Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Akron's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Akron?
Your $100,000 in Akron has the same purchasing power as $113,430 in the average US city. You'd need $13,430 less here to maintain that standard of living.
Demographics and workforce data from the US Census ACS 5-Year.
bachelor's or higher
Climate, safety, and walkability indicators.
See a side-by-side breakdown of cost of living, housing, and salaries.
Popular comparisons
Sorted by affordability — most affordable first.
Within 10 points of Akron's cost index of 88, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Akron, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. Living costs come in under the US baseline and most daily life happens on foot lead, plus 3 more things worth knowing — the rest unpacked below.
The composite cost-of-living index lands at 88, a comfortable 12% under the US norm. It shows up most clearly in housing, which is where the gap to coastal metros usually opens up. Median rent in town runs about $887/mo against a typical household income of $46,596, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
With a Walk Score of 80/100, Akron is in the category where car ownership becomes a real choice rather than the default. Errands work on foot, the city's built dense enough that things are actually close together, and the parking-and-gas budget can quietly disappear. Transit Score comes in at 56/100 too, so even the trips that are too far to walk are usually doable on a bus or train.
Bike Score of 60/100 in Akron. That puts it in the small group of US cities where you can do groceries, commute, and run errands on a bike without it being a feat of urban survival.
Average AQI in Akron comes in around 43, well into the "good" band. Clean air isn't a thing you appreciate until you've lived somewhere it wasn't — and this is the side of that line you want to be on.
Average commute time in Akron runs around 22 minutes one-way — short enough that it doesn't restructure your day. Compared to the 45-plus-minute commutes that are normal in major metros, the difference adds up to a real lifestyle gap.
Reasons are pulled from Akron's actual data — Census ACS, BLS, BEA, NOAA, EPA AQS, FBI, and Walk Score. We don't list positives that aren't supported by the numbers, which is why different cities show different sections.
Akron does winter the real way. Averages around 23°F keep snow on the ground for weeks at a time, and lakes and rivers tend to freeze hard enough to walk on.
Properly cold. Akron's winter sits around 23°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Akron's summer averages around 82°F, the kind of heat where you remember to leave the house before noon for outdoor things and accept that the back of your shirt will be wet by lunchtime.
Zone 7, give or take a half-zone. Akron's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 7 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Roughly 951 feet (290 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Worse than the national norm, but it depends where. Akron's ~4,361 per 100,000 reflects a citywide aggregate. Some neighborhoods here are notably safer than the average; others are notably worse. Worth looking at the specific area, not the city-level number.
Akron is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 88 versus the 100 national baseline — about 12% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
Akron scores 80/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. Transit Score is 56 out of 100. It's the kind of city where you don't think of going to the grocery store as "going" to the grocery store.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $61,712 to live in Akron the way a $70,000 earner lives in a typical US city. The math gets less forgiving the lower you go below that. Median rent in Akron runs about $887/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.