Lee Chae-young started her entertainment career by appearing in several music videos before landing her first TV acting gig in the 2007 SBS series Witch Amusement. Her breakthrough came in 2009 when she appeared in the KBS2 sageuk Iron Empress and became a host of the popular KBS2 variety show Star Golden Bell. In 2012, she joined the main cast of the SBS daily series The Birth of a Family. In 2014, she starred alongside Jang Seo-hee in the KBS2 melodrama Two Mothers, which won her Best Supporting Actress at the KBS Drama Awards. She also played supporting roles in the MBC sageuk Ruler–Master of the Mask in 2017 and in the tvN medical drama You Who Forgot Poetry in 2018. In 2020, she took home an Excellence Award at the KBS Drama Awards for her work in the daily series Man in a Veil.

Lee Chae-young’s older sister Seo Seung-ah also worked as an actress.