Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Ames's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Ames?
Your $100,000 in Ames has the same purchasing power as $120,831 in the average US city. You'd need $20,831 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 Ames's cost index of 83, sorted by closest match.
Ames has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. Your dollar carries more weight here and crime statistics come out reassuring are the headliners, plus 5 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
The composite cost-of-living index lands at 83, a comfortable 17% 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 $1,011/mo against a typical household income of $57,428, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
The reported crime rate in Ames runs about 1,509 per 100,000 residents — meaningfully below the national norm. People who care about safety as a baseline rather than a feature tend to land in cities with numbers like these.
With a Walk Score of 82/100, Ames 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.
Bike Score of 90/100 in Ames. 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 Ames comes in around 37, 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 Ames runs around 16 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.
Ames has a college-educated share of about 63% among adults 25+, which is higher than the national norm. It shows up in the local job mix, in the school district's reputation, and in the kind of conversations you have at the coffee shop.
Reasons are pulled from Ames'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.
Yes — and a lot of it. With winter averages near 17°F, Ames sees real accumulation most years. Salt for the steps, tires that handle ice, and a sense of humor about February are the usual costs of admission.
Properly cold. Ames's winter sits around 17°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Ames's summer averages around 84°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.
Ames falls in roughly USDA Zone 7. 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.
Roughly 932 feet (284 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
The headline number is reassuring. Ames's reported incident rate of about 1,509 per 100,000 is comfortably below the US norm of around 3,500 per 100k. Specific neighborhoods always vary, but the broader picture is on the safer side.
Ames is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 83 versus the 100 national baseline — about 17% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
Ames scores 82/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. 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 $57,932 to live in Ames 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 Ames runs about $1,011/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.