Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Albany's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Albany?
Your $100,000 in Albany has the same purchasing power as $98,174 in the average US city. You'd need $1,826 more 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 Albany's cost index of 102, sorted by closest match.
Albany has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. Walkable in a way most US cities aren't and bike infrastructure that actually exists are the headliners, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
With a citywide Walk Score of 56/100, Albany sits firmly in the walkable-by-US-standards camp. Pick a central neighborhood and most daily errands happen without keys in your hand.
Bike Score of 60/100 in Albany. 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 commute time in Albany runs around 21 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 Albany'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.
Not really a snow town. With winters averaging 36°F, Albany sits in the mild-cold band where snowflakes appear occasionally and everything melts within a day. Most years see one storm worth talking about.
Cool, not cold. Winters in Albany sit around 36°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Reliably warm. Albany's summer averages around 81°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.
Albany falls in roughly USDA Zone 9. The zone classification is based on average annual minimum temperatures, so it's the right lookup for whether perennials and trees will overwinter here. Note that this is approximate from our winter-temperature data — check the USDA map for the exact zone before betting an expensive plant on it.
Around 223 feet (68 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Albany's altitude shows up in daily life.
Middle of the pack. Albany comes in around 3,039 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
It's a middle-of-the-road US city on cost. Albany's index of 102 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
In parts, yes. With a citywide Walk Score of 56/100, Albany has genuinely walkable neighborhoods alongside more sprawled stretches. If walkability matters to you, the neighborhood choice will matter more than the city-level number.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $71,302 to live in Albany 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 Albany runs about $1,194/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.