Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Clarksville's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Clarksville?
Your $100,000 in Clarksville has the same purchasing power as $117,302 in the average US city. You'd need $17,302 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 Clarksville's cost index of 85, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Clarksville, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. Living costs come in under the US baseline and wage income stays untaxed at the state level lead, plus 2 more things worth knowing — the rest unpacked below.
The composite cost-of-living index lands at 85, a comfortable 15% 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 $1,119/mo against a typical household income of $62,688, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
Wage income in Clarksville isn't taxed at the state level. Tennessee is one of the few US states with no income tax, which is one of the reasons people relocating from high-tax states tend to land here in the first place.
Reported crime in Clarksville comes in around 2,514 per 100,000 — under the national baseline of about 3,500. Worth digging into specific neighborhoods before settling on one, but the city-level picture is on the safer side.
Average AQI in Clarksville comes in around 39, 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.
Reasons are pulled from Clarksville'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 35°F, Clarksville 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 Clarksville sit around 35°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Properly hot. Clarksville's summer averages around 91°F with daily highs that routinely break 100°F. The trick to summer here is starting the day at sunrise and staying inside through the worst of it.
Zone 9, give or take a half-zone. Clarksville's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 9 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Around 443 feet (135 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Clarksville's altitude shows up in daily life.
Middle of the pack. Clarksville comes in around 2,514 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
Clarksville is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 85 versus the 100 national baseline — about 15% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
Clarksville's Walk Score is 3/100, firmly in the car-required tier. The layout assumes you'll drive to the grocery store, drive to work, drive everywhere.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $59,675 to live in Clarksville 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 Clarksville runs about $1,119/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.