hinano (model/actress)
- Yoon Soo-ha (Korean actress who also acts in Japan)
3+
- Yumi Adachi (actress)
- Satomi Ishihara (popular young actress/idol)
- Inoue Waka (actress/model)
- Megumi Okina (actress)
- Yume (idol)
- Tomomi Kahala (actress/singer)
- Eiko Koike (idol)
- Sakashita Chiriko (actress/idol)
- Miho Shiraishi (actress)
- Toda Naho (actress)
- Nakayama Emiri (actress/idol)
- Becky (actress/singer/presenter)
- Emiri Henmi (actress/singer)
2.5+
- Yasuka Misako (actress)
- Iwasa Mayuko (actress/singer)
- Aki Hoshino (idol/model)
- Hokita Maki (popular young actress)
- Chinatsu Watasuki (idol)
2+
- Mao Inoue (actress)
- Yasu Megumi (idol)
That's the complete list.I think the list isn't complete, I mean, where's Mika Nakashima? She's very popular, I'm sure she gets more than 2 million per deal. And OMG!,, where's Namie Amuro?! I find weird aiko is not on the list too, but I don't think she does lots of CMs? There's some artists who refuse to appear in CMs like Yumi Matsutoya and MISIA, for example.
Edit: The media believes Ayu and Hikki pricetag will go down because of their falling popularity.
But in 2002, when Ayu was in her peak, her pricetag was
only 50 million yen per deal and Hikki got
only 80 million. Believe it or not, the highest-paid celebrities was Morning Musume as a group.