Only Fools and Horses Del Boy and Rodney: How much actors got paid for final three episodes - and it's a lot less than you might think

'This time next year, we'll be millionaires,' Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter famously said throughout the hit BBC sitcom, Only Fools and Horses. As it turns out, the show certainly made its stars - and the national broadcaster - very wealthy.

Figures show the final three instalments of the legendary comedy cost the BBC £1 million per episode. There were three - If They Could See Us Now, Strangers on the Shore, and Sleepless in Peckham - which, although filmed together, hit UK screens on Christmas Day in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

While a high price for any show - equating to around £1.7m today - part of the expense came in the form of paying the stars, particularly David Jason (Del Boy) and Nicholas Lyndhurst (Rodney), the Trotter brothers themselves, who had become household names.

Each is understood to have earned around £100,000 per episode for the final trilogy, the equivalent of £169,000 today. However, while it may sound a lot of money, the BBC will have been happy with the returns. Sleepless in Peckham, the final of the three, garnered an audience of more than 16.3m when it was broadcast.

The Only Fools and Horses franchise also continues to bring in millions to the BBC through DVD sales, as well as digital syndication around the world and subscriptions to streaming services such as Netflix and Britbox.

By comparison, the stars of US sitcom, Friends, were each earning $750,000 per episode for series 8, in 2001 - when the first of the final Only Fools trilogy aired - and a whopping $1m each per episode for the final two seasons, shown in 2002 and 2003. Considering the £1m per episode cost of Only Fools included the full production, the Trotter brothers, as always, were great value for money.

First airing in 1981, Only Fools and Horses was the creation of writer John Sullivan - who also sang the theme tune - who passed away in 2011 at the age of 64. The series continues to be among the most popular ever produced by the BBC, and made household names of Jason, now 85, and Lyndhurst, 63.

Post-Only Fools and Horses, Jason went on to sign several deals with rival broadcaster ITV worth millions, which led to him starring in shows such as A Touch of Frost and The Darling Buds of May.

Lyndhurst, however, remained with the BBC and most notably took the lead role as time-travelling Gary Sparrow in Goodnight Sweetheart, which ran from 1993 until 1999, before returning with a special in 2016.